Page:Sermons for all the Sundays in the year.djvu/116

 thus with Cain, who, after having killed his brother Abel, was seized with fear, and said: ”Every one, therefore, that findeth me shall kill me." (Gen. iv. 14.) The Lord assured him that no one should injure him: ”The Lord said to him: ”No; it shall not be so” (v. 15.) But, notwithstanding this assurance, Cain, pursued by his own sins, was, as the Scripture attests, always flying from one place to another “He dwelt a fugitive on the earth." (v. 16.) 8. Moreover, sin brings with it remorse of conscience that cruel worm that gnaws incessantly, and never dies. ”Their worm shall not die." (Isa Ixvi. 24.) If the sinner goes to a festival, to a comedy, to a banquet, his conscience continually reproaches him, saying: Unhappy man! you have lost God; if you were now to die, what should become of you? The torture of remorse of conscience, even in the present life, is so great that, to free themselves from it, some persons have put an end to their lives Judas, through despair, hanged himself. A certain man who had killed an infant, was so much tormented with remorse that he could not rest. To rid himself of it he entered into a monastery; but finding no peace even there, he went before a judge, acknowledged his crime, and got himself condemned to death. 9. God complains of the injustice of sinners in leaving him, who is the fountain of all consolation, to plunge themselves into fetid and broken cisterns, which can give no peace. ”For my people have done two evils; they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and have digged to themselves cisterns broken cisterns that can hold no water." (Jer. ii. 13.) You have, the Lord says to sinners, refused to serve me, your God, in peace. Unhappy creatures! you shall serve your enemies in hunger, and thirst, and nakedness, and in want of every kind. “Because thou didst not serve the Lord thy God with joy and gladness, .... thou shalt serve thy enemy in hunger, and thirst, and nakedness, and in want of all things." (Deut. xxviii. 47, 48.) This is what sinners experience every day. What do not the vindictive endure after they have satisfied their revenge by the murder of an enemy? They fly continually