erty to their children, and never chastise their vices or put any restraint on them, or who try to do all with sweet, honied words, like Heli with his wicked sons. My dear children, they say, what is this I hear of you? You must not do that again! It is easy to say, you must not do that again! The children pay little heed to such words, and are only worse than before. Parents of that kind, I say, are really cruel to their children, and actually desire and cause their ruin. But that cannot be said of the father of whom we first spoke; for he shows by his threats that he truly loves his son, and that he is in earnest in desiring to have him prosperous and happy.
So does God act with us. Even so does God, our heavenly Father, act towards us, His adopted children. He offers an eternal inheritance of infinite goods, an eternal heaven filled with all imaginable joys as the reward of our obedience and service, and that too a short service that lasts only as long as this mortal, uncertain life of ours. See, He says to every one; take upon you My sweet yoke; remain faithful to Me only for a short time; love Me and keep My commandments; I will give you help and grace enough to do what I require of you; if you go wrong now and then, come back to Me and do penance; My sole desire is to make you happy in that way forever; even in this life you will have a most sweet consolation, and rest, and joy of conscience; hereafter you shall be where I am Myself; I will give you Myself as your eternal reward; for every thought, act, and word of yours that is prompted by love for Me I will bestow on you a special joy that shall last forever. But if you refuse Me that short service, if you abandon and msult Me, although I have given you no occasion to do so, and persist in your obstinacy till death, and thus prevent Me from fulfilling My desire to make you happy, then I will cast you into the lake of fire in which you shall burn forever without hope of release. You must either go to heaven, where I wish you to be, or else suffer for eternity in hell.
And if He had not treated us with that punishment hardly one would be saved.
Suppose now, my dear brethren, that God had said nothing of this threat, and that the sinner had nothing to fear but the loss of the promised reward, although that loss would be in itself a most severe punishment; or take away hell and put in its place a temporal fire that sooner or later shall come to an end, how many would then, do you think, go to heaven and be eternally happy there? O holy souls! who inflamed by the love of God serve Him, not through fear of punishment or hope of reward, but