how unhappy are they who know all things else, and are strangers to themselves! Let us then daily pray with St. Augustin, Noverim te, Noverim me; Lord, give me grace to know thee, Lord give me grace to know myself: and let us labour for these two most necessary sciences, by frequent consideration.
4. Consider, that in order to nourish in our souls the wholesome fear of God, which is the beginning of true wisdom, and spur ourselves on in the way of virtue, we must also seriously reflect on the enormity of sin, and the hatred God bears unto it; on the dreadful effect of sin in the soul, and on the multitude of our own sins in particular; on the vanity, misery and deceitfulness of the world; on the comfort and happiness that attend a virtuous life; on the shortness of time, and the dreadful length of a miserable eternity; on the certainty and uncertainty of death, and the sentiments we shall have when we come to die; on the small number of the elect, &c. Ah! Christians, let us not neglect this great means of salvation! It was the consideration of these truths that made so many saints; that has so often reclaimed even the most abandoned sinners. Oh! what a profound lethargy must that soul be in, which is not roused at the thunder of those dreadful truths, death, judgment, hell, eternity!
5. Consider the bitter but fruitless repentance of the damned, condemning their past folly, in having thought so little on those things on which they shall now think for all eternity. Senseless wretches as we were! we had once our time, when, by thinking upon this miserable eternity, we might have escaped it. Those endless joys of heaven were offered us at a cheap rate, when a little reflection on them might have put us
