discourse--the obligation of securing our salvation. As we can
save our souls, so we ought to do it. Nay, this is our only, our
all-engrossing duty; and I shall found my proof of it, my
brethren, on this plain rule of common sense and reason, that one
ought to bestow that degree of attention and care on any affair
which it deserves and requires. Everyone feels that it would be
an occupation unworthy of a man to spend his time in writing
letters in the sand, or in chasing butterflies from flower to
flower; because these occupations are in themselves vain and
profitless. Again, anyone would feel it unreasonable, in the
father of a family, to set out on a party of pleasure at the very
moment that his presence was necessary to arrest some disaster
that threatened his family: not because it was wrong in itself
for him to seek recreation, but because a higher obligation was
then urging. Now, applying these principles, on which everyone
acts in matters of daily life, to the matter in question; I say
that you are bound to give to the work of your salvation your
utmost care and attention, because the care of your souls
supremely deserves and urgently requires it.
{213}
Take in, my brethren, the whole scope of my proposition. There is
a work of great consequence before you. I do not speak as the
world speaks. The world tells you that your business here is to
get gain, to build a house, to rear a family, to leave a name, to
enjoy yourself. I say, no. Your business is to seek the grace of
God, and to keep it. The world says: seek friends, fall in with
the stream, court popularity, do as others do, act on the
principles which receive the sanction of the multitude, and a
little religion in addition to this will be no bad thing. I say,
no. Seek first the kingdom of God and His justice. Fathers,
mothers, sons and daughters, masters, servants, ye great ones and
ye humble ones of the earth, you are all engaged in the same
enterprise. God has intrusted to each one of you a soul. He has
intrusted it to _you_, not to another. You cannot devolve
the responsibility of it on another. That is your care on the
earth. Whatever cares of other things you may have, you cannot
neglect that one work, you cannot interrupt or postpone it, you
cannot put any thing in competition with it. If there is a
question between any temporal advantages, however great, or
suffering, however severe, on one side, and the salvation of your
soul on the other; you must renounce these benefits, embrace
those tortures. If you must consent to see your family die by
inches of starvation, or put your salvation in proximate and
certain jeopardy, you must see them starve first. I do not say
the case is likely to happen. God rarely allows men to be reduced
to such straits. But if the case should occur in the line of
duty, nay, if the alternative was presented, of converting the
whole world on one side, and avoiding a mortal sin on the other,
we must rather consult the welfare of our own souls than that of
others; and this not from selfishness, but because God has
intrusted to us our own souls, and not the souls of others.
{214}
And how do I establish my proposition? I waive, my brethren, my
right to appeal to your faith, to speak by the authority of
Christ, Who is infallible and supreme, and Who has a right to
challenge your absolute and instantaneous submission and
obedience. I postpone the consideration of that love which we owe
to our Maker, and which ought to make us prompt and willing to do
His will. I take my stand on the ground of reason and conscience,
and I appeal to you to say whether they do not sustain my
proposition. I make you the judges. It is your own case, it is
true, yet there are points in which even self-love cannot blind
our sense of faith; and I ask you whether the care of our soul's
salvation should not be our sovereign and supreme care in life,
if it be true that the interests of the soul surpass all others
in importance, and can not be secured without our continual and
earnest efforts. Your prompt and decided answer in the
affirmative leaves me nothing more to do than to establish the
fact that the salvation of your souls is in fact so important a
task. I will do so by proving three points: first, that our souls
are our most precious possession; second, that we are in great
danger of losing them; and third, that the loss of our souls is
the greatest of all losses, and is irreparable.
Our souls are our most precious possession. My brethren, we have
souls. When God created man He formed his body out of the slime
of the earth. It was as yet but a lifeless form, a beautiful
statue, but God breathed upon it and man became a living soul.
This soul, the spiritual substance which God breathed into the
body, was formed according to an eternal decree of the Blessed
Trinity, in resemblance to the Divine essence; that is, endowed
with a spiritual nature and possessed of understanding and free
will. "Let us make man to our image and likeness," said God; and
the sacred writer tells us "God created man to His own image;"
and, as if to give greater emphasis to so important an
announcement, he repeats, "To the image of God created He him."
[Footnote 11]
[Footnote 11: Gen. i. 26.]
{215}
Man therefore is a compound being, consisting of a body and soul,
allied to the material world through the material body which he
possesses, and to the world above us, that is, to God and the
angels, through his soul. Now, the excellence of all creatures is
in proportion to the degree in which they partake of the
perfections of God, who is the Author of all being and all
goodness. All existing substances partake of His perfection in
some degree; if they do not show forth His moral attributes, at
least they reflect His omnipotence; and therefore Holy Scripture
calls on the fishes of the sea, the beasts of the earth, the
fowls of the air, the sun, moon, stars, earth, mountains and
hills, to join with angels and men in blessing God. But the
superiority of angels and souls over material creatures consists
in this, that they partake of the moral perfections of God: they
show us not only what God can do, but what He is. Like Him, they
are spiritual beings. "_Who makest Thy angels spirits and Thy
ministers a burning fire_," says the Psalmist. [Footnote 12]
[Footnote 12: Ps. ciii. 4.]
They are not gross substances as our bodies are, but pure,
subtle, immaterial essences. They are immortal like Him--at least
so as that they can never die. They do not need food nor sleep.
They are not subject to decay, or old age, or death; they are
endowed with understanding and free will, to know many of the
things that God knows and to love what He loves; but, above all,
to know Him and love Him. Hence the value of the soul is really
immeasurable, and all the treasures of the earth are not to be
compared to it. Take the poorest slave on earth, the most
wretched inmate of the darkest prison, the most afflicted
sufferer whom disease has reduced to a mass of filth and
corruption, and that man's soul is more precious and more
glorious than the richest diadem of the greatest monarch; nay,
than all the treasures of the whole earth, with all the jewels
that are hid in the mines and caves under its surface.
{216}
Our Lord one day permitted St. Catherine of Sienna to see a human
soul, and as she gazed transported at its exceeding beauty, He
asked her if He had not had good reason to come down from heaven
to save such a glorious creature. The saint said the soul was so
beautiful that, if one could see it, one would be willing to
suffer all possible pains and torments for love of it. My
brethren, if, when you go to your homes, you should find in your
house an angel with his face as the appearance of lightning, his
eyes as a burning lamp, his body as a crystal, and his feet in
appearance like to glittering brass, what would you do? Would you
not, like St. John, fall down before his feet and adore him?
Would you not faint and fall before him, or if you were so
strengthened that you could look upon the glorious vision, would
you not gaze upon it with deep and loving awe? Well! such a being
you will find there, when you go home. It will go hence with you.
It will remain there as long as you remain there. It will come
away when you come away. This bright being of whom I speak is no
visitor in your house, it is an inmate, it rises with you in the
morning, accompanies you through the day, is present with you
when you eat, is with you in sickness and in health, in life and
in death. This bright and glorious being is yours--it is more
yours than any thing else in the world, it is the only thing in
the world that is really yours--it is yours; poverty cannot
strip you of it, death cannot tear it from you; eternity cannot
rob you of it. And this being is your soul, your precious,
spiritual, immortal soul. All things else will forsake you,
property, family, friends; but this will never forsake you. It is
yours. It is yours inalienably and for ever. Your greatest, your
only wealth and treasure. Oh, inestimable dignity! We are told of
some saints, who used to make an act of respect to everyone they
met, by way of saluting his guardian angel, and of others that
they bowed down before those whom they knew, by the spirit of
prophecy, would shed their blood for the faith.
{217}
But have we not cause enough to honor man, in the fact that he
has a soul, an immortal soul, a soul which shall one day see God?
Shall we not feel an ample respect for each other, my brethren,
when we think of what we are? Who could ever speak an impure word
before another if he thought of the dignity of a human soul? What
young man would ever dare to go to scenes where he would blush
that his mother or sister should be present, if he remembered
that he took his own soul along with him? Who would lie, or
cheat, or steal, if he thought of his soul? A great and
overpowering thought; how does it belittle all the pride and
ostentation of the external world! Come, my brethren, let us go
into the streets of this city and look around us. There are
stately buildings and proud equipages and gay and brilliant
shops--but what are all these to the concourse of human beings,
the crowds of immortal souls who are, day by day, making an
immortal destiny. There is the old man tottering along on his
stick, there is the little child on the way to school, there is
the rich lady with her jewels and costly fabrics, there is the
laborer with his spade setting out to his daily toil; and each
one has a soul, each one will live forever. Let us strive to take
in this great thought. The tide of human beings flows on from
morning to evening. New faces continually appear. They come and
go. We do not know their history, their destiny; but we know that
each one has a spiritual nature, is made to the image of God, is
possessed of a bright and glorious soul. We shall meet them
again. There will come a day when every one of the throng shall
meet again every other. New populations; shall come in the place
of those who now inhabit the world. The stones of the greatest
buildings shall be reduced to powder, nay, the world itself will
be reduced to ashes, and each soul that now lives in this city
will survive in its own individuality and immortality. There are
some, it is true, who do not seem as if they had souls.
{218}
There are women who have given themselves up to practices of
uncleanness by profession, and men who habitually wallow in
drunkenness and sensuality; and the conversation of such persons
is so horrid and obscene, their countenance so devoid of the
least trace of shame or self-respect, they seem from having
neglected their souls almost to have lost them. They seem really
to have become the brutes whose passions they have imitated. No!
even they have souls. They cannot be brutes if they would. They
are men, they are made to the image of God, and so they must ever
remain. A surgeon [Footnote 13] was once called to attend a man
who was afflicted with cancer.
[Footnote 13: The surgeon alluded to was Dr. Baker, and a
faithful portrait of the man was taken, which was preserved
in the family.]
This terrible disease had affected one entire side of the face,
and had made in it the most dreadful ravages. The cheek was one
shapeless mass of putrid flesh; the nose undistinguishable from
the other features, the eye completely eaten out, and the bones
of the forehead perforated like a sponge; but on turning the face
of the man, the other side presented a wonderful contrast, being
in nowise affected, and showing no trace of sickness except an
excessive pallor. The countenance and features were of a noble
dignity and beauty, and strikingly like the expression ordinarily
observed in the pictures of our Blessed Lord. So it is with men's
souls. Sin has eaten deeply into them, has deprived them of
comeliness, has almost defaced the form they once had, has
blinded their minds and deprived them of the interior eye; but
still there remain traces of nobility, of the image of God. O
man, whoever thou art, however deeply sunk in sin; I care not
whether your body be as filthy as the dunghill or the sink, or
your heart be the prey of every passion and the slave of every
vice; you have a soul: you have indeed lost much, but you have
much remaining; you have that which is of more value than all
else in the world--that which is absolutely of more value than
all material things; and which to you is of more value than all
spiritual things, than all created things in earth and heaven.
{219}
You are great and noble and spiritual and immortal--you are
capable of virtue, happiness, and heaven--you are like God, you
resemble Him. His image is stamped upon you. And how little you
realize this! Alas, you will realize it at the hour of death.
But, secondly, we are in danger of losing our souls. To lose them
in the literal sense is of course impossible, for I have said
that they are immortal, and will remain with us forever. It would
be in some way a happiness to the wicked, if they could, in this
sense, lose their souls, for it would free them from the torment
of a miserable eternity. But that cannot be: the loss of our
souls of which we speak is the loss of God, who alone is the
sufficient and satisfying object of our affection. "Thou hast
made our souls for Thee," says St. Augustine, "and they are not
at peace until they rest in Thee." The loss of our souls is
occasioned by sin, which separates us from God, but it is not
final and irremediable until death overtakes us in this state of
estrangement. The danger of losing our souls, then, is the danger
of falling into mortal sin and dying in that state. Now, the
danger of sinning is, in the present course of God's providence,
inseparable from the possession of a soul. Free will is a high
prerogative, which, while it fits us for the highest state
possible, renders sin also possible. As soon as God created the
angels, a large part of them rebelled against Him, and were cast
out of heaven. As soon as He had made man, our first parents fell
and were cast out of Paradise. It is only a rational moral being
that can sin; because sin is the voluntary transgression of the
Divine law, and therefore cannot be committed by any creature but
one who has a will, that is, intellect and the power of choosing.
Almost all the material acts of sin which men commit are
committed by brutes also.
{220}
See the rage of the tiger, the thieving of the fox, the impurity
of the goat, the treachery of the adder, the gluttony of the
swine. But there are no sins in these brutes, because they have
mere blind instincts. Man, however, has reason and a will, and
therefore he is bound to control the instincts which he shares in
common with the brutes, and his failure to control these
constitutes sin. He has a soul which belongs to God, and of which
God is the sovereign, and his failure to control his passions is
rebellion against God, and pride. Further, as the possession of a
soul renders sin possible, so the proclivity to evil, which we
inherit from the fall, and the temptations of the world, render
it exceedingly probable. I do not know a more striking
illustration of this, than the fear which the saints have
ordinarily had about their salvation. Their sense of the value of
the soul; their deep knowledge of their own hearts, and of the
root of evil that was in them, the weakness of man without grace,
and the uncertainty of grace; have kept men of the greatest
sanctity, men who have wrought miracles, who have cast out
devils, who have raised the dead to life, always anxious about
their perseverance, always begging of God the grace never to to
allow them to commit a mortal sin. But if these reasons are
enough to make saints tremble, what reasons have not ordinary
Christians to fear! A chain of evil habits, unguarded intercourse
with men, the constant contact with the world, how fearfully do
they augment the risk of losing our souls, which all run
necessarily in this world. Why, listen to the conversation of ten
men, taken almost at random in this city; for half an hour walk
through the city, from one end to the other; and see if the
occasions of sin are not more frequent than can be uttered. This
is deeply felt by men of the world themselves. It makes them
despair. They say there is no possibility of saving their souls
in the world. They say it is all in vain to try--that sin meets
them at every step. It is not, of course, true that sin is
inevitable. If it were, it would not be sin. But it is true that
the atmosphere of the world is fearfully surcharged with evil.
{221}
There is many a home in this city, many a place of public resort,
many a den of secret iniquity, many a gaming-room, and
drinking-house, over which there is an inscription legible to the
angels, written in letters of fire, "The gate of hell." There are
many places where souls are sold daily and hourly, and oh, at
what a price! Thirty pieces of silver was the price offered for
our Redeemer, but the soul is often sold for one, indeed, often
for something still more miserable--for the gratification of an
impure passion, for the indulgence of revenge, for a day's
frolic. It is true the Evil One does not carry on his traffic
under its own name and openly--that it is well concealed under
specious pretences; but the danger is only so much the greater.
The occasions of sin are everywhere spread under our feet like
traps and snares, and encircling us on all sides like nets. But
even this is not the worst. The loss of God is not only possible
because of our free will, probable because of the corruption of
the world, but, in many cases, already certain. Men, on all
sides, have lost God, and need only an unforeseen death to make
certain the loss of their souls. Who can tell how many are living
in a state of mortal sin, month by month, day by day, year by
year? They go on securely, smilingly; externally all goes on
smoothly; they are successful and seemingly happy; they have
plans for many years to come; but a voice has spoken, "Thou fool,
this night shall they require thy soul of thee." Oh! how many
died in mortal sin last year, how many will die in mortal sin
next year! It needs only a little thing, a false step, a railway
accident, an attack of fever, a change in the weather, a fit of
apoplexy, and they are launched into eternity without warning and
without preparation--death sealing for perdition those whom it
finds deprived of the grace of God. Who, I say, can wonder at
this, when he looks around him, and sees how little the soul is
valued? O my God! it is enough to make the heart sick.
{222}
Let us take a Catholic family, for I will not take things at the
worst. A father has a family of children. He must send them to
school or college. He finds an institution which pleases him, and
he will tell you that his children are doing excellently, and
that the only drawback is that the school is Protestant or
infidel. Is not this to betray the souls of his own children?
Sunday comes: it is true that there is the obligation to hear
Mass, but some inducement offers itself to idleness or
dissipation, and no Mass is heard, because it is only the soul
which is injured by the omission. Monday comes: there is an
opportunity of making some little gain in an unlawful way. What
does it matter? We must get rich, and do like our neighbors. The
sons grow up in ignorance, and spend their time mostly at the
gaming-table or the place of carousal. The daughters grow up.
They must be led by their mother to every scene of folly and sin,
because the custom of society requires it. Easter comes: the
young people do not like to go to confession, and they add only
one sin more, to those with which their hearts are already
charged. And then the parents die, and the children come forward
to take their places, and to bring up their children in still
greater neglect and laxity. Thus Catholics are trained for the
world, and souls for hell; and if we take into the account the
graver forms of vice, and consider how many are entirely the
slaves of passion, we shall not wonder that there are so few that
shall be saved. One of the Fathers, speaking of the great
responsibility of the priesthood, dilates on the impossibility of
a priest's being saved without great exertion and watchfulness.
But if it be difficult for a priest to save his soul; what shall
I say of the laity, when I consider the prevailing habits of
Catholics. It hardly seems to me too strong to say, that to me it
would seem a miracle for any such one to be saved. How will men
attain that which they do not care for, to which they give no
thought? And so it is with the salvation of the soul. Who thinks
about it? Who takes any pains for it? Who makes any sacrifice for
it?
{223}
The soul is more precious than any thing else, and yet every
thing else is put before it. It is trampled on in business,
betrayed in friendships, choked by domestic cares, imprisoned in
the filthy bodies of the licentious, and, as it were, annihilated
in the drunkard. It is forgotten, neglected, outraged, despised,
ignored. It is not so much sold as thrown away. The body is cared
for with the most supreme solicitude. Every pain and ache is
relieved. Long journeys are undertaken to recover health that is
lost or only threatened. The most celebrated physicians are
sought after with eagerness. But the soul is allowed for weeks
and months and years to go on in a state of spiritual death.
Confession, prayer, the sacraments, means so easy, means truly
infallible in their efficacy, means within the reach of all, are
neglected, on pretences the most frivolous, without reason, and
almost without motive. "_Who will give water to my head, and a
fountain of tears to my eyes, and I will weep day and night for
the slain of the daughter of my people?_" [Footnote 14]
[Footnote 14: Jer. ix. 1.]
The loss of our souls is the greatest of all evils, because it is
irremediable. I will not go into all that this point contains. It
is too great a subject for us at present. I will not dwell on all
that is meant by the loss of our souls, but I will consider it
simply as it is, the failure of reaching our end and destiny, and
as irreparable. And to help us to realize this, I will summon as
a witness one who was the first to come short of his destiny, the
devil. We do not know how long it was after the creation of the
angels that the devil sinned and fell; but certainly there was a
time when he was a pure, bright spirit, rejoicing in the
greatness of his endowments, and with a hope full of immortality.
But there came a moment of darkness. He sinned: he was judged: he
was cast from heaven, and he sank into hell. There he is now. He
is confined in chains and darkness. The tree has fallen; and as
it has fallen to the north or to the south, so must it lie
forever.
{224}
Other mistakes may be rectified, but this never. A loss in
business may be made good by greater exertions and prudence; a
broken-down constitution may be repaired by art and care; a lost
reputation may be recovered by integrity and consistency in
well-doing; earthly sorrow may be healed by time and other
objects; sin may be rooted out by penance; but the loss of the
soul is an evil complete and irreparable, and brings with it an
undying remorse. "_A tree hath hope: if it be cut down, it
groweth green again, and the bough thereof sprout. If its root be
old in the earth and its stock be dead in the dust, at the scent
of water it shall spring and bring forth leaves as when it was
first planted._" [Footnote 15] But man, when he shall be dead
and stripped and consumed, I pray you, where is he? The cry of
despair which the first lost soul uttered when he made the
terrible discovery that he was really lost, is still ringing in
the abodes of the damned, and the keenness of his misery is still
unabated. Ages shall go on, the last day shall come, and an
eternity shall follow it, and that cry of despair will still be
as thrilling, and that anguish as new and as irremediable.
[Footnote 15: Job xiv. 7, 8, 9.]