then hope to gain the case by hurriedly reading over the evidence and studying the proofs? No, indeed! our experience teaches far differently. For we know what an amount of thought, study, speculation, examination, running hither and thither, finding out facts and writing it costs in order to win a case. And how often are not meals interrupted, sleep shortened, and years of toil undertaken in order to gain a suit that is perhaps not worth the twentieth part of the costs? You, ladies and gentlemen, you have to marry your daughters to husbands suitable to their rank. The contract is agreed to, the date for the marriage fixed; do you think also of the bride’s trousseau, of the clothes suitable for the occasion, of the entertainments and wedding festivities that have to be given? Truly you do! But when do you begin to prepare these things? You wait, do you not, until the day comes when the wedding party is going to church? Not by any means, you answer; we should be very foolish to wait as long as that. We make our preparations weeks and months beforehand. Why so? Because otherwise we should be too late, and it is a matter in which our honor is concerned. So prudent are we in temporal things.
At the hour of death we have a business of that kind to transact. My dear brethren, is the affair of our eternal salvation then of less importance, so that we can put it off until the time when it is to be really concluded? In the Gospel of St. Matthew Our Lord compares His coming at our death to that of the bridegroom who kind knocks in the middle of the night, when no one expects him: “And at midnight there was a cry made: Behold, the bridegroom cometh, go ye forth to meet him.”[1] Christian soul! at thy last breath thou shalt hear the words: go forth to meet Him; arise; now is the time in which thou art to be espoused to the sovereign Ruler of the world, to reign with Him for all eternity. Where is the wedding-garment of sanctifying grace? Where are thy ornaments, thy jewels, thy merits and virtues, that thou mayest appear worthily before such a great lord? Wo to thee if thou hast not collected all those things beforehand! Wo to thee if thou shouldst have put off to the last moment the preparation for the great marriage-feast! I know thee not, the Bridegroom will say, as He said to the foolish virgins who had not oil in their lamps. “They that were ready went in with him to the marriage.”[2] Mark the words: “they that were
