Meditation Fifty-sixth.
On the last judgment.
I. THE last day is called in Scripture a day of wrath and misery; and such it will be for all those unhappy beings who shall have died in mortal sin; for on that day their most secret crimes will be made manifest to the whole world, and themselves separated from the company of the saints, and condemned to the eternal prison of hell, where they will suffer all the agonies of ever dying yet always remaining alive. St Jerome, in the cave of Bethlehem, devoted to continual prayer and penance, trembled at the bare thought of the General judgment. The Ven. F. Juvenal Ancina hearing that sequence for the dead sung: "Dies viai, dies "ilia,” was so struck with the anticipation of judgment that he left the world and embraced a religious life. O Jesus, what will become of me, in that day? Shall I be placed on thy right with the elect, or on thy left with the reprobate? I know that I have deserved to be placed on thy left, but I know also that thou wilt still pardon me, if I repent of my sins: wherefore I do repent of them with my whole heart, and am resolved rather to die than offend thee any more.
II. As this will be a day of calamity and terror for the reprobate, so will it be a day of joy and triumph for the elect; for then, in the sight of all mankind, will the blessed souls of the elect be proclaimed queens of paradise, and spouses of the immaculate Lamb. O Jesus, thy precious blood is my hope. Remember not the offences which I have committed against thee, and enflame my whole soul with thy love. I love thee, my sovereign good, and I trust that in that day I shall be asso-
