Of the Hope of the Goods That Are to Be Obtained by the Practice of Solid Virtue

Article II

Those alone die in peace who devote themselves to their perfection

So peaceful is the death of the just man that it is styled sleep by Holy Scripture: ‘If thou sleep thou shalt not fear; thou shalt rest, and thy sleep shall be sweet.’⁵⁵55Prov. iii. 24.

There are three qualities of the death of the just p. 317expressed in these words of Proverbs: it is calm, ‘you shall rest;’ pleasing, ‘your sleep shall be sweet;’ replete with holy confidence, ‘you shall not fear.’ It is on this divine testimony that St. Bernard founds three degrees of happiness, which he attaches to a holy death: it ‘is happy on account of the rest it procures; happier still on account of the sweet joys with which it is accompanied; infinitely happy on account of the confidence’⁵⁶56Letter 105. which it imparts at this awful moment; for the death of the man who is faithful puts an end to his past labours, it is accompanied with consolations and exempt from anxiety. Behold the three motives for which the virtuous soul quits this world with perfect tranquillity, but it is those who endeavour to acquire solid virtue who are entitled to hope for this peace.

1. The just man dies in peace, because death puts a term to his past labours

The death of the just man, that is, of him who applies himself fervently to virtue, is happy on account of the repose it procures after the labours of this life. ‘You shall rest.’ It is to the just man, arrived at this supreme moment, that this promise of the Holy Ghost is addressed: ‘From henceforth they may rest from their labours.’⁵⁷57Apoc. xiv. 13. From henceforth all the sufferings of body and soul shall cease for them, and consequently all physical and mental suffering, which sometimes unite and become so intolerable as to force the most courageous and patient to cry out with St. Paul: ‘Unhappy man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?’⁵⁸58Rom. vii. 24. But it is from this very point of view, remarks St. Bernard, that ‘the death of the saints is precious, because it is the end of p. 318the’ painful ‘labours’⁵⁹59Letter 105. they had to endure both in body and soul during life.

In their last moments the voice of the Spouse shall sweetly murmur in their ear: ‘Arise, make haste, my love, my dove, my beautiful one, and come. Winter is now past, the rain is over and gone,’⁶⁰60Cant. ii. 10, 11. that winter of life during which sufferings, afflictions, sickness, trials, and annoyances of every description overwhelmed thee. ‘The rains are over,’ those rains which incessantly poured adversity, persecution, anguish, weariness, uneasiness, and vexation upon thee as a torrent. They are gone, and with them all evils are about to disappear; with them shall vanish all those dark clouds which obscured thy conscience, those scruples which have filled thy soul with so much dread, which have inflicted on it so many wounds. ‘Arise, my beloved, from thy bed of sufferings,’ quit this ‘valley of tears,’⁶¹61Ibid. lxxxiii. 7. this ‘land that is dark and covered with the mist of death,’⁶²62Job x. 21. come ‘my dove from the clifts of the rock, from the hollow places of the wall,’⁶³63Cant. ii. 14 and 10. where thou wert exposed to so many storms; make ‘haste my beautiful one’ to withdraw from ‘the pit of misery and the mire of dregs,’⁶⁴64Ps. xxxix. 3. from that mud so detrimental to the white robe of thy innocence. ‘Come, oh my spouse! from the dens of the lions, from the mountains of the leopards;’⁶⁵65Cant. iv. 8. free thyself from those snares, those occasions and dangers of sinning which abound in the world, which are strewn upon thy path, and in the midst of which thou couldst not walk without trembling: ‘Come, come, thou shalt be crowned,’⁶⁶66Ibid. for ‘the crown of justice is laid up for thee which the Lord, the just Judge, will render p. 319to thee in that day.’⁶⁷672 Tim. iv. 8. ‘The time for pruning’⁶⁸68Cant. ii. 12. ‘the flower of the field and the lily of the valley’⁶⁹69Ibid. ii. 1. with the scythe of death, and of giving them a place in the kingdom of heaven ‘is come.’ Oh, sweet words! oh, thrice-happy invitation!

But is it surprising that the just man enjoys at death a peace and tranquillity exempt from all anxiety? That he joyfully hastens at the call of his heavenly Father, as little chickens are wont to collect around their mother? That, in the excess of his gladness, he repeats with the Royal Prophet: ‘I rejoice at the things that were said to me, we shall go into the house of the Lord?’⁷⁰70Ps. cxxi. 1. And that he says to those around him: ‘Behold with your eyes how I have laboured a little and have found much rest.’⁷¹71Eccli. li. 35. For his whole life appears to him then to have been of but a moment’s duration. ‘All is past,’ cries he, ‘no trace remains of the injuries, the contempt, and the calumnies of which I have been the object; the macerations of the flesh, the mortification of the senses, the fasts and abstinences have now reached their term. The honours, pleasures, and comforts of life, had I attached my heart to them, would now likewise have vanished: nothing would remain to me of them but the stings and remorse of conscience. At present, on the contrary, my soul overflows with joy, because I have devoted my whole being to the acquisition of solid virtue, because I have refrained from the evil which I might have committed, and have performed the good which I was bound to practise.

‘Oh, what a source of peace shall it then be, “not to have loved the world, nor the things of the world;”⁷²72John ii. 15. “not p. 320to have sought his own glory;”⁷³73John vii. 18. “not to have taken the first place, but to have sat in the last;”⁷⁴74Luke xiv. 7. “to have chastised his body and reduced it to subjection;”⁷⁵751 Cor. ix. 27. “to have renounced self and daily carried his cross.”⁷⁶76Luke ix. 23. What a source of tranquillity shall it not be, to have dissembled injuries, borne affronts in silence, supported misfortune with patience, laboured much for the neighbour, and suffered still more for God. Oh, blessed contempt, austerities, and afflictions! Oh, noble patience in adversity! Oh, beloved fatigues! you are the keys which have opened heaven for me, the sublime ladder by which I have ascended to the pinnacle of glory. Thanks, a thousand thanks to my God for having granted me the grace “to have kept the commandments from my youth,”⁷⁷77Matt. xix. 20. “paid my vows which my lips have uttered,”⁷⁸78Ps. lxv. 14. “done penance in sackcloth and ashes for my sins,”⁷⁹79Matt. xi. 21. “and by my good works made my vocation and election sure.”⁸⁰802 Pet. i. 10.

‘Oh, how wise I have been thus to have prevented by a holy behaviour, the fears which a tepid life would have caused me at this moment, to have escaped the uneasiness which would now torment me, had I not obeyed the divine inspirations! Ah! I might have consented to that temptation; I was even on the point of yielding to it, but I resisted it. Alas! had I slept in my tepidity what should have become of me? But I have surmounted it, and I have worked out my salvation. I have endured cold and heat in labouring in the Lord’s vineyard, therefore it is that I confidently expect the reward promised by the divine Father of the family.’

Such is the language, such are the sentiments at death of him who has during life applied himself to virtue. Then it is that the recollection of the labours he has courageously sustained, of the dangers he has had the wisdom to avoid, of the sufferings he has borne uncomplainingly, is fraught for him with sweetness.

My God, how much more prudently shall we judge of perfection at the close of life than at its commencement! When we reflect on sanctity at the moment of desiring to enter its paths, we are terrified, discouraged at the idea of spending twenty or thirty years in strict retirement, constant corporal mortification: of wrestling during forty or fifty years ‘against flesh and blood, against the rulers of the world of darkness, and against the spirits of wickedness.’⁸¹81Ephes. vi. 12.

But when we consider it at the moment that those efforts are about to cease, at the hour of death, how beautiful, how desirable shall it seem to us! For then the soul that has ‘crucified its flesh, its vices, and concupiscences,’⁸²82Galat. v. 24. exclaims with the dying Saviour: ‘All is consummated.’⁸³83John xix. 30. ‘If I cast a glance behind me,’ he joyfully exclaims, ‘I have had fearful combats to sustain, great obstacles to surmount, generous efforts to make. But immortal thanks to my God! all is consummated: the season of misery is ended, never to return: labours are passed away for ever: all my trials are at an end. There shall be no more sickness, no more adversities, no more crosses, no more penances, no more desires to combat, no more evil passions to subject, no more assaults to repulse: “all is consummated.”

‘I have had to struggle against numberless and terrible temptations; but behold me in safety at the port: I have experienced a dreary and perpetual exile, and I have reached my happy country: I have traversed a p. 321long and difficult route, and have arrived at the term of my journey: I have reached, “through a barren, desert-land,”⁸⁴84Ps. lxii. 2. to the fountain of celestial delights. I am about to enter into the possession of goods for which my faith rose superior to all difficulties; I shall soon enjoy what I have hoped for anxiously. Loved eternally, I shall love in my turn the Sovereign Good without measure, whom until now I have not loved sufficiently. The termination of the miseries of this world shall be for me the commencement of the joys of paradise. Oh, happy remembrance of the past! thou art a delicious balm whose sweetness heals all wounds and diffuses an enchanting tranquillity in the soul of the dying.’

2. The death of the just man is peaceful, owing to the sweet joys by which it is accompanied

The death of the just man is happy, not merely because it puts an end to his past labours—‘You shall rest’—but also it is happier still on account of the sweetness of the consolations with which it is accompanied: ‘Your sleep shall be sweet;’ the testimony of a good conscience, detachment from all created affections, and the sight of Jesus Christ nailed to the cross, shall be the three motives of this consolation.

The testimony of a good conscience

We may apply to the just man the eulogium which St. Paul bestowed on the patriarch Enoch: ‘Before his translation he pleased God.’⁸⁵85Heb. xi. 5. For the conscience of the just man testifies to him that ‘he has lived in this world in simplicity of heart, and not in carnal wisdom, but in the grace of God.’⁸⁶862 Cor. i. 12. He hears in his soul’s depths p. 322a voice which is the echo of his past life, and which gives him the moral assurance that he deserves the friendship of his God, that he has made his confessions well, that he is a child of God and an heir of heaven, that he has the right to hope firmly in the divine mercy, for final perseverance and life eternal.

He is not ignorant that even he who is holiest, so long as life remains, is liable to forfeit grace; but he also knows that such a misfortune is very rare, and that it must be reckoned amongst the number of the greatest improbabilities. He is aware that ‘God is faithful,’⁸⁷871 Cor. x. 13. that He will never permit him to die badly who has lived well; nor that he will arrive at Babylon who has taken the road to the heavenly Jerusalem. He knows that ‘if our heart do not reprehend us we may have confidence towards God,’⁸⁸88John iii. 21. He will be propitious to us and will not allow us to be tempted beyond our strength.

This testimony imparts such consolation to the soul of the just man, it inspires him with such a firm hope of his salvation, that when the devil endeavours to disturb him with temptations to diffidence, he laughs at his efforts, and says to him, as Jacob did to Laban, ‘Search, and if thou find any of thy things with me, take them away;’⁸⁹89Gen. xxxi. 32. ‘search, scrutinise, examine as closely as thou wilt; I possess nothing that belongs to thee; thou shalt find nothing in me which proceeds from thy pride and thy ambition, thy frauds and thy malice.’ He even dares, with St. Martin, to assume an authoritative tone, and defy his enemy, saying to him: ‘Why remainest thou here? thou shalt discover nothing reprehensible in me.’

The dying just man ‘is intrepid as the lion, he fears nothing.’⁹⁰90Prov. xxviii. 1. Though ‘the devil come to him, having great p. 323wrath, knowing that he hath but a short time,’⁹¹91Apoc. xii. 12. he awaits him undauntedly ‘and terrible as an army ranged in battle,’⁹²92Cant. vi. 9. impregnable as ‘a fortified city,’⁹³93Ps. xxx. 2. as ‘a brazen wall;’ he victoriously repulses the assaults of hell; ‘strengthened in the Lord and in the might of His power, clothed in the armour of God, he resists the artifices of the devil, and with’ a breath ‘extinguishes all the fiery darts of the most wicked one.’⁹⁴94Ephes. vi. 11 and fol.

So many years spent by him in the service of his adorable Master; so many days, each moment of which he has turned to account; so many merits, which he has accumulated as a rich treasure, precede him to eternity and inspire him with the most well-founded hope. On the one side Jesus Christ has promised that the ‘kingdom of heaven belongs to the poor in spirit: that the merciful shall obtain mercy: that the clean of heart shall see God: that the peacemakers shall be called the children of God: that an abundant recompense awaits in heaven those who suffer persecution for justice’ sake:’⁹⁵95Matt. v. 3 and fol. that the humble shall be exalted: that those who weep shall be comforted: that the hungry shall be satiated: that those who have left all to follow Him shall receive the hundred-fold: these promises our Saviour has confirmed by the infallible authority of His Word; on the other side, the conscience of the just man bears him testimony that he has fulfilled the conditions to which the infinitely just Judge has attached ‘the never-fading crown of glory;’⁹⁶961 Pet. v. 4. he has no reason, therefore, to apprehend its being refused to him. He knows that God Himself has written in the Book of Life all the virtues he has practised, and to which infinite rewards have been promised. Resting on the fidelity of God, he confidently awaits his reward. He has provided himself in time with the oil of charity, and has no fear of being excluded like ‘the foolish virgins,’⁹⁷97Matt. xxv. 12. from the nuptials of the Lamb; and such is his confidence, that neither temptations, nor scruples, nor apprehensions of the divine justice are able to shake, disturb, or diminish it.

Who, then, can express the ineffable consolation which the just man derives from the consciousness that he is that ‘blessed rich man that could have transgressed’ the commandments ‘and hath not transgressed them, and could do evil things and hath not done them;’⁹⁸98Eccli. xxxi. 8. that he is the good and faithful servant ‘whom the Lord shall place over all His goods;’⁹⁹99Matt. xxiv. 47. that he is even more than a servant, he is the friend of Jesus Christ, the child of God and heir of heaven. Thus it is that his conscience shall console him at the approach of death, at the gates of eternity, at the point of appearing before the dread tribunal of God, that is to say, at the moment when the alliance of kings, the most exalted titles, the possession of a throne, are but as vain smoke, a phantom in our eyes, the moment at which the grace, favour, and friendship of God, are alone of any value in our esteem. The death of the just man is, therefore, truly precious and desirable, on account of the consolations afforded by the testimony of his conscience.

Detachment from all created affections

Behold another source of consolation at death. What renders death, and even the very remembrance of it, sad and bitter to worldlings, is the abandonment of the beloved objects to which they are so strongly attached. p. 324The irregular love of earthly things, and the passions which dominate over the heart, become by habit a second nature, which identifies itself with the lives of carnal men; they become a necessity, the privation of which casts them into the most fearful disquietude at the last moment, and wrings from them tears and groans of despair. For to descend from the pinnacle of honour, of which they have been so passionately enamoured, to quit those palaces adorned with so much magnificence, to leave those riches amassed with so much care, to relinquish those pleasures which they have pursued with so much ardour, this it is that inflicts a mortal wound on the lovers of the world, proud and voluptuous men!

On the contrary, ‘with what confidence he dies who is not held captive by attachment to any creature.’¹⁰⁰100St. Jerome Letter. For what is there that can afflict or disturb him? The relinquishment of riches, which are about to pass over to strangers? Long since he has renounced them, if not in effect at least in affection. His dignities, which others are about to possess? Far from having ambitioned, he has always despised them. The privation of sensual pleasure? By a severe self-imposed law he has always interdicted himself from them. He is not grieved at being separated from his business, because he has only lent himself to it, nor at quitting his friends, because, with him, friendship was always subservient to religion; nor at seeing his body reduced to ashes, because he has always treated it as an enemy; nor at abandoning the world, because he has always looked upon himself as a traveller ‘who has not here a lasting dwelling.’¹⁰¹101Heb. xiii. 14.

He voluntarily and intrepidly presents himself to death; he gives his body as food to that insatiable p. 325monster who devours all men, in order that the prison of the flesh, which detained it captive, being destroyed, his liberated soul may ascend to heaven; he joyfully beholds the approach of this pitiless spoiler and mocks at his rage, because, having long since renounced all things, nothing remains of which he can be deprived; and having kept the accounts of his conscience in perfect order, he is ready to follow this inexorable executor of the divine justice, by whom he is to be cited to the awful tribunal. The sufferings attendant on his last moments are a subject for joy to him, regarding them, as he does, as an anticipated liquidation of all he should have to suffer in purgatory, and as a trivial compensation for the long and dreadful torments he should have to undergo in those expiatory flames.

It is said that the illustrious Suarez joyfully cried out, amid the excruciating sufferings which preceded his dissolution: ‘I should never have thought that it was so sweet to die.’ How many other holy personages have manifested the same sentiments, and, in confronting death, tasting celestial joys, have intoned themselves or asked others to sing canticles of thanksgiving to the God who was trying them? The reason of this was that their souls, free from all affection for the world, were as stars elevated above the impure atmosphere of earth, precious stones extricated by skilful labour from their native rust, agile eagles which had not allowed their wings to be smeared by the perfidious glue of the senses. They were, consequently, inundated with delights at the very moment that the idolatrous slaves of the world and of self ‘die in bitterness of soul.’¹⁰²102Job xxi. 25. Weary of earth, longing for heaven, the masters of their passions, they no longer desired anything save their one only Beloved. Their last efforts were burning acts of love, fervent aspirations towards heaven, ardent desires to see God: they consumed themselves as a lamp in the house of the Lord; they burned as incense on the holy altar, and the fire of charity made of their hearts an agreeable offering. Behold what consolation detachment from creatures imparts at the hour of death! But what completes the happiness of the just soul in this awful passage is the sight of Jesus Christ nailed to the cross, whose image, placed before his eyes, seems to be the only good that remains to him of all that he possessed.

The sight of Jesus Christ crucified

Oh! how full of sweetness shall the contemplation of the crucifix be for those who shall have conformed their lives to the adorable Model whom it recalls! Oh, what consolation shall the dying soul find in looking at this Divine Exemplar when he has lived in such sort as to be able to say of himself: ‘I am fastened to the cross with Jesus Christ;’¹⁰³103Gal. ii. 9. for the living sight of this holy image soothes his bodily sufferings and augments the confidence of his soul.

Those who understand the great mysteries concealed in the cross, know by experience how calculated the sight of it is to obliterate the remembrance of all pain and suffering. If the wood which Moses plunged into the waters of Mara rendered them sweet and agreeable, what consolation will not the remembrance of a God dying for us impart to our hearts? ‘If a brazen serpent, exposed as a sign of salvation, had the efficacy to cure the Israelites of their diseases, what consolation shall we not find,’ says St. Augustine, ‘in casting our eyes on Him of whom the brazen serpent was but a figure?’ The cross presented to our view transforms even pains and sickness into delights by its celestial sweetness. What is astonishing in this? while a pious soul contemplates his ‘Beloved chosen amongst a thousand,’¹⁰⁴104Cant. v. 10. torn with scourges, crowned with thorns, pierced with nails, His Heart opened with a spear, he is ashamed to be himself a delicate member under a Head delivered up to such excruciating torments. While he compares the evils he endures with the sufferings of his Saviour, and at the same time, contrasts the crimes of which he has been guilty with the innocence of this spotless Lamb, he is ashamed of the signs of sensibility which suffering wrings from his weakness. ‘O my Jesus!’ he exclaims, amid his sighs, ‘Thou hast drained the chalice of afflictions at one draught, and I refuse the little Thou presentest to me? “Thy suffering is great as the sea,”¹⁰⁵105Lament. ii. 13. mine is scarcely a drop, and I presume to refuse it! Far from me be such a disgraceful opposition to Thee! for, “the servant is neither greater” nor better than “the Master.”¹⁰⁶106John xiii. 16. Cut, then, and burn here below, provided Thou sparest me in eternity.’

When the just soul hears Jesus Christ manifest His great love for man by repeating that He thirsts for still greater sufferings, when he sees Him ready, as He revealed to St. Bridget, to die and suffer again for each one of us the same torments that He has already endured, then he conceives a holy indignation against himself, and emulous of his Saviour, he experiences a thirst like to His, he asks, he incessantly invokes new suffering, new infirmities. This energy of heart even contributes materially to alleviate his physical sufferings. Thus it is that the sight of Jesus dying is at the supreme moment a source of consolation and strength to the just man. Nor does this salutary sight inspire him with a less confidence. What can he fear, armed with this shield? What may he not hope for with so precious a pledge? ‘Behold thy God, thy Saviour,’ may they say to him, presenting to him the crucifix as his last hour draws nigh. ‘Behold thy God, thy Saviour; act confidently, because the Lord is thy strength and thy salvation.’¹⁰⁷107Isaias xii. 2. Thou shalt find in Him an invincible armour against temptation, a remedy for all the evils of thy soul. If the fire of concupiscence be enkindled within thee, ‘He is the source of living waters springing up to life everlasting,’¹⁰⁸108John iv. 14. which extinguishes all profane ardours; if the infernal ravisher pursue thee, His wounds ‘are the clifts in the rock, the hollow places in the mysterious wall,’¹⁰⁹109Cant. ii. 14. in which, like the timid dove, thou canst take refuge. ‘If the fountains of the great deep threaten to engulf thee,’ His Heart is ‘the city of refuge,’¹¹⁰110Josue xxi. 13. where thou shalt find safety and repose. The nails which fasten Him are the anchor of thy firm hope: His life is the plank of safety on which thou shalt enter unscathed the eternal port. Are not these certain pledges of our salvation, powerful motives for perfect confidence? But our Saviour’s insatiable love has not yet been satisfied. To remove every pretext for diffidence in His limitless love and to give us a certainty of His tenderness, He bows His head in dying to bestow on us the kiss of peace, He stretches out His arms to receive us to His Heart, He opens His side to grant us an asylum therein, He sheds His blood to purify us in this adorable bath. He constitutes Himself our advocate with His Father, He solicits our pardon with deep groans: ‘Father, forgive them;’¹¹¹111Luke xxiii. 34. ‘remember my poverty, the wormwood and gall;’¹¹²112Lament. iii. 19. ‘have mercy on them according to the multitude of Thy tender mercies.’¹¹³113Ps. l. 2. Yes; unless we be as hard as adamant, such an excess of tenderness cannot fail to inspire us with an unbounded confidence. What! Could the blood of Abel be more powerful than the voice of Jesus Christ? Who would presume to utter this blasphemy? If the voice of the blood of the innocent Abel, ascending from earth to the throne of God, could draw down vengeance upon it, how much more efficacious shall be the voice of the blood of the only Son ascending from the cross to His heavenly Father to solicit our pardon? If men, how wicked soever they may be, ‘do not give a scorpion’ when they are asked for ‘an egg, nor a stone’ to him who wishes for ‘bread;’ with how much greater reason should we not believe that the ‘Eternal Father’ will not refuse to give the ‘right spirit,’¹¹⁴114Luke xi. 11. that is, His grace, at the request of His beloved Son, at the moment He is expiring amid the most excruciating torments. For if this loving Saviour ‘is heard for the reverence that is due to Him,’¹¹⁵115Heb. v. 7. when He prays for His enemies, what will He not obtain when He addresses his supplications in behalf of a faithful and virtuous soul? Ah! to be diffident of our salvation when we consider Jesus Christ dying for us is to wound the Almighty in the apple of the eye, since in such a guarantee everything promises eternal life. To distrust so certain a security is to renounce all hope.

Can we now doubt that the sight of our Saviour fastened to the cross soothes the sufferings of the body and increases the confidence of the soul? and that the death of the just man is precious on account of the rest it procures after labour, and above all, on account of the sweetness and consolation with which it is accompanied—a consolation founded on the testimony of a good conscience, detachment from created things, and the consideration of Jesus Christ expiring on the cross?

3. The just man dies in peace because he is not uneasy concerning his future

Finally, the death of the just man is most precious, because he is not harassed by that uneasiness concerning the future, that harrowing fear of the last ends, which cast the tepid soul into such overwhelming anguish in his last moments: ‘You shall not fear.’ At the end of life three things especially disturb a soul that has neglected its perfection: death, judgment, and purgatory: death, because it separates from all; judgment, on account of the severity of the Judge, and purgatory, owing to the intensity of its punishments. These thoughts cause but little solicitude at the approach of the last hour to those who have devoted themselves to virtue.

1. The just man while in robust health ‘died daily’¹¹⁶1161 Cor. xv. 31. to himself, that is to say, he daily detached his heart from earthly affections, refused himself all gratifications, and denied himself sensual pleasures; he renounced honours, and day by day accustomed his soul to separate itself from the body. He became in some manner familiarised with death by frequent reflections on this last terrible moment; so that now, far from fearing, he ardently desires its arrival; and as he has never been the slave of an inordinate attachment to any creature, disengaged from all earthly bonds, he willingly parts with them to go to that home towards which all his aspirations have incessantly tended for long years.

He knows, as Tertullian expresses it, ‘that we should not fear that which delivers us from all evil,’ from sufferings of body, anxieties of soul, and above all, from sin, the greatest of misfortunes. And because death places us in the happy impotence of suffering and of sinning, not alone does the just man not fear, he even longs for its arrival.

He believes that the present life is an exile from heaven, a separation from the Sovereign Good, a captivity of the soul, which deprives it of the perfect liberty of the children of God. He acknowledges that the solicitudes which this life imposes torment him, that the affairs in which it absorbs and the fatigues with which it overwhelms us are a great obstacle to the love of God within us; that the violence of our passions, the darkness of our understanding, and the corruption of our will, almost necessitate our offending a God who is infinitely good. He knows even to a certainty that he cannot remain long on earth without sullying his conscience with some venial sin. On the other hand, he has learned from St. Ambrose, that his departure from this world ‘is less the end of his existence than of his malice, less the term of his years than of his faults, and less an entombing of the man than the end of sin.’ He has learned from St. Gregory Nazianzen, ‘that the death of the saints is not a death, that it is the departure of the soul to God, the accomplishment of its desires, the deliverance from its bonds and from the burden beneath which it groaned.’ Finally, he is not ignorant that ‘this life on earth is a perpetual warfare, a race in which we must run with all our strength, an arena on which we must strive;’ he acknowledges that his whole life is a difficult and dangerous pilgrimage, a continual martyrdom. The nearer he believes himself to the victor’s crown, the more anxious he is for the end of this struggle. As he ardently desires to behold God face to face, to possess Him perfectly, and be intimately united to Him, and as He knows at the same time that death is the only way of attaining to this ineffable happiness, he would wish, every moment, for the arrival of the time when he should be freed from his mortality to enter into the happy necessity of loving this infinitely amiable God henceforth without diminution.

The just man, therefore, far from fearing, desires death, because, ‘he who is without spot may lift up his face towards heaven, shall remain steadfast in the time of battle, and shall not fear’¹¹⁷117Job xi. 15. death.

2. Even the approach of judgment does not appal the just man in his last moments. He remembers, it is true, that ‘the justice of God, lofty as mountains, that the judgments of the Lord, deep as an abyss,’¹¹⁸118Ps. xxxv. 7. will speedily exercise their prerogatives. He is aware that from this tribunal, before which he is about to appear, there is no appeal, that its decrees are irrevocable. He believes that nothing is hidden from the severe Judge who presides thereat. But he likewise believes that this God is faithful, that He has promised that whoever examines himself before judgment shall find mercy¹¹⁹119Eccli. xviii. 20. before his Judge, that those who ‘judge themselves shall not be judged.’¹²⁰1201 Cor. xi. 31.

His conscience testifying to him that he has scrupulously examined, and afterwards sincerely, lucidly, and fully confessed all his faults to the minister of reconciliation, and that he is in the friendship of God, free from all apprehension, he presents himself confidently before Him whose ‘mercies are above all his works.’ True it is that the eternal decrees of God concerning the election and reprobation of men are profound and unfathomable mysteries; but it is equally true ‘that His mercy is inexhaustible, and that the riches of His bounty are infinite.’¹²¹121Prayers of Church at Mass. Therefore it is that the just man, recalling to mind the numberless and special graces which he has received from God, doubts not, but that the gift of final perseverance will set its seal on all the others, and that at the tribunal of God he will be treated not as a foe, but as a friend, the son and heir of his heavenly Father.

‘Oh, Judge of the living and the dead,’¹²²122Acts x. 42. does he exclaim, yes, ‘I confess my iniquity; I have sinned against Thee, I have done evil in Thy presence;’¹²³123Ps. l. 5, 6. ‘my iniquities are gone over my head,’¹²⁴124Ps. xxxvii. 5. ‘they are multiplied above the hairs of my head;’¹²⁵125Ibid. xxxix. 13. but nevertheless, my God, ‘be Thou mindful of Thy word, which has given me hope:’¹²⁶126Ibid. cxviii. 49. for Thou hast said to us by Thy prophet: ‘Be converted and do penance for all your iniquities, and iniquity shall not be your ruin.’¹²⁷127Ezech. xviii. 30. Thou hast promised by Zacharias: ‘Turn to me and I will to you:’ I have Thy promise to this effect. Now, O Father of mercies! my conscience testifies to me that ‘I have turned to Thee;’ do ‘Thou likewise turn’ to me, and ‘let not my iniquity be my ruin.’ Wouldst Thou permit it to be said of Thee that Thou hadst failed in power or in fidelity to Thy word? p. 331Thou wilt keep it, Lord, who can doubt it? Thou wilt absolve me at Thy judgment; Thy bounty will admit me to the choir of true penitents. Such are the powerful motives which console and animate the just soul at the portals of eternity. ‘If a sinner does penance,’ says holy Scripture, ‘none of his sins which he hath committed shall be imputed to him, but he shall surely live’¹²⁸128Ezech. xxxiii. 16. a true life. These merciful words are for the just man a safe buckler against the arrows of divine justice. If they do not altogether dissipate, they at least materially diminish his apprehensions.

3. Finally, not even the pains of purgatory, which he may have to endure, inspire him with excessive fear, because he has already considerably mitigated the punishment due to his sins by voluntary corporal mortifications, fervent acts of virtue, or by drawing from the treasury of indulgences which the Church has opened to him an abundant compensation for his debts. Resting on the oracle of Jesus Christ: ‘the merciful shall obtain mercy,’¹²⁹129Matt. v. 7. with ‘the same measure that you mete unto others it shall be measured to you,’¹³⁰130Mark iv. 24. he is but little alarmed at the virulence of this fire, because, having incessantly and fervently laboured for the relief of the souls in purgatory, he firmly hopes that in reward for his charity he shall himself escape almost unscathed from those purifying flames: his confidence is founded on the generosity of Him who deigns to regard as done to Himself all the good that is done to those who belong to Him, according to His promise: ‘as long as you did it to one of these, you did it to Me.’¹³¹131Matt. xxv. 40. Thence the just man concludes, that Jesus Christ will not permit that he who has so often delivered Himself from this expiatory prison in the person of those who belong to Him, should be long detained there. If any debt to the divine justice still remain to be liquidated, should he be cast into prison with the unjust steward to suffer there ‘till he have paid the last farthing,’¹³²132Matt. v. 23. his confidence does not forsake him; he hopes to be speedily liberated through the virtue of the Masses offered for him, the prayers of the faithful, the intercession of the saints, and of the holy Mother of God. He places his hope especially in the merits of Jesus Christ, which are not only of infinite value, but also belong to us of right, by the donation made to us of them by our Redeemer. He offers them, therefore, to the Eternal Father, being certain that the divine justice cannot refuse, or the divine mercy reject them, and that by them he can superabundantly repay all that he owes. However, should God ordain to treat him with inexorable severity, and demand a long expiation of his least faults, adoring the divine decrees, he kisses the paternal hand that chastises him, and by conforming his will to that of the omnipotent, is thus enabled to moderate his fear of the punishment he has merited.

Oh! how precious, then, is the death of the just soul, since it is a repose from past labours, and he shall rest; more precious still, owing to the consolations which accompany it, ‘it shall be sweet;’ most precious, in fine, because he experiences no anxiety concerning the future.

Let us conclude from these motives that those who apply themselves to virtue not only live happy, but also die in peace. Now, is there anything better, more desirable than such a fate? Is there anything, in fine, more capable of determining us to labour for our perfection?

Let us place in one side of a balance all the pleasures of the senses, the gratifications of the flesh, the seductions of the world, for love of which we renounce our perfection; and in the other the consolations with which a holy soul is recompensed, not alone during its earthly pilgrimage, but above all at the moment of its departure from this life. Oh, how far the joys granted to virtue exceed the others! how far more ennobling and soothing they are to the heart; and yet, fools that we are, we prefer ‘the rivers of Babylon’¹³³133Ps. cxxxvi. 1. to this ocean of incomparable delights!

We are all desirous of a happy life, we ardently hope for a holy death. But the only way of attaining this twofold good is a constant attention to our sanctification.

Let us do now what we shall desire to have done when our death-knell tolls, and since we shudder at the thought of dying like the tepid, let us emulate the lives of the fervent, for death is the echo of life. Let us live for God alone, if we wish to die in the Lord; and while we are still in health, let us sacrifice all that could disturb us at death. O God, the arbiter of our eternity! Thou hast assured us that those ‘who are undefiled in their ways are blessed,’¹³⁴134Ibid. cxviii. 1. that ‘with him who feareth the Lord it shall go well in the latter end.’¹³⁵135Eccli. i. 13. I believe on the faith of Thy word that the life and ‘death of the saints are precious in Thy sight;’¹³⁶136Ps. cxv. 15. ‘may my soul,’ therefore, ‘die the death of the just, and may my last end be like to theirs.’¹³⁷137Rom. xxiii. 10. As I can have no share in their happiness, unless my life resembles theirs, I am firmly resolved to commence from this moment the work of my sanctification by the sacrifice of this object, this p. 333particular attachment which, until now, has opposed the greatest obstacles to my progress in virtue. But do Thou, ‘without whose aid man possesses nothing good in himself,’¹³⁸138Prose of Holy Ghost. grant me the strength necessary to execute this resolution, that I may be of the number of Thy elect who live happy and die in peace.