gone in this world or the next for the satisfaction of God's offended justice. That the damage done our neighbor by our trespasses must be made good is clear enough; but we often fail to realize that God's claims, too, must be satisfied, and we neglect to discharge by trivial penances here debts which we will be able to cancel hereafter only by the protracted pains of purgatory. " They who fear the frost," says the Scripture, " shall be overtaken by the blizzard."
Brethren, I would that all sinners would read often and carefully the sixth Penitential Psalm, the "De Profundis," and see and hear there the awakening of conscience, the realization of sin and its consequences, the voice of hope, and the possibility of forgiveness and of ultimate salvation for all. "If Thou, O Lord, wilt mark iniquities," says the Psalmist, " Lord, who shall stand? " There are times when we feel with Cain that our iniquities are greater than that we may deserve pardon, and were it not for such examples of God's mercy as David, Manasses, Mary Magdalen, Simon Peter, the thief on the cross, and Saul of Tarsus, we should succumb to a Judas-like despair. From their histories we learn that with God there is merciful forgiveness even for the worst of sinners. "I wish not the death of the sinner," He says, "but rather that he be converted and live." John the Baptist pointed to Jesus as " the Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the world." His blood, the blood of the New Testament, infinitely meritorious, was poured out for us unto the remission of our sins, and were our sins as scarlet the
