Page:SermonsFromTheLatins.djvu/209

 and the  infinite  mercy  of  God,  but  now  he  reminds him only  of  the  infinite  malice  of  sin  and  the  rigor  of God's  justice. " Are  you  confident  when  a  St.  Jerome, after  having  served  God  faithfully  forty  years, still  trembled  for  his  destiny?  Do  you  presume  to look  forward  to  a  place  in  that  heaven  where  naught defiled  can  ever  enter  in?  Do  you  trust  in  this  sham reconciliation  with  God,  when  the  same  St.  Jerome tells  you  not  one  of  every  ten  thousand  death-bed conversions  is  available  to  salvation;  when  St.  Vincent Ferrer  tells  you  it  is  a  greater  miracle  to  save  a man  after  a  life  of  sin  than  to  raise  the  dead  to  life? The  priest  anoints  your  five  senses  with  a  little  oil; will  that,  think  you,  undo  all  the  mortal  sins  these same  senses  have  perpetrated?  He  absolves  you  and says  he  has  forgiven  you  your  sins;  you  often  questioned his  power  to  do  so  in  the  past,  do  you  admit it  now? He gives  you  a  little  bread  and  says  it  is  the body of  the  Lord;  you  doubted  it  in  the  past,  do  you believe it  now? No, no;  if  these  things  be  true,  not heaven but  hell  will  be  your  portion;  so  that  your only consolation  now  is  in  the  hope  that  priest  and sacraments and  Church  are  all  sham;  that  there  is  no life  beyond  the  grave;  that  there  is  no  God."  Such  are the  thoughts  and  temptations  of  the  dying  man.  And the  agony  of  his  soul  hastens  the  death  of  his  body. His  mind  gives  way  under  the  strain;  he  moans  and shrieks  by  turns  as  though  suffering  a  foretaste  of hell.  He  struggles  with  those  that  hold  him  as though  they  were  demons.  His  eyes  roll  wildly,  his mouth  foams,  he  frequently  buries  his  face  and  teeth