shed tears enough to make up all the rivers and seas in the world, did he shed but one teat in every hundred years, he shall not be more advanced, after so many millions of ages, than if he had only just begun to suffer. He must begin again as if he had as yet suffered nothing; and, when he shall have begun, as often as there are grains of sand on the sea-shore, atoms in the air, or leaves on the trees, he shall still be as far off from the end of his sufferings as ever.
The damned must not only suffer during eternity, but suffer every moment an eternity entire. Eternity is always present to them — it enters into their punishment; their mind is incessantly struck with the endless duration of their torments. O cruel thought! O deplorable condition ! — to rage for an eternity! to bum for an eternity! Ah, that we could conceive this as those damned souls conceive it.
[Make an Act of Faith upon the duration of the punishment which the justice of God indicts for mortal sin. We must at least believe what we are not able to conceive. It is a great misfortune for a Christian not to be persuaded of this eternity but by his own sad experience.]
"Those who do not obey the Gospel shall suffer eternal punishment." — 2 Thes, i.
"Momentary is that which delights, eternal is that which tortures." — St. Chrysostom.
EIGHTH DAY. — ON HEAVEN.
1. Heaven, thou glorious state — no heart can conceive, no tongue can describe what thou art! Exemption from all that is evil — assemblage of all that is good — purchased with the blood of Jesus — and more than man can desire.
2. To see God clearly, and as he is in his glory; to love God without measure; to possess God without ever fearing to lose him; to be happy in the felicity of God himself — such is the object of my
