But terrible for the wicked. Shown by similes. Arise, ye dead! Arise, wicked sinners! Arise, you proud and ambitious man, you unjust, avaricious man, you impure adulterer, you drunkard, you vindictive man, you blasphemer, you curser, you vain, sensual man! Arise, slothful, wicked servant, and come to judgment! Imagine, my dear brethren, the feelings of a criminal who on awakening in the morning sees to his great surprise the executioner awaiting him with the rope in his hand ready to lead him to the gallows. Some have suddenly become grey with terror when they heard the bell toll as the signal for their execution. Imagine—and it is not near so terrible as the first case—the state of mind of the child who, having committed a great fault, sees its father standing by its bedside in the morning with the rod in his hand, and calling out to him in an angry voice: get up! Ah, there is something else in question besides merely getting up! The child turns and twists in the bed and rolls itself up in the clothes, crying so as to be heard over the whole house, although it has not as yet felt a single blow. Why so? Because in addition to having to get up it knows that the rod is in store for it. But all this is mere child’s play compared to the anguish that shall fill the sinner when he awakens from the sleep of death to be summoned to judgment.
Explained by an example.
William of Lyons writes of a Grecian king who was always sad and melancholy because he kept thinking of his sins and of the last judgment. His brother often remonstrated with him on this, and the king determined to bring him to his senses. One night he ordered the trumpets to be blown at the door of his brother’s house as a sign that the master of it was sentenced to death. The brother next morning, thinking that things had come to an evil pass with him, went with his wife and children all clad in mourning to the king’s palace, and there threw himself down on the ground, weeping with terror. What is the meaning of this? asked the king. Have I not reason to be sad, replied his brother, since I have heard the terrible trumpet that announces my death, although I know not what I have done to deserve such a fate? Oh, replied the king, if that trumpet has disturbed you so much, although you do not know what you have done to deserve death, how can you reasonably ask me to lay aside all fear and anxiety, since my thoughts are always occupied with that terrible trumpet-sound that shall call me to the tribunal of the Almighty, there to have sentence passed on me; and moreover I know very well that I have often sinned and deserved eternal