Page:The Eternal Priesthood (4th ed).djvu/287

Rh lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of My mouth." And to how many of us who are at ease in self-complacency the Divine Voice is ever saying, and often in vain, "Because thou sayest, I am rich and made wealthy, and have need of nothing, and knowest not that thou art wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, I counsel thee to buy of Me gold fire-tried, that thou mayst be made rich, and mayst be clothed in white garments, and that the shame of thy nakedness may not appear; and anoint thy eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayst see." If the sadder deathbeds here supposed be many, it is because they are of many kinds. All deaths of the penitent and the fervent are good: and one example is enough.

1. First, there is the death of a sinful priest; perhaps without the last Sacraments, as of an outcast, from whom it justly takes that which he seemeth to have; or, perhaps, and more fearful still, with the last Sacraments, but received in sacrilege. Next to the immutable malice of Satan is the hardness of an impenitent priest. Priests who fall, if they do not return to God with greater facility and speed than other men, may become blinder and more hardened in heart than