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our souls the appetite for riches, pleasures, and honours, and to realise to ourselves the wretchedness of our body. And, in truth, if the condition of our body is as wretched as we have seen it to be, "why is earth and ashes proud?" (a) If you are but a sack filled with corruption, and the food of worms, "why doth thy heart elevate thee? why doth thy spirit swell against God?" (b) If you are but dust and nothingness, why do you take it ill that you are despised, and that this nothingness is treated at its proper value? Having nothing to boast of, but sins and failings, why do you desire to be praised? Why do you dread to be humbled, and to be thought of small account? Being nothing but rottenness and corruption, why do you think so highly of yourself, and strive to exalt yourself beyond others? Why are you ambitious of honours, when every honour must, at length, be buried in the grave?

In the meditation on judgment, you shall see your soul torn asunder by contrary and contradictory passions. You shall find it sometimes depressed by sadness, and at another time swollen with inordinate pride; now lashed into unbridled fury, and the next moment burning with the fire of sinful love; now the prey of despondency, and again of envy; never at rest, but always tossed about at the mercy of the passions. Why then, I ask, do you think so highly of your soul, when you know that it is so sinful? Or why do you not, on the contrary, regard it with feelings of contempt, and arm yourself with a holy hatred against yourself?

(a) Eccles. x. 9.

(b) Job xv. 12, 13.

What? Do

I have said, a hatred of yourself. you feel a difficulty in bringing yourself to hate your body that receptacle of all filth, that sewer overflowing with everything that is unclean? Do you never reflect that it is the betrayer of your soul, a very nest of vice, the fomenter of concupiscence the seat of temptations, the enemy of virtue, an ocean ever tossed by the tempests of sin? And do you find a difficulty in hating this monster? For the same reason, do you experience a difficulty in hating your soul, that rebel against God, the foe of heaven, the servant of the passions, the mother of error, the despicable slave of the flesh? How very tender-hearted you are. Come, be strong-minded and resolute. Remember that "he that nourisheth his servant delicately from his childhood, afterwards shall find him stubborn" (a). Therefore "chastise your body, and bring it into subjection" (b), “war against you soul" (c); wean your affections from those silly trifles, those baubles of which death may rob you at any moment, and the love of which will cause you sorrow when you stand before God's judgment seat. (Here form your particular resolutions, and find out what those things are from which you ought principally to detach yourself.)

II. By means of these meditations the soul is not only weaned frem the love of all worldly goods, but, moreover (as the Directory observes), "it conceives a holy fear of the Lord, and is confirmed in its hatred and detestation of sin" (d); and this constitutes the third fruit to be gathered from this consideration.

(a) Proverbs xxix. 21.
(c) 1 Peter ii. 11.

(b) 1 Cor. xi. 27.
(d) Directory, cap. 15 & 39.

And, in truth, whoever seriously reflects that, in the very moment in which he sins, he may be surprised by death, and hurried before the judgmentseat of God to render an account of that same sin to a Judge most wise, inexorable, and most strict; who " can destroy both soul and body into hell” (a): who, I say, that reflects on this, can refrain from exclaiming with Joseph: "How then can I do this wicked thing, and sin against my God?" (b). He would prefer to face a thousand deaths, and endure the most excruciating tortures, rather than commit sin, and offend anew the majesty of God, according to that saying of Ecclesiasticus, "in all thy works remember thy last end, and thou shalt never sin” (c).

These, then, are the three fruits to be gathered from the meditation of Death and Judgment, and which all belong to the first week of the Exercises, viz. 1. The detestation of sin. 2. The knowledge of ourselves. 3. The extirpation of the root of sin; detaching our soul from the things of this world, and principally from the desire of pleasures and of honours, which are the primary source of all sin, and the principal obstacle which the soul has to encounter in its onward progress towards perfection. The parable of the prodigal son, applied practically to ourselves, will be found of much advantage towards attaining this object.

By means of this meditation, the soul, while considering the wretchedness of that poor spendthrift, arrives at the knowledge of itself: "I here perish with hunger". It next proceeds to detest sin: "Father, I have sinned". Finally, like the prodigal, it hurls

(a) Matt. x. 28. (b) Gen. xxxix. 9. (c) Eccles. vii. 40.

aside all obstacles, bursts the fatal chains that bind it, and plucks out the root of sin: "I will arise, and will go to my Father". From this we perceive that the concluding meditation of the first week's exercises is, as it were, the final impulse given to the soul on the road to perfection; so that, all impediments being removed, it may come to the determination of returning to its last end, from which it had strayed by sin, and of serving God in whatsoever manner He may wish, being, for its own part, perfectly indifferent to all things.

SECOND MEDITATION.

On the Particular Judgment.

FIRST POINT.

"We must all be manifested before the judgmentseat of Christ" (a). This sentence admits of no limitation, therefore you, also, must present yourself before that dread tribunal, "for every one shall bear his own burden" (b). Here you shall be judged by a most wise Judge, who cannot be influenced by any entreaties, whose investigation into your conduct will be most searching, and who has been very much irritated by your sins. "He will reprove thee, and set before thy face" (c) all the

(a) 2 Cor. v. 10. (b) Gal. vi. 5. (c) Psalm xlix. 21.

sins committed during your life-time, through means of your five senses, through the three powers of your soul, in thought, in word, and in deed; for “all things that are done, God will bring to judgment, for every error, whether it be good or evil" (a); and 'every idle word that men shall speak, they shall render an account for it in the day of judgment" (b). In a word, all your actions shall be subjected to a most rigid examination; all of them, without a single exception.

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1. This examination will embrace all the faults committed in violation of the precepts of the Decalogue and of the Church, by the seven deadly sins, by the violation of vows, by sins against God, against our neighbour, and against ourselves; nay, even our hidden sins, and those of which we have quite lost all remembrance, shall be inquired into. Alas! how you shall then see yourself clothed all over with sin! sins of different species, countless in number, heinous beyond expression, and of indescribable malice.

2. Moreover, the good that has been omitted will form the subject of investigation. Oh! how terrified you will be, when you are startled by that dread summons: count, weigh, divide! Count up the graces that have been lavished upon you during the course of your life ... O God! how numerous these are! Weigh their price in the balance of the sanctuary. Ah! it is beyond calculation; it Reckon separately the good and bad use which you have made of them. .. Alas, how very much the latter surpasses the former !

is infinite.

(a) Eccles. xii. 36.

(b) Matt, xii. 36.

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