at a sentence of death pronounced by an earthly judge, which, at most, deprives us of but forty or fifty years of life, with what feelings will we hear that sentence which deprives us of an immortal life and condemns us to an eternity of misery? With what horror we read of the tortures inflicted by executioners upon malefactors; yet the most cruel are only shadows compared to the eternal torments of the life to come. The former end with this life; but in hell the worm of conscience shall never die, the executioner shall never grow weary, the fire shall never be extinguished. What, then, will be the feelings of the wicked when suddenly transported from the midst of earthly happiness to this abyss of unspeakable miseries? In vain will they denounce their blindness and bewail the graces they refused. What can the pilot do when the ship is lost? Of what use is the physician when the patient is dead? Whither will we turn, on that terrible day, when the heavens and the earth, the sun, moon, and stars, when all creatures, will raise their voices against us to testify the evil we have committed? But even were these silent, our own consciences would still accuse us.
These reflections, dear Christian, we have gathered chiefly from the writings of St. John Chrysostom. Do they not prove the necessity of living with the fear of this supreme judgment constantly before us? This fear was never absent from the heart of St. Ambrose, notwithstanding the vigilant fervor of his life. "Woe is me," he exclaims in his commentary
