himself, in order to fly from death, which grasps him, or at least to fly from himself: from his expiring eyes issue something, I know not what, of dark and gloomy, which expresses the fury of his soul. In his anguish he utters words, interrupted by sobs, which are unintelligible, and to which they know not whether repentance or despair gives birth. He is seized with convulsions which they are ignorant whether to ascribe to the actual dissolution of his body, or to the soul which feels the approach of its Judge. He deeply sighs, and they know not whether the remembrance of his past crimes, or the despair of quitting life, forces from him such groans of anguish. At last, in the midst of these melancholy exertions, his eyes fix, his features change, his countenance becomes disfigured, his livid lips convulsively separate, his whole frame quivers, and, by this last effort, his unfortunate soul tears itself reluctantly from that body of clay, falls into the hands of its God, and finds itself alone at the foot of the awful tribunal.
My brethren, in this manner do those expire who forget their Creator during life. Thus shall you yourselves die, if your crimes accompany you to that last moment.
Every thing will change in your eyes, and you shall not change yourselves: you shall die, and you shall die in sin as you have lived; and your death will be similar to your life. Prevent this misery, O my brethren! live the fife of the righteous, and your death, similar to theirs, will be accompanied with joy, peace, and consolation. This is what I mean to explain in the second part of this Discourse.
Part II. — I know, that even to the most upright souls there is always something terrible in death. The judgments of God, whose profound secrecy they dread, — the darkness of their own conscience, in which they continually figure to themselves hidden sfains, known to the Almighty alone, — the loveliness of their faith, and of their love, which in their own sight magnifies their smallest faults; in a word, the dissolution itself of their earthly frame, and the natural horror we feel for the grave, — all these occasion death to be attended by a natural sensation of dread and repugnance, insomuch that as St. Paul says, the most upright themselves, who anxiously long to be clothed with that immortality promised to them, would yet willingly attain it without being divested of the mortality which encompasses them.
It is not less true, however, that in them grace rises superior to that horror of death which springs from nature; and in that moment, whether they recall the past, consider the present, or look forward to the future, they find in the remembrance of the past the end of their troubles, — in the consideration of the present a novelty which moves them with a holy joy, — in their views toward the future the certainty of an eternity which fills them with rapture, insomuch, that the same situations which are the occasion of despair to the dying sinner, become then an abundant source of consolation to the faithful soul.
