Page:Sermons for all the Sundays in the year.djvu/349

 is sung for his repose, and after Mass, the ” Libera ;" and the function is concluded with these words: Requiescat in pace May he rest in peace. May he rest in peace, if he died in peace with God; but, if he has died in enmity with God, what peace what peace can he enjoy? He shall have no peace as long as God shall be God. The sepulchre is then opened, the corpse is thrown into it; the grave is covered with a tombstone; and he is left there to rot and to be the food of worms. It is thus that the scene of this world ends for each of us. His relatives put on mourning; but they first divide among themselves the property which he has left. They shed an occasional tear for two or three days, and afterwards forget him. And what shall become of him? If he be saved, he shall be happy for ever; if damned, he must be miserable for eternity. THE man who indulges in impurity is like a person labouring under the dropsy. The latter is so much tormented by thirst, that the more he drinks the more thirsty he becomes. Such, too, is the nature of the accursed vice of impurity; it is never satiated. "As," says St. Thomas of Villanova, ” the more the dropsical man abounds in moisture, the more he thirsts; so, too, is it with the waves of eternal pleasures." I will speak Today of the vice of impurity, and will show, in the first point, the delusion of those who say that this vice is but a small evil; and, in the second, the delusion of those who say, that God takes pity on this sin, and that he does not punish it. First Point. Delusion of those who say that sins against purity are not a great evil. 1. The unchaste, then, say that sins contrary to