moment, which concludes the pleasures of time, to begin the pains of eternity!
2. What would we wish to have done at the hour of death! Let us do at present what we would then be glad to have done. There is no time to lose: every moment may be the last of our lives. The longer we have lived, the nearer we approach to the grave. Our death is not the less distant the more the thought of it has been put off.
3. What will our notion of this earth be, when we are forced to quit it? Let us now take advice from death, it is a faithful counsellor; it will not deceive us. What will become of this beauty, this money, this pleasure, this honour? What will be our thoughts of them at the hour of death? In our lifetime appearances often deceive us; but, at our death, we shall see things as they really are. Man, whilst alive, esteems the world: man, when dying, despises it. But which should we reasonably believe — man living, or man at the point of death? Ah, how trifling will the world appear by the light of that torch which faintly glimmers near the bed of death! but, alas, it will then be, perhaps, too late to undeceive ourselves.
[Think seriously on what you chiefly apprehend, were you this moment to die, and regulate it immediately. Accustom yourself to perform every act ion as if you were to die instantly after. Above all things, observe this practice in the use of the Sacraments.]
“Death and I are divided but by a single step." — 1 Kings xx.
“There is no to-morrow for a Christian." — Tertullian.
FIFTH DAY. — ON THE LAST JUDGMENT.
1. I must one day appear before the tribunal of Jesus Christ , to be there judged for the good or evil I shall have done. There is nothing more formal or express in the Gospel than this truth; I believe it as
