truth of St. Paul's words where he says that: "by one man sin entered into the world and by sin death," for the wages of sin, be it original or actual, is death.
Brethren, let us try for a moment to realize the malice of one mortal sin. " Who can measure the height of heaven," says Ecclesiasticus, " or who can measure the depth of the abyss?" And if the distance from earth to heaven or to hell be so inconceivable, who, I ask, can hope to measure the double space from the lowest circle of Gehenna to the top of heaven's dome? Yet, Brethren, that infinite distance is the measure by which we will have to compute the malice of one mortal sin. It can be said without exaggeration that the malice of such a sin is infinite. For the grievousness of an insult is measured by the difference in dignity between the offender and the one offended. An affront offered by one man to another socially his equal may be a matter of little moment, but an outrage perpetrated by a vagrant against the person of his king calls for the heaviest penalties. Now what King so high as God, the King of kings, and the Lord of lords? Or what pauper so poor and miserable before his sovereign as man before his Creator? God is a being of infinite dignity, and hence mortal sin is an infinite offence calling for an infinite punishment. Sin, in fact, is the direct opposite of God — mortal sin is the supreme evil, just as God is the supreme Good. But not all the minds of angels and men can ever comprehend the infinite goodness of God. Neither,
