Chapter IX: Part 9

If, my brethren, I should ask each one in this assembly what his business is, I should probably receive a great variety of answers. In so large a congregation as this, drawn as it is from the heart of a rich and important city, there are undoubtedly representatives of all the various avocations that grow out of the requirements of social life; some merchants, some mechanics, some laboring men. I should find some heirs of ease and opulence side by side with homeless beggars. Some of you are heads of families, while others are living under guardianship and subjection; and in answer to my proposed question, you would give me your various employments and states of life. You would tell me that your business is to heal the sick, or to assist at the administration of justice, or to teach, or to learn letters, or to labor. The men would tell me that their occupation is at the office, or the warehouse, or the shop, and the women would tell me that theirs is at home by the family fireside. No! my brethren, it is not so. This is not your business. Your words may be true in the sense in which you use them, but there is a great and real sense in which they are not true. {210} Trade, labor, study--these are not your employments. Your avocations are not so varied as you think they are. Each one of you has the same business. All men who have lived in the world have had but one and the same business. And what is that? The salvation of their souls. However varied your dispositions, your condition in this world, your duties, the end of life is absolutely one and the same to you all. Yes! wherever man is, whatever his position, whatever his age, he has one business on the earth, and only one--to save his soul. All other things may be dispensed with, but this cannot be dispensed with. This is his true, his necessary, his only duty. Do not think that I am exaggerating things in making this assertion. Our Divine Saviour Himself in the words of the text has taught us the same lesson--"_Martha, Martha, thou art careful, and art troubled about many things. But one thing is necessary_." And what that one thing is, He has taught us, in those memorable words which He uttered on another occasion--"_What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul; or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?_" [Footnote 8] But what then, you say; must every one go into a cloister, must everyone who wishes to do his duty forsake the world, leave house and parents, lands and possessions, and nourish his soul by continual meditation and prayer? No! this is not our Lord's meaning. The end of life is indeed the salvation of our souls, but we must work this out by means of the daily employments appropriate to our several conditions. We must prepare for the life to come by the labors of the life that now is. We must bear our part in this world, but we must do so, always, in subordination to eternity, and thus we shall in some way fulfil the words of the apostle--"_They that use this world, let them be as though they used it not;_" [Footnote 9] that is, let them not use it in the same way that the children of the world use it, or according to the principles of the world.

[Footnote 8: St. Mark viii. 36, 37]

[Footnote 9: 1 Cor. vii. 31.]

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This is enough for the salvation of most men. No one can be excused from doing so much as this. The law of God imperatively and under the highest sanctions requires this of everyone here present. This is your duty to your souls. This is your only duty. This done, all will be done. This neglected, all else will be in vain. To prove this will be the theme of my present discourse.

I will make a remark in the outset: It is important for us to bear in mind that the salvation of our souls is properly our work. The grace of God is indeed necessary in order to will, and to accomplish His good will, but without our co-operation, the grace of God will not save us; accordingly, St. Paul, writing to the Philippians, exhorts them to _work out their salvation_. [Footnote 10]

[Footnote 10: Philip. ii. 12.]

It is only little children, who die soon after baptism, and persons equivalent to children, who are saved by a sovereign and absolute act of divine power; with regard to all others, God has made their eternal destiny dependent on their own actions. No one of us will be saved merely because Christ died for us; or because He founded the Catholic Church as the church of salvation, and made us its members; or because He has instituted life-giving sacraments; or because God is willing that all should be saved; or because He gives His grace to us all; or because the Blessed Virgin Mary has such power with God; or because the priest can forgive sins. No one will be saved because he has had inspirations of grace, good instruction, good desires, and good purposes. Despite all this, one may be damned. For the Holy Spirit has said distinctly and strongly, "Work out your own salvation." It rests, then, with you to save your souls. The grace of God is indeed necessary. You cannot be saved without the death of Christ, or the sacraments of the Catholic Church, or the gifts of the Holy Spirit, or the absolution of the priest, or the patronage of Mary; but all these things are within your reach, they are all in your power. {212} Now, at the time of the Holy Mission, they are offered to you with especial liberality. God, on His part, has done, one may almost say, all that He could do to make your work easy to you. To make this an acceptable time, it only remains, then, that you do your part. And this you can do. However great your difficulties, however great your temptations, however strong your passions, however importunate your evil companions, may be; however deeply seated your bad habits; you can, each one can, by the help which God is now willing to render him, save his soul.

From this first remark I pass to the immediate subject of my discourse--the obligation of securing our salvation. As we can save our souls, so we ought to do it. Nay, this is our only, our all-engrossing duty; and I shall found my proof of it, my brethren, on this plain rule of common sense and reason, that one ought to bestow that degree of attention and care on any affair which it deserves and requires. Everyone feels that it would be an occupation unworthy of a man to spend his time in writing letters in the sand, or in chasing butterflies from flower to flower; because these occupations are in themselves vain and profitless. Again, anyone would feel it unreasonable, in the father of a family, to set out on a party of pleasure at the very moment that his presence was necessary to arrest some disaster that threatened his family: not because it was wrong in itself for him to seek recreation, but because a higher obligation was then urging. Now, applying these principles, on which everyone acts in matters of daily life, to the matter in question; I say that you are bound to give to the work of your salvation your utmost care and attention, because the care of your souls supremely deserves and urgently requires it. {213} Take in, my brethren, the whole scope of my proposition. There is a work of great consequence before you. I do not speak as the world speaks. The world tells you that your business here is to get gain, to build a house, to rear a family, to leave a name, to enjoy yourself. I say, no. Your business is to seek the grace of God, and to keep it. The world says: seek friends, fall in with the stream, court popularity, do as others do, act on the principles which receive the sanction of the multitude, and a little religion in addition to this will be no bad thing. I say, no. Seek first the kingdom of God and His justice. Fathers, mothers, sons and daughters, masters, servants, ye great ones and ye humble ones of the earth, you are all engaged in the same enterprise. God has intrusted to each one of you a soul. He has intrusted it to _you_, not to another. You cannot devolve the responsibility of it on another. That is your care on the earth. Whatever cares of other things you may have, you cannot neglect that one work, you cannot interrupt or postpone it, you cannot put any thing in competition with it. If there is a question between any temporal advantages, however great, or suffering, however severe, on one side, and the salvation of your soul on the other; you must renounce these benefits, embrace those tortures. If you must consent to see your family die by inches of starvation, or put your salvation in proximate and certain jeopardy, you must see them starve first. I do not say the case is likely to happen. God rarely allows men to be reduced to such straits. But if the case should occur in the line of duty, nay, if the alternative was presented, of converting the whole world on one side, and avoiding a mortal sin on the other, we must rather consult the welfare of our own souls than that of others; and this not from selfishness, but because God has intrusted to us our own souls, and not the souls of others. {214} And how do I establish my proposition? I waive, my brethren, my right to appeal to your faith, to speak by the authority of Christ, Who is infallible and supreme, and Who has a right to challenge your absolute and instantaneous submission and obedience. I postpone the consideration of that love which we owe to our Maker, and which ought to make us prompt and willing to do His will. I take my stand on the ground of reason and conscience, and I appeal to you to say whether they do not sustain my proposition. I make you the judges. It is your own case, it is true, yet there are points in which even self-love cannot blind our sense of faith; and I ask you whether the care of our soul's salvation should not be our sovereign and supreme care in life, if it be true that the interests of the soul surpass all others in importance, and can not be secured without our continual and earnest efforts. Your prompt and decided answer in the affirmative leaves me nothing more to do than to establish the fact that the salvation of your souls is in fact so important a task. I will do so by proving three points: first, that our souls are our most precious possession; second, that we are in great danger of losing them; and third, that the loss of our souls is the greatest of all losses, and is irreparable.

Our souls are our most precious possession. My brethren, we have souls. When God created man He formed his body out of the slime of the earth. It was as yet but a lifeless form, a beautiful statue, but God breathed upon it and man became a living soul. This soul, the spiritual substance which God breathed into the body, was formed according to an eternal decree of the Blessed Trinity, in resemblance to the Divine essence; that is, endowed with a spiritual nature and possessed of understanding and free will. "Let us make man to our image and likeness," said God; and the sacred writer tells us "God created man to His own image;" and, as if to give greater emphasis to so important an announcement, he repeats, "To the image of God created He him." [Footnote 11]

[Footnote 11: Gen. i. 26.]

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Man therefore is a compound being, consisting of a body and soul, allied to the material world through the material body which he possesses, and to the world above us, that is, to God and the angels, through his soul. Now, the excellence of all creatures is in proportion to the degree in which they partake of the perfections of God, who is the Author of all being and all goodness. All existing substances partake of His perfection in some degree; if they do not show forth His moral attributes, at least they reflect His omnipotence; and therefore Holy Scripture calls on the fishes of the sea, the beasts of the earth, the fowls of the air, the sun, moon, stars, earth, mountains and hills, to join with angels and men in blessing God. But the superiority of angels and souls over material creatures consists in this, that they partake of the moral perfections of God: they show us not only what God can do, but what He is. Like Him, they are spiritual beings. "_Who makest Thy angels spirits and Thy ministers a burning fire_," says the Psalmist. [Footnote 12]

[Footnote 12: Ps. ciii. 4.]

They are not gross substances as our bodies are, but pure, subtle, immaterial essences. They are immortal like Him--at least so as that they can never die. They do not need food nor sleep. They are not subject to decay, or old age, or death; they are endowed with understanding and free will, to know many of the things that God knows and to love what He loves; but, above all, to know Him and love Him. Hence the value of the soul is really immeasurable, and all the treasures of the earth are not to be compared to it. Take the poorest slave on earth, the most wretched inmate of the darkest prison, the most afflicted sufferer whom disease has reduced to a mass of filth and corruption, and that man's soul is more precious and more glorious than the richest diadem of the greatest monarch; nay, than all the treasures of the whole earth, with all the jewels that are hid in the mines and caves under its surface.

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Our Lord one day permitted St. Catherine of Sienna to see a human soul, and as she gazed transported at its exceeding beauty, He asked her if He had not had good reason to come down from heaven to save such a glorious creature. The saint said the soul was so beautiful that, if one could see it, one would be willing to suffer all possible pains and torments for love of it. My brethren, if, when you go to your homes, you should find in your house an angel with his face as the appearance of lightning, his eyes as a burning lamp, his body as a crystal, and his feet in appearance like to glittering brass, what would you do? Would you not, like St. John, fall down before his feet and adore him? Would you not faint and fall before him, or if you were so strengthened that you could look upon the glorious vision, would you not gaze upon it with deep and loving awe? Well! such a being you will find there, when you go home. It will go hence with you. It will remain there as long as you remain there. It will come away when you come away. This bright being of whom I speak is no visitor in your house, it is an inmate, it rises with you in the morning, accompanies you through the day, is present with you when you eat, is with you in sickness and in health, in life and in death. This bright and glorious being is yours--it is more yours than any thing else in the world, it is the only thing in the world that is really yours--it is yours; poverty cannot strip you of it, death cannot tear it from you; eternity cannot rob you of it. And this being is your soul, your precious, spiritual, immortal soul. All things else will forsake you, property, family, friends; but this will never forsake you. It is yours. It is yours inalienably and for ever. Your greatest, your only wealth and treasure. Oh, inestimable dignity! We are told of some saints, who used to make an act of respect to everyone they met, by way of saluting his guardian angel, and of others that they bowed down before those whom they knew, by the spirit of prophecy, would shed their blood for the faith. {217} But have we not cause enough to honor man, in the fact that he has a soul, an immortal soul, a soul which shall one day see God? Shall we not feel an ample respect for each other, my brethren, when we think of what we are? Who could ever speak an impure word before another if he thought of the dignity of a human soul? What young man would ever dare to go to scenes where he would blush that his mother or sister should be present, if he remembered that he took his own soul along with him? Who would lie, or cheat, or steal, if he thought of his soul? A great and overpowering thought; how does it belittle all the pride and ostentation of the external world! Come, my brethren, let us go into the streets of this city and look around us. There are stately buildings and proud equipages and gay and brilliant shops--but what are all these to the concourse of human beings, the crowds of immortal souls who are, day by day, making an immortal destiny. There is the old man tottering along on his stick, there is the little child on the way to school, there is the rich lady with her jewels and costly fabrics, there is the laborer with his spade setting out to his daily toil; and each one has a soul, each one will live forever. Let us strive to take in this great thought. The tide of human beings flows on from morning to evening. New faces continually appear. They come and go. We do not know their history, their destiny; but we know that each one has a spiritual nature, is made to the image of God, is possessed of a bright and glorious soul. We shall meet them again. There will come a day when every one of the throng shall meet again every other. New populations; shall come in the place of those who now inhabit the world. The stones of the greatest buildings shall be reduced to powder, nay, the world itself will be reduced to ashes, and each soul that now lives in this city will survive in its own individuality and immortality. There are some, it is true, who do not seem as if they had souls. {218} There are women who have given themselves up to practices of uncleanness by profession, and men who habitually wallow in drunkenness and sensuality; and the conversation of such persons is so horrid and obscene, their countenance so devoid of the least trace of shame or self-respect, they seem from having neglected their souls almost to have lost them. They seem really to have become the brutes whose passions they have imitated. No! even they have souls. They cannot be brutes if they would. They are men, they are made to the image of God, and so they must ever remain. A surgeon [Footnote 13] was once called to attend a man who was afflicted with cancer.

[Footnote 13: The surgeon alluded to was Dr. Baker, and a
faithful portrait of the man was taken, which was preserved
in the family.]

This terrible disease had affected one entire side of the face, and had made in it the most dreadful ravages. The cheek was one shapeless mass of putrid flesh; the nose undistinguishable from the other features, the eye completely eaten out, and the bones of the forehead perforated like a sponge; but on turning the face of the man, the other side presented a wonderful contrast, being in nowise affected, and showing no trace of sickness except an excessive pallor. The countenance and features were of a noble dignity and beauty, and strikingly like the expression ordinarily observed in the pictures of our Blessed Lord. So it is with men's souls. Sin has eaten deeply into them, has deprived them of comeliness, has almost defaced the form they once had, has blinded their minds and deprived them of the interior eye; but still there remain traces of nobility, of the image of God. O man, whoever thou art, however deeply sunk in sin; I care not whether your body be as filthy as the dunghill or the sink, or your heart be the prey of every passion and the slave of every vice; you have a soul: you have indeed lost much, but you have much remaining; you have that which is of more value than all else in the world--that which is absolutely of more value than all material things; and which to you is of more value than all spiritual things, than all created things in earth and heaven. {219} You are great and noble and spiritual and immortal--you are capable of virtue, happiness, and heaven--you are like God, you resemble Him. His image is stamped upon you. And how little you realize this! Alas, you will realize it at the hour of death.

But, secondly, we are in danger of losing our souls. To lose them in the literal sense is of course impossible, for I have said that they are immortal, and will remain with us forever. It would be in some way a happiness to the wicked, if they could, in this sense, lose their souls, for it would free them from the torment of a miserable eternity. But that cannot be: the loss of our souls of which we speak is the loss of God, who alone is the sufficient and satisfying object of our affection. "Thou hast made our souls for Thee," says St. Augustine, "and they are not at peace until they rest in Thee." The loss of our souls is occasioned by sin, which separates us from God, but it is not final and irremediable until death overtakes us in this state of estrangement. The danger of losing our souls, then, is the danger of falling into mortal sin and dying in that state. Now, the danger of sinning is, in the present course of God's providence, inseparable from the possession of a soul. Free will is a high prerogative, which, while it fits us for the highest state possible, renders sin also possible. As soon as God created the angels, a large part of them rebelled against Him, and were cast out of heaven. As soon as He had made man, our first parents fell and were cast out of Paradise. It is only a rational moral being that can sin; because sin is the voluntary transgression of the Divine law, and therefore cannot be committed by any creature but one who has a will, that is, intellect and the power of choosing. Almost all the material acts of sin which men commit are committed by brutes also. {220} See the rage of the tiger, the thieving of the fox, the impurity of the goat, the treachery of the adder, the gluttony of the swine. But there are no sins in these brutes, because they have mere blind instincts. Man, however, has reason and a will, and therefore he is bound to control the instincts which he shares in common with the brutes, and his failure to control these constitutes sin. He has a soul which belongs to God, and of which God is the sovereign, and his failure to control his passions is rebellion against God, and pride. Further, as the possession of a soul renders sin possible, so the proclivity to evil, which we inherit from the fall, and the temptations of the world, render it exceedingly probable. I do not know a more striking illustration of this, than the fear which the saints have ordinarily had about their salvation. Their sense of the value of the soul; their deep knowledge of their own hearts, and of the root of evil that was in them, the weakness of man without grace, and the uncertainty of grace; have kept men of the greatest sanctity, men who have wrought miracles, who have cast out devils, who have raised the dead to life, always anxious about their perseverance, always begging of God the grace never to to allow them to commit a mortal sin. But if these reasons are enough to make saints tremble, what reasons have not ordinary Christians to fear! A chain of evil habits, unguarded intercourse with men, the constant contact with the world, how fearfully do they augment the risk of losing our souls, which all run necessarily in this world. Why, listen to the conversation of ten men, taken almost at random in this city; for half an hour walk through the city, from one end to the other; and see if the occasions of sin are not more frequent than can be uttered. This is deeply felt by men of the world themselves. It makes them despair. They say there is no possibility of saving their souls in the world. They say it is all in vain to try--that sin meets them at every step. It is not, of course, true that sin is inevitable. If it were, it would not be sin. But it is true that the atmosphere of the world is fearfully surcharged with evil. {221} There is many a home in this city, many a place of public resort, many a den of secret iniquity, many a gaming-room, and drinking-house, over which there is an inscription legible to the angels, written in letters of fire, "The gate of hell." There are many places where souls are sold daily and hourly, and oh, at what a price! Thirty pieces of silver was the price offered for our Redeemer, but the soul is often sold for one, indeed, often for something still more miserable--for the gratification of an impure passion, for the indulgence of revenge, for a day's frolic. It is true the Evil One does not carry on his traffic under its own name and openly--that it is well concealed under specious pretences; but the danger is only so much the greater. The occasions of sin are everywhere spread under our feet like traps and snares, and encircling us on all sides like nets. But even this is not the worst. The loss of God is not only possible because of our free will, probable because of the corruption of the world, but, in many cases, already certain. Men, on all sides, have lost God, and need only an unforeseen death to make certain the loss of their souls. Who can tell how many are living in a state of mortal sin, month by month, day by day, year by year? They go on securely, smilingly; externally all goes on smoothly; they are successful and seemingly happy; they have plans for many years to come; but a voice has spoken, "Thou fool, this night shall they require thy soul of thee." Oh! how many died in mortal sin last year, how many will die in mortal sin next year! It needs only a little thing, a false step, a railway accident, an attack of fever, a change in the weather, a fit of apoplexy, and they are launched into eternity without warning and without preparation--death sealing for perdition those whom it finds deprived of the grace of God. Who, I say, can wonder at this, when he looks around him, and sees how little the soul is valued? O my God! it is enough to make the heart sick. {222} Let us take a Catholic family, for I will not take things at the worst. A father has a family of children. He must send them to school or college. He finds an institution which pleases him, and he will tell you that his children are doing excellently, and that the only drawback is that the school is Protestant or infidel. Is not this to betray the souls of his own children? Sunday comes: it is true that there is the obligation to hear Mass, but some inducement offers itself to idleness or dissipation, and no Mass is heard, because it is only the soul which is injured by the omission. Monday comes: there is an opportunity of making some little gain in an unlawful way. What does it matter? We must get rich, and do like our neighbors. The sons grow up in ignorance, and spend their time mostly at the gaming-table or the place of carousal. The daughters grow up. They must be led by their mother to every scene of folly and sin, because the custom of society requires it. Easter comes: the young people do not like to go to confession, and they add only one sin more, to those with which their hearts are already charged. And then the parents die, and the children come forward to take their places, and to bring up their children in still greater neglect and laxity. Thus Catholics are trained for the world, and souls for hell; and if we take into the account the graver forms of vice, and consider how many are entirely the slaves of passion, we shall not wonder that there are so few that shall be saved. One of the Fathers, speaking of the great responsibility of the priesthood, dilates on the impossibility of a priest's being saved without great exertion and watchfulness. But if it be difficult for a priest to save his soul; what shall I say of the laity, when I consider the prevailing habits of Catholics. It hardly seems to me too strong to say, that to me it would seem a miracle for any such one to be saved. How will men attain that which they do not care for, to which they give no thought? And so it is with the salvation of the soul. Who thinks about it? Who takes any pains for it? Who makes any sacrifice for it? {223} The soul is more precious than any thing else, and yet every thing else is put before it. It is trampled on in business, betrayed in friendships, choked by domestic cares, imprisoned in the filthy bodies of the licentious, and, as it were, annihilated in the drunkard. It is forgotten, neglected, outraged, despised, ignored. It is not so much sold as thrown away. The body is cared for with the most supreme solicitude. Every pain and ache is relieved. Long journeys are undertaken to recover health that is lost or only threatened. The most celebrated physicians are sought after with eagerness. But the soul is allowed for weeks and months and years to go on in a state of spiritual death. Confession, prayer, the sacraments, means so easy, means truly infallible in their efficacy, means within the reach of all, are neglected, on pretences the most frivolous, without reason, and almost without motive. "_Who will give water to my head, and a fountain of tears to my eyes, and I will weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people?_" [Footnote 14]

[Footnote 14: Jer. ix. 1.]

The loss of our souls is the greatest of all evils, because it is irremediable. I will not go into all that this point contains. It is too great a subject for us at present. I will not dwell on all that is meant by the loss of our souls, but I will consider it simply as it is, the failure of reaching our end and destiny, and as irreparable. And to help us to realize this, I will summon as a witness one who was the first to come short of his destiny, the devil. We do not know how long it was after the creation of the angels that the devil sinned and fell; but certainly there was a time when he was a pure, bright spirit, rejoicing in the greatness of his endowments, and with a hope full of immortality. But there came a moment of darkness. He sinned: he was judged: he was cast from heaven, and he sank into hell. There he is now. He is confined in chains and darkness. The tree has fallen; and as it has fallen to the north or to the south, so must it lie forever. {224} Other mistakes may be rectified, but this never. A loss in business may be made good by greater exertions and prudence; a broken-down constitution may be repaired by art and care; a lost reputation may be recovered by integrity and consistency in well-doing; earthly sorrow may be healed by time and other objects; sin may be rooted out by penance; but the loss of the soul is an evil complete and irreparable, and brings with it an undying remorse. "_A tree hath hope: if it be cut down, it groweth green again, and the bough thereof sprout. If its root be old in the earth and its stock be dead in the dust, at the scent of water it shall spring and bring forth leaves as when it was first planted._" [Footnote 15] But man, when he shall be dead and stripped and consumed, I pray you, where is he? The cry of despair which the first lost soul uttered when he made the terrible discovery that he was really lost, is still ringing in the abodes of the damned, and the keenness of his misery is still unabated. Ages shall go on, the last day shall come, and an eternity shall follow it, and that cry of despair will still be as thrilling, and that anguish as new and as irremediable.

[Footnote 15: Job xiv. 7, 8, 9.]

As reasonable men, I have appealed to you: what is your decision? What does reason, what does conscience, what does self-interest say? You would not be listless if I were to speak to you of your property, your health, your reputation, but now I speak to you of your souls--your precious, immortal souls--your own, your greatest good--a good that you are in danger of losing--the good whose loss is overwhelming and irretrievable. They are in your hands for life or for death. It is said that to one of the heathen soothsayers, who was famed for his skill in discovering hidden things, a person once came with a living bird in his hand, and asked the seer to tell whether it was living or dead. The inquirer intended to crush the bird with his hand if the wise man should say it was living, and to let it fly if he should say it was dead, and thus in either case to put the pretended magician to shame. {225} But the soothsayer suspected the design, and answered: "The bird is in your hand--to kill it or to let it live." So I answer you, my brethren. Your souls are in your hands, to kill them or to let them live. You can crush them in your grasp and smother their convictions, or you can open your hand and let them fly forth in freedom and gladness. Oh, have pity on your souls! Your souls are yours. No one will be the loser by the loss of your souls but yourselves. God will not be the less happy if you are damned; the saints will not lose any of their happiness if you fail of your salvation; the angels will be as light and blissful; the earth will go on just the same as when you were on it; only you, you yourselves will feel it, and you will feel it hopelessly. Ah, then, take pity on your souls! You will one day wish that you had done it. One of the courtiers of Francis the First of France, when he was dying, said: "Oh! how many reams of paper have I written in the service of my monarch! Oh! that I had only spent one quarter of an hour in the service of my soul!" A quarter of an hour! And you have days and weeks. Oh, then, once more I beg you to take pity on your souls! If you have never before seriously taken to heart your eternal interest, at least do so now. Improve the time of this mission. It is the time of grace. It may be to you the last call, the last opportunity. Make, then, a good use of this time. Set aside the thought of other things, and give yourself to this alone. Now you have an opportunity of making your peace with God, and saving your soul. Think, now the hour has come, foreseen by God from all eternity, when, answering to the call of grace, I shall regain His favor, which, alas! I have lost too long. What shall keep me back? See what is the difficulty, and weigh it in the scales with your immortal soul. Is confession difficult? A confession before the whole universe will be more so. Is it hard to lose a little gain? It will be more so to lose your soul. {226} Is it hard to break a tie of long standing? It will be hard to break every tie, and to live in eternal desolation. Is it hard to bear the remarks of companions? But how will you bear the taunts and jeers of the devil and his angels? And those very companions who have led you to hell will taunt you for your base compliance to them. Let nothing, then, keep you back.

* * *

(Peroration. according to the circumstances.)

----------------

Sermon II.

Mortal Sin.

(Mission Sermon.)

"Know thou, and see,
that it is an evil and a bitter thing for thee,
to have left the Lord thy God."
--Jer. II. 19.

In the book of the prophet Ezechiel it is related that God showed to the prophet in a vision the city of Jerusalem. It was all stretched out before him in its greatness and in its beauty. The magnificent temple was there, with its stones and spires glittering in the sun; its streets were full of people, prosperous and happy; a people who were in possession of the true religion, who had been adopted by God as His children, and over whom He had exercised a special protection. It was a beautiful sight; beautiful to the eye, and well fitted to excite the most religious emotions in the mind. But there was something that checked these feelings of pleasure and delight. God permitted the prophet to see the interior of that city. He unfolded before him the secret abominations that were practised there. {227} He showed him the idolatries and impurities to which his chosen people the Jews had delivered themselves up, and then in wrath and indignation God complained of the people and said: "_The iniquity of the house of Israel and of Juda is exceeding great; and the land is filled with blood; and the city is filled with perverseness, for they have said: The Lord hath forsaken the earth, and the Lord seeth not_." [Footnote 16] Then the joy of the prophet was turned in to sorrow.

[Footnote 16: Ezechiel ix. 9.]

To-night, my brethren, a vision meets my eye hardly less beautiful than that which met the eye of the prophet. How beautiful a sight is this church and this congregation! This church is raised to the honor of the true God. Its walls are salvation and its gates praise. And this congregation, beautiful as it is in the assemblage of a multitude of living, intelligent beings--where I see the old man with his crown of silver hair, the young man and the young woman in the freshness of their bloom and youth--is much more so regarded as a Catholic congregation, as professing the true faith. But tell me--for I cannot look into your hearts as the prophet did--tell me, does God see, beneath this beautiful, outward appearance, the abominations of iniquity? Does God this night see in this church some heart that is in mortal sin? Some Catholic who has renounced, if not his faith, at least the practice of his faith? Some child of passion who has swerved from the path of justice, lost his conscience and the sense of sin, and given himself to the service of the devil? Are there any here to-night in mortal sin? There may be. I will confess, and you will not think me uncharitable in doing so, I believe there are some. I know not how many, but from what I know of the world, I believe there are some here, in this congregation, whose consciences tell them they are in mortal sin. Oh! then, let me tell them what they have done. Let me show them what mortal sin is. Let me prove to them that it is an evil and a bitter thing for them to have left the Lord their God. This is my subject to-night. I will show you the dreadfulness of mortal sin: first, from its nature; secondly, from its effects on the soul; and thirdly, from its eternal consequences.

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You know, my dear brethren, that we were created to love and serve God in this life, and to be happy forever with Him in heaven. God has given us this world, and our own nature, all that we have or are; and He is willing that we should enjoy the world and act out our nature. It is true, there are certain restrictions which He has given us. These restrictions are contained in His law, embodied in the ten commandments. In these commandments God has circumscribed our liberty, has put limits to what we may do; but I need not say that these limits have been so fixed, not in order to abridge our happiness, but really to increase it. So the case stands on God's part. But now, on our part, we have an inclination to disregard the limits God has put on our use of the world, and to place our happiness in the creature. The world smiles before us, and we think this or that enjoyment would make us happy. It may often happen that the very enjoyment and comfort is one which God has forbidden; but no matter, we are strongly inclined to seize it, nevertheless, and to gratify our desire in spite of the prohibition. This inclination is what is called concupiscence, and is sometimes exceedingly strong, so that it is very difficult to resist it. God has, however, always given us reason and faith, free will and grace, to enable us to overcome it. This, then, being so, you see that man stands between two claimants: the world on the one hand, inviting him to follow his own corrupt inclinations; on the other, God requiring him to restrain his passions by the rules of virtue and religion. Now, what takes place under such circumstances? Alas, my brethren, I will tell you what too often takes place. I will tell you what takes place so commonly that men take it for granted that it must be so--so commonly that the majority of men cease to wonder at it--what happens every day, every hour, every minute. It happens that men listen to the voice of passion, renounce virtue and reason, stifle grace, and turn away from God, to satisfy their desire for the creature. This is what happens daily, hourly, momentarily; and this is mortal sin, which is in its nature the greatest of all evils, considered in its relation both to God and man, as I am about to show you in this first part of my discourse.

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Understand me, my brethren: the sin I am going to speak of is _mortal_ sin. I do not say that every transgression of the law of God is mortal. You know that it is not so. You know that there some actions which men commit, which are forbidden, but by which a man does not mean really to give up the friendship of God--some sins which are not committed with full deliberation, some sins in which the matter is very small, some sins which come more from ignorance or frailty than from malice; and which God, who sees things just as they are, does not regard as grievous. He is displeased with them, but not mortally offended. He punishes them, but not with the utter withdrawal of His favor. If He did, who of us could be saved? But every sin in which the soul sees clearly that she must choose between the friendship of God and the gratification of unlawful passion--in which, with full deliberation, in full defiance of any grave precept of God or the Holy Church, she obeys the call of corrupt nature, every such sin is mortal, that, is, grievously offends God and cuts off the soul from His grace. Do you want to know what a mortal sin is? It is an insult offered to God--Almighty God. One trembles to say it, but so it is. Yes! if you have committed one mortal sin, you have insulted Almighty God. And there is every thing in the act to make the insult deep and deadly. The greatness of an insult is measured by the comparative importance of the persons between whom the offence passes. If one should come into the church and strike the bishop on his throne, would you not feel more indignant than if a common man in the street were the object of the insult? You have heard how Pius the Sixth was insulted; dragged about from place to place, until he died; and did you not feel indignant that such outrages were committed on the person of God's vicegerent? {230} Now, when you committed a mortal sin you insulted, not the vicegerent of God, but God himself. You contemned His authority and despised His greatness. Would you know Who it is Whom you have offended? Look at that mountain trembling with earthquakes, and breathing forth smoke and flame, hear the thunder roll around its head, and see the lightning flash! Mark the people, how they fall back affrighted and terrified! What is the cause of these convulsions of nature, and this terror of the people? God is speaking. He spake in Mount Sinai and the earth trembled before Him; and it is His words then spoken that you have defied, O sinner! Are you not afraid of His vengeance Whom you have offended? Open the heavens and see the angels, thousands of thousands and ten thousand times ten thousand, prostrate before Him. See all the saints adoring Him--the Blessed Virgin Mary herself trembling before His greatness. And you insult Him! What are you? A creature, a dependant, a slave. What would a master do if his slave should strike him? And you, a servant, a slave, a mere nothing, have not hesitated to raise your hand against Almighty God!

And for what have you done all this? For the pleasure of sin. You have preferred a vile, temporary gratification, to the favor of Almighty God. When you sinned, there was on one side the beauty of God, the beauty of perfection, the splendor of grace, the joy of saints, peace of conscience, heaven; on the other there was the false pleasure of sin. You weighed them in the balance one with another, and, oh folly! in your estimation a moment's sin outweighed God and heaven and eternity. This is what the Almighty complains of in Holy Scripture: "_They violated me among my people for a handful of barley and a piece of bread to kill souls which should not die_." [Footnote 17]

[Footnote 17: Ezech. xiii. 19.]

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Oh! for how small a thing it is that you have been content to lose God--a few dollars of unjust gain, human respect, the gratification of revenge, a night's debauch, a half-hour's indulgence of sinful thoughts, a forbidden word, an intoxicating glass: for this you have thrown to the winds God and heaven. What has He not done for you? He takes care of you and gives you all you have. It is He who warms you by the sun, refreshes you by the air, gladdens and nourishes you by the green field. It is He who brought you through the dangerous time of childhood, Who led you up through manhood, Who redeemed you by His blood, made you a Catholic, and gave you your parents, friends, every blessing, and the hope of heaven beyond this life, and you have grieved and hated Him. See Jesus Christ before the Jews. He has spent His life in doing them good. He has labored for them and is about to die for them. And now they spit on Him, they buffet Him, they crown Him with thorns and bow the knee in mockery before Him. Nay, O sinner! thou art the Jew who did this. Thou by thy mortal sin hast made him an object of scorn. Thou hast spit upon Him, thou hast stabbed Him to the heart. Would you excuse a son from the guilt of parricide who should strike a knife to his father's heart, and should miss his aim? So, the sinner is no less guilty of the crime against the life of God because God cannot die. If God could die or cease to be, mortal sin is that which would kill Him. You have aimed a blow at the life of your best benefactor, of your God. And this is what passes in the world for a light thing. This is what men laugh at and boast of over their cups. This is what the world excuses, and takes for a matter of course; yes, this is what even boys and girls, as they grow up, desire not to be ignorant of--that they may know how to offend God. This is sin, so easily committed and so often committed, so quickly committed and so soon forgotten. Such it is in the sight of God and the holy angels. O sinner! when you smile, often when you are rejoicing over your wicked pleasure, the heavens are black overhead, and God is angry, and the angel of vengeance stands at your side with a glittering spear, that he may plunge it in your heart. {232} While you are careless, heaven and earth are groaning over your guilt. "_Wonder, O ye heavens, and be in amazement_," says God by the prophet. "_My people have done two evils. They have left me, the fountain of living water, and have digged out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water." "Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord hath spoken. I have brought up children and exalted them, but they have despised me. The ox knoweth his owner and the ass his master's crib, but Israel hath not known me, and my people hath not understood. Woe to the sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a wicked seed, ungracious children: they have forsaken the Lord, they have blasphemed the Holy one of Israel, they have gone away backward_." [Footnote 18]

[Footnote 18: Isai. i. 2, 3, 4.]