that if death surprises me I shall be found just as unprepared and unrepentant as they were. But now, if I am not less, but more guilty in the sight of God than they, why am I not afraid of being eternally rejected by God as they are, and condemned to hell forever? What reason have I to desire or ask mercy from God, since others like me, and perhaps not near so bad or wicked, have been punished by the divine justice in hell-fire? “Neither dost thou fear God,” said the penitent thief hanging on the cross to his impenitent companion; “neither dost thou fear God, seeing thou art under the same condemnation.”[1] The same you can say to yourself, turning your thoughts and the eyes of your mind to the many burning in hell who are guilty of the same sins as you: “Neither dost thou fear God, seeing thou art under the same condemnation.” Neither do you fear God, that just and strict Judge, although you are as guilty as many others who are actually lying in hell, and you know that you have sins on your soul that you must suffer for eternally. Nevertheless, O sinner! you go on unconcerned in the same vicious life. How can faith harmonize with such conduct? No! no! To no purpose have I sent your thoughts down to hell to contemplate there the damned who are like you. You do not believe in hell; you do not wish to believe that an eternal fire is appointed for the wicked.
Faith is weakened by a wicked life. And why should you not believe it? Is it not an article of faith taught by the true Christian, Catholic Church, as well as all the other articles? It is as true as that we must all die. It is as true as that there is one God, and in that one God three Divine Persons. Have you perhaps lost all faith? Formerly, while you were still good and pious, you believed firmly that there is an eternal hell for impenitent sinners, because God has revealed it. Is there then in your opinion no hell any more because you live wickedly? Because you have so often deserved the fire of hell? Because you wish to sin without fear or restraint? If we knew of hell only on the authority of some profane historian worthy of credit, who has handed down the tale to posterity; if it was only a tradition that there is an eternal hell; nay, if we had only some reasonable grounds to suspect the existence of such a place for the punishment of the impenitent sinner, even then, O my God! every sensible man should shudder with fear and anguish at the bare thought of the pos-
- ↑ Neque tu times Deum, quod in eadem damnatione es.—Luke xxiii. 40.
