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 treated better than his proud master. What, vain and idle Christian! will become of your comforts? Will they, perhaps, go into the house of your eternity? And what art you bringing with you thither? Nothing? Alas! how will it be with you then? What have you to live on during a long eternity, where you shalt find no one to give or lend you anything; where every one must live on what he has brought with him; where there is no possibility of working to earn anything: for there is the night of which Christ speaks in the Gospel: "The night comes when no man can work."

Now is the time for us to make provision for our souls, that they may be able to live there forever. What we neglect now we shall never be able to do hereafter. "Therefore, while we have time, let us work good," as St. Paul exhorts us. How many years have I already spent in this world? What a long beautiful time I have had of it during all those years! But where are the virtues, the good works, the merits that I should have collected and sent before me into the house of my eternity? Alas! if my journey were now brought to an end, and the great account-book, in which are written all my thoughts, words, and actions, and all the years, months, weeks, days, and moments of my life if that book were now opened before the judgment-seat, and examined so as to separate the good from the bad, the useless from the meritorious, what would then remain over for my soul? The years of my childhood, during which I lived without the use of reason, are all blotted out; I find nothing in them to live on during eternity. The time I have spent in eating, drinking, amusing myself, dressing, idling about, all without the good intention, all these are blotted out; they bring me in nothing! The good works that I have performed in the state of mortal sin, no matter how numerous they may be, are all blotted out too; my soul can expect no profit from them for all eternity! And if that is the case, what time will remain to me in which I have done something for my soul and served God? Ah, how little I have thought of this hitherto, although every hour the stroke of the clock warned me, and as it were, called into my ear: thou art again an hour nearer to your eternity; what good have you done during this hour? what merits have you gained?

Alas! how great, how deplorable the stupidity of us mortals!