Page:Sermons for all the Sundays in the year.djvu/403

 swords shall pierce their hearts. "Evil shall catch the unjust man unto destruction." (Ps. cxxxix, 12.) At present the lovers of the world seek after banquets, dances, games, and scenes of laughter and joy; but, at the time of death this laughter and joy, as St. James says, shall be turned into mourning and affliction. "Let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your joy into sorrow." (St. James iv. 5.) Of this we see frequent examples. A young man who entertains his companions by sallies of wit and by immodest jests, is seized with a severe illness. His friends come to see him, and find him. overwhelmed with grief and melancholy. He indulges no more in jests, or laughter, or conversation. If he speaks at all, his words are words of terror or despair. His friends ask why he speaks so despondingly why he is so melancholy. Have courage, they say: your illness is not dangerous. They endeavour to inspire hope and cheerfulness: but he is silent. And how can he be cheerful when he feels his conscience burdened with many sins, sees that he must soon appear before Jesus Christ to give an account of his entire life, and that he has much reason to fear that he shall receive the sentence of eternal death? He will then say: O fool that I have been! Oh! that I had loved God! Had I loved him, I should not now find myself in these straits, in, this anguish. Oh! that I had time to tranquillize the troubles of my conscience? Let us pass to the second point. Second Point. Oh! that I had time to repair the evil I have done! but now time is at an end. 5. Oh! that I had time, he will say, to repair the past! But, when will he say this? When the oil in the lamp is consumed: when he is on the point of entering into eternity. One of the greatest causes of the distress and anguish of the careless Christian at the hour of death, is the remembrance of the bad use he has made of the time in which he ought to have acquired merits for heaven, and in which he has accumulated merits for hell. Oh! that I had time! Do you seek for time? You have lost so many nights in gaming, and so many years in indulging the senses, without ever thinking of