feet, manacled by death, without power to help himself or others. So, too, a soul in mortal sin lies helpless on the way to heaven, a stumbling-block and a scandal to those who would fain pass on. Hour by hour it grows livid and putrefies and charges the air with deadly infection. The officers of the law take the ghastly body and consign it to earth, and the ministers of God's justice, the devils, take the putrid, sinful soul and bury it in hell.
Brethren, a poor picture this of a soul in sin. It was once granted a great saint to see such a soul as God sees it, and he afterwards declared that he would rather endure any earthly torment than again behold so horrible a sight. " It were better/' says St. Anselm, " to suffer hell innocent rather than enter heaven in sin, for innocence would be a comfort, even in hell, but guilt would be a torture, even in heaven." What, therefore, shall we say of an habitual sinner? His soul has died and is corrupting within him. He goes through life chained to a corpse. He lies down at night and clasps in a close embrace that horrid, putrid thing. Faugh! it is too horrible to think of. Let us pray God that should our souls ever unfortunately contract the hideous leprosy of sin we may quickly turn to Him for a cure.
The cure of sin! Ah, Brethren, here again we see that sin's malice is infinite, for it requires an infinite atonement. If the whole court of heaven with all the living saints and the holy souls in purgatory were to unite in an act of reparation for one mortal
