ready,” not they who then began for the first time to prepare. These latter were excluded: “the door was shut.”[1] Each one of us has a difficult, very important, and very complicated suit depending on the divine justice. It is a difficult suit, because many and very many, nay, the most of men, and perhaps the most of adult Christians, will lose it. It is a very important suit, because on its gain or loss depends the gain or loss, not of a piece of land on this poor earth, not of a capital of a million ducats, but of an immortal soul, of an immense glory, of an infinite good; on its issue depends whether our lot for eternity shall be with the reprobate or the elect. It is a very complicated suit; the demons of hell, the dangerous occasions that are to be met with in the world, and the lusts of the flesh are our opponents, whose sole effort from the beginning of our lives is to destroy us. And if we enter into our own consciences, we must acknowledge that we have made matters much worse through our own fault, by our manifold sins. The day on which the final judgment shall be pronounced is the day on which the Lord shall come to take the soul away from the body by death, and it is known to no one but God Himself.
And we shall not be able to put it off. Ah, have we not every reason to prepare ourselves in time and with all earnestness, to examine our consciences, to repent of our sins, and to settle our accounts with God? In time, I say; for why should we wait any longer? What grounds can we have for a hope of salvation, if we defer our preparation for death till death itself is at hand? Shall we, perhaps, be able to put it off until we are ready? That kind of a thing might indeed be done in temporal affairs. If it is found that after due diligence and care all the things required for the marriage-feast are not ready, the ceremony is put off for a week or two, or even longer if necessary. If a lawsuit is decided against me the first time, I can appeal and have a new trial. But what can we put in the way of death to defer his coming? Nothing, my dear brethren, it is impossible to put him off; whether we are ready or not, we must go at the appointed time. “Thou hast appointed his bounds which cannot be passed.”[2] Cry out then, as much as you please, to the Lord when He comes to your sick bed to take you; say to Him like that sinner of whom St. Gregory speaks: “Let me off till to-morrow!”[3] Great God! Thou hast millions
