be built in Babylon,[1] the flames of which mounted forty-nine cubits, but could never reach fifty, the number of the year of jubilee, or general pardon. In like manner the eternal flame of this Babylon, though it burns so fiercely, filling its unhappy victims with pain and anguish, will never reach the point of mercy, will never obtain for them the grace of pardon of the heavenly jubilee. Oh! unprofitable pains! Oh! fruitless tears! Oh! rigorous and hopeless penance! If borne in this life, the smallest portion of them might have saved the sinner from everlasting misery. Mindful of all these, send forth your tears and sighs, remembering the prophet who "lamented and howled, who went stripped and naked, making a wailing like the dragons, and a mourning like the ostriches, because her wound was desperate."[2]
If men were ignorant of these truths, if they had not received them as infallible, their negligence and indifference would not be so astonishing. But have we not reason to wonder, since men have received them on the word of Him who has said: "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My word shall not pass away"?[3] Yet behold in what forgetfulness of their duty and their God they continue to live.
Tell me, blind soul, what pleasure you find in the riches and honors of this world which is a compensation for the eternal fire of hell. "If you possessed the wisdom of Solomon," says St. Jerome, "the beauty of Absalom, the strength of Samson, the longevity of Henoch,
