thought I should see a lion.”[1] Ready and clever was the answer Agesilaus gave the proud king: “I seem an ant to you,” said he, “but one day you shall find me out to be a lion.”[2] The same answer is suited to those who now during life do not fear the great God, despise Him, sin recklessly, and remain obstinately in sin as declared enemies of God. They see in our churches pictures or carved images representing our divine Lord in a very lowly and apparently despicable state, as a weak Child in the crib, or as a dying Man hanging on the cross, or else they know that He is concealed under the white Host from which no thunders or lightnings flash forth to announce His majesty, and from this they conceive a low idea of God, and do not fear to offend Him by transgressing His commandments. But He whom we now treat so contemptuously shall one day appear as a lion, and fill all creatures with awe by the might of His greatness. Be comforted, ye just and pious Christians! He who will judge us is an almighty God, and consequently He is able to defend you against those who now oppress you, and it is from Him that you have to expect the reward of your piety. But on the other hand, wo to us, O sinners! if we fall into the hands of this Judge burdened with debt. There is no chance of escape from Him, because He is the Almighty God!
He is an all-seeing God, from whom nothing can remain hidden. Nor can you hope to hide anything from Him, because He is also an all-knowing God, from whom nothing can be concealed, with whom the rule, “deny, if you have done anything wrong, until the crime is proved,” will be of little avail. “God,” as St. Augustine beautifully says, “is all a hand, and can do everything, and He is also all an eye, and can see everything.”[3] When a man commits a sin, he does not believe, or perhaps thinks not for the moment that the all-seeing eye of his Judge is on him. “Who seeth me?” he asks with the wicked man, in the Book of Ecclesiasticus; “darkness compasseth me about, and the walls cover me, and no man seeth me: whom do I fear?”[4] I am shut in between four walls, and no one is aware of what I am doing. If I have a secret hatred against my neighbor, and try to do him harm here and there when I have the chance, who knows anything about it? I show nothing outwardly; I greet him in the
