been warned by the holy man to give up a dangerous intimacy, but had been deaf to all exhortations. At last St. Malachy said to him: Sir, you refuse to renounce this sinful love, although you are required to do so by the love of God, the love of your own soul and its eternal salvation, as well as by the fear of eternal ruin; “but the Lord God Himself will make you renounce it even against your will.”[1] That very evening, as the unhappy man was going in pursuit of forbidden pleasure, he was assassinated on the way. But his soul, sunk, alas! deep in hell, amidst terrible torments, how it now must curse the unlawful love that ensnared and infatuated it! How it must curse its own obstinacy in re fusing to listen to the warnings of the Saint who meant so well by it! Consider now this incident, and say to yourself: if I do not at once renounce my sinful life God will separate me from it against my will. I will not avoid that sinful intimacy; I will not restore those ill-gotten goods; I will not give up the hatred I feel against my neighbor; God will take all from me against my will. I will not amend my bad habits by a speedy conversion; God will separate me from them by force, by a speedy death. If I will not now give up my sinful life, I shall have to do it against my will.
Conclusion and resolution often to think of death in the manner recommended. Now is the time, my dear brethren, to prepare. Now is the time for frequent and mature reflection. Now is the time to do that which will render the death that certainly awaits us a happy one! I dare not advise all of you to do what one of our brethren used to practise in this way daily. He was sacristan, and as we have to make an hour’s meditation every day, he used to go for that hour into the church, and there lay himself out with folded hands and closed eyes on the bier, just as if he was about to be carried to the grave, and then he would say to himself: “On this bier and in this position you will one day lie cold and dead; do you believe that? If so, live to-day as you would then wish to have lived.” Truly a beautiful and salutary meditation. But, my dear brethren, I dare not advise all to adopt the same plan; many would be frightened out of their lives at it. Yet we all can and should adopt that form of meditation on death to which St. Bernard exhorts us: “In all his works let him say to himself: if you were now about to die, would you do this?”[2] In all temptations and occasions of sin let each one ask himself: if I were now about to die, would I commit that sin? Would I speak,
