when He appears at the last day we shall see clearly in the works of Divine Providence what the night of this life renders us blind to now.
Afterwards we shall see that God does all things well. In the beginning of the world, when God created light, He went, as the Scripture says, to see and examine it: “and God saw the light that it was good.”[1] He acted in the same manner with regard to His other works, the earth, the animals, the moon, the stars; each one He examined in particular and found it good. And when all things were created He looked at them all together: “And God saw all the things that He had made: and they were very good.”[2] Why so? Why did He examine all together after He had seen each one in particular and found it good? " This,” says Hugo of St. Victor, " was an image of what He is to do at the end of the world.” At first God looked at each work in particular and then He considered all His works in general, and gave testimony that they were all very good; at the end He will show His works to men to be examined and considered: “He will bring forward His every work to judgment,” says Hugo, but with this difference: in the particular judgment, which takes place immediately after the death of each one, He will show to the soul what He did specially for it, while on the last day He will bring on the stage all the works of His Divine Providence, and present them to men to be examined publicly, so that every one, convinced of their justice and wisdom, may confess that they are very good, that all that God has done with us from the beginning of the world is very good. Parents! you lost your beloved child by a premature death, while the decrepit one remained alive; but on that day when you shall examine the works of God you will confess that it is very good. O my God! you will exclaim, how well and beautifully Thou hast ordained this! Children! you have lost father or mother and have become poor orphans; on that day you will acknowledge that this decree of the Almighty was very good. That this man is rich, that one poor; this one healthy, another sickly; one well-formed, another crippled; one held in honor, another despised; one a servant, another the master; one leads a laborious, the other an idle life—oh, truly, I cannot now explain this difference of conditions. But wait; wait till the works of God are all placed before our eyes on that day, then at last we shall confess that they are very good, that
