men.”[1] In this last combat, this supreme moment, defeat means being a slave of the devil; victory means conquering him forever. If David had missed Goliath with the first stone, he could have quickly got another out of his wallet, and rectified his mistake; but if we miss in our last battle, in the one throw we can make, we are done forever.
Shown by an example after the manner of a simile. Plutarch writes of a captain who summoned one of his soldiers before him for some breach of discipline. The soldier, having heard the punishment to which he was condemned, with pallid face and down-cast eyes answered in his defence: “Sir, forgive me this time! I will not do it again.” “That is a fine excuse!” said the captain. “I will not do it again! Do you not know that one cannot commit a fault the second time during war? There is no correcting faults in war-time;”[2] the first fault must be punished. Change one word, my dear brethren, in this answer; say in death instead of in war, and you will have said the truth; in death you cannot blunder twice; no chance then of correcting a fault; what is then once faulty remains so forever. And why? St. Paul tells us, when he says that it is decreed for all men not only to die, but also to die once: “It is appointed unto men once to die,”[3] not twice; and after death comes judgment, which is irrevocable, and from which no appeal can be made to another judge. If I once die well, I shall be well off, and that forever, without any fear of losing my happiness; if I once die unhappily, I am lost and cast away, and that forever, without any hope of ever being freed from torments. If I am in the state of grace in my last moment, a friend and child of God, my lot shall be an eternal kingdom, everlasting riches, joys and oceans of joys with God in heaven, which no man shall be able to take from me. If I am in the state of sin in my last moment, an enemy of God, then my dwelling-place shall be a prison, in which I shall suffer eternal poverty and pain, burning forever with the demons in hell, and no one shall be able to help me.
In this one moment all shall be settled for eternity. O last moment of my life and first beginning of my eternity! How terrible thou art! In one moment my soul shall go forth from this world and at once appear before the judgment-seat of God. In one moment I shall see clearly all my sins in their gravity and deformity, and I shall have to answer for them! In that one moment I shall see clearly all the graces, inspirations,
