ics that you honor on the altars show clearly enough that we were not angels, but men, weak and frail like you, who had flesh and bodies like you. And that there were not wanting to us temptations and occasions of sin is evident from the number of great sinners who fell shamefully, but are now in our number because they repented sincerely, kept from sin ever after, and became great saints. Look at the countless multitudes of every age and sex; the young boys, tender virgins, weak widows, who in spite of the severest temptations and of many crosses and trials remained chaste, patient, resigned to the divine will, and lived in a pious and holy manner. Could you not have done the same? If you know your own weakness and frailty, why did you rush so wantonly into the dangerous occasions of sin? Why did you not guard your senses more carefully? Why did you not constantly and in all places humbly beg of God to protect you as we did? No; away with your lame excuses! You could and should have led a better life!
Nor his state of life or occupation. And what answer shall I then make? Shall I throw the blame of my sins on my state of life, on my daily occupations, as most worldly people do, according to St. John Chrysostom? To excuse their sins and slothful lives some appeal to an unhappy marriage, others to the number of children and household cares they have to attend to, others to the difficulties and dangers of their occupations, others to the labor they have to undergo, others to the exigencies of their employment, to the duties of their high office, to their riches, to their poverty, to the customs of the world which they have to conform to, as they must live like those around them. Christians! what is the meaning of all that? Is it then true that you have not been able to lead good lives nor to work out your salvation? But listen again to the countless multitude of witnesses who cry out against you from amongst the number of those who are on the right hand of the Judge—married and single, superiors and inferiors, courtiers, warriors, rich, poor, people of every condition and sex and station in life, as St. John says in the Apocalypse: “I saw a great multitude which no man could number, of all nations, and tribes, and peoples, and tongues: standing before the throne.”[1] All these will say to you: we have lived under the same conditions, in the same domestic circumstances, in the same office and employ-
- ↑ Vidi turbam magnam, quam dinumerare nemo poterat, ex omnibus gentibus, et tribubus, et populis, et linguis: stantes ante thronum.—Apoc. vii. 9.
