466
On the Conviction of the Criminal in Judgment.
senseless love hardened your heart? even before you learned to know the world properly? Were you like that forty, thirty, twenty years ago, and even in your first youth, in your early innocence? Can you not remember that you were then more inclined for devotion and the fear of the Lord, and that you were afraid of the very name of mortal sin? Why have you not been able to continue in those good dispositions, and to restrain and mortify, while still weak and almost dormant, the evil inclinations that afterwards showed themselves?
For he was not always wicked. Shown by an example.
A noble gentleman, as Father Cataneus relates, who had reached a rip old age, found amongst his papers some debates and poems that he had written while a student in the lower classes. Curiosity urged him in his old age to see what his mind was able to bring forth in its youthful vigor. He found on a sheet of paper a rule of life that he had written out in his youth, and had kept exactly while a student; namely, confession and Communion every fortnight; sodality sermon every Sunday and holy-day; the examen of conscience on bended knees every night before retiring to rest; the daily recital of the rosary and office of the Blessed Virgin; thrice-repeated mortification of the eyes and tongue daily, and fasting every Saturday in honor of the Mother of God; the tenth part of the pocket money sent by his parents to be given to the poor. The gentleman read and reread the paper with astonishment; he knew his own handwriting, and recollected too that he had observed that rule for many years. Then, filled with shame and confusion, he began to sigh and to say to himself: ah, beautiful life! where art thou now? How thou hast changed with time! How different my life is now from what I led then! Confession and Communion every fortnight! Alas for the confession and Communion of the present! Once a year at Easter is enough for me now, and then I go more through human respect or some vain motive than with the earnest intention of amending my life. A sermon every Sunday and holy-day! Poor sermons! I hardly hear one in the year! The examen of conscience every night! I never think of such a thing now; my soul is like a wilderness of sin; I hardly bend my knee to God in His church when I go to hear holy Mass! Daily prayer and frequent mortification! Poor prayer! poor mortification! poor fasting! I give my mouth, my eyes, my ears, and other senses all the gratification they demand. Almsgiving! All my money is spent on sin, and I am not now able to give the