heaven even by the fear of such a penalty. There is a hell and an eternal hell, and yet there are sinners who offend God! There is an eternal hell; Christians know it, and yet that hell is daily filled with Christians! O my God! is it possible that such wretched creatures are to be found whose doom is already sealed? who while I speak of them are actually immersed in those hellish flames? Is it possible that there are amongst us some whose lot will be to be buried in that lake of fire? Ah, truly, my dear brethren, the most of us should be there now if God had dealt with us according to our merits; and most men shall one day burn in hell forever, because in spite of all warnings and threats they recklessly persist in sinning. What am I to think of this? What to attribute it to? Whence cornes such amazing stupidity? Yet why do I ask?
It comes from a want of faith.
Do you all believe in hell? I must again ask you, as I did on last Sunday. Do you believe that all that has been said about the terrible sentence passed on the reprobate is true? Or do you perhaps look on it as a mere fiction and fable? Perhaps I have tried to make you swallow an invention of my own? What! you exclaim; we are good Christians and Catholics, who learn from our faith that the eternal fire of hell is an infallible truth. That I am well aware of; but still I ask the same question; do you all believe in this truth? It cannot be that you believe it. True, you all say with the lips, I believe. But you disprove your words by your actions. Those men and women live on without care or uneasiness in their old vices; they, too, say, I believe in an eternal hell. That dissolute man who does nothing but curse and swear at every one in the house, who spends in drinking what should go to the support of his wife and family: he believes in an eternal hell. That vain woman who adores the world and its luxurious customs as her God: she believes in an eternal hell. That libertine who turns to ridicule the laws of the Church, and spiritual and divine things, and even laughs at hell itself: he believes in an eternal hell. That young man, that husband, who day and night seeks the gratification of his sensual desires, who is still in the proximate occasion of sin, persisting in an unlawful intimacy: he believes in an eternal hell. That young girl who keeps bad company, and is an occasion of unlawful desires to many by her extravagance in dress, thus placing a stumbling-block in their way: she believes in an eternal hell. Those people who consume the days and