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 wretched pleasures which caused me to lose Thy friendship. All these feelings of sorrow for past sins, are graces which come from Thee, and make me hope that Thou art willing to pardon and to save me. Since, therefore, with all my sins, Thou hast not abandoned me, but hast wished to save me, behold, Lord, I give myself entirely to Thee; I repent beyond every other evil that of having offended Thee; and I would give my life many times over, if it were possible, rather than lose Thy grace. I love Thee, my Highest Good; I love Thee, my Jesus, Who once died for me, and I hope through Thy Blood that Thou wilt never more permit me to be separated from Thee. No, my Jesus, never more would I lose Thee. I would ever love Thee in life; I would love Thee in death; and I would love Thee for all eternity. Do Thou ever keep me, and do Thou increase my love towards Thee; and this I ask through Thy merits.

It is, moreover, necessary to endeavour each hour that we live to be in such a frame of mind as we should like to be when dying: "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord." (Rev. xiv. 13.) S. Ambrose observes that those persons die a happy death who, when the hour of death arrives, are found already dead to the world, even to those things from which death will come to sever them by force. So that we must from this hour accept the spoiling of our inheritances, separations from our relatives, and from all the things of this world. If we do not do this willingly in life, we shall have to do it of necessity in death; but then with great grief and peril to our eternal salvation. And for this cause S. Augustine warns us that, in order to die in peace, it is necessary to settle our worldly interests during life, and now to dispose in a proper way of those earthly goods we shall have to leave, so that in death our time may be given up to the uniting of ourselves with God. At that time, our thoughts should be of God and Paradise only. Those last moments are too precious to be wasted upon the things of earth. The crown of the elect is perfected in death, for perchance it is then that we merit most