Page:Purgatory00scho.djvu/133

 perform holy actions in a careless manner — that is to say, He will severely punish in Purgatory all negligence in His service.

Among the disciples of St. Bernard, who perfumed the celebrated valley of Clairvaux with the odour of their sanctity, there was one whose negligence sadly contrasted with the fervour of his brethren. Notwithstanding his double character of Priest and of Religious, he allowed himself to sink into a deplorable state of tepidity. The moment of death arrived, and he was summoned before God without having given any token of amendment.

Whilst the Mass of Requiem was being celebrated, a venerable Religious of uncommon virtue learned by an interior light, that though the deceased was not eternally lost, his soul was in a most miserable condition. The following night the soul appeared to him in a sad and wretched condition. "Yesterday," he said, "you learned my deplorable fate; behold now the tortures to which I am condemned in punishment for my culpable tepidity." He then conducted the old man to the edge of a large, deep pit, filled with smoke and flames. "Behold the place," said he, "where the ministers of Divine Justice have orders to torment me; they cease not to plunge me into this abyss, and draw me out only to precipitate me into it again, without giving me one moment's respite."

The next morning the Religious went to St. Bernard to make known to him his vision. The holy Abbot, who had had a similar apparition, received it as a warning from Heaven to his community. He convened a Chapter, and with tearful eyes related the double vision, exhorting his Religious to succour their poor departed brother by their charitable suffrages, and to profit by this sad example to preserve their fervour, and to avoid the least negligence in the service of God.

The following instance is related by M. de Lantages