for my hour is come.I see now that it cannot be otherwise.My hands begin to grow cold,my face to turn livid,my eyes to lose their sight.Alas,the shocks of furious death wrestle with my poor heart.I begin to fetch my breath very hard.The light of this world begins to vanish from me.I begin to see into the next world.O God,my God,what a sight!The horrible forms of black Moors assemble together;the wild beasts of hell surround me.They gloat over my poor soul to see if it will be theirs.O Thou just judge of the severe judgment seat,how very heavy in Thy scales are those things which in ours are so light!The cold sweat of death bursts,from very anxiety,through my flesh.Oh,the wrathful aspect of the severe judge,how very sharp Thy judgments are!Now let me turn in spirit to that world where I am led by the hand into Purgatory,and where,in the land of torments,I see anguish and distress.O God,I see the wild,hot flames dart up on high,and meet over the heads of suffering souls.They wander up and down amid the dark flames,and great is their affliction.What heart would like to contemplate our pangs,the bitterness of our woe?Many a sad cry is heard.
Help!help!ah,where is all the help of our false friends?Where are the fair promises of our false friends?How have they deserted us,how have they utterly forgotten us?Oh,have pity on us,some little pity;at least you our best beloved friends!What services have we not rendered you,and how are we now repaid.Oh that we should not have warded off these sufferings when we could have done so with things so trifling!Is not the least torment here greater,much greater,indeed,than any torment ever was on earth?One hour in Purgatory lasts a hundred years.Lo!now we boil,now we burn,now we shriek aloud for help;but,more than all it is our misfortune to be deprived so long of the joy of His countenance;this it is that cuts through the heart,the sense,the soul!--And thus I expire.
The Servant.--O Eternal Wisdom,how hast Thou forsaken me!O God,how has death all at once become present before me!Alas,thou soul of mine,art thou still in my body?Lord of Heaven,do I still live?Ah,Lord,now will I praise Thee,and vow reformation to Thee till death.Oh,how very terrified I am!I did not think death was so near me.Truly,Lord,this sight shall not fail to profit me;every day I will be on the watch for death,and will look about me that he take me not by surprise.I will learn how to die;I will turn my thoughts to yonder world.Lord,I see that there is no remaining here;Lord,in sooth,I will not save up my sorrow and repentance till death.Oh,how terrified I am at this spectacle,I marvel that my soul is still in my body!Begone,begone,from me,soft reclining,long sleeping,good eating and drinking,perishable honours,delicateness and luxury!If but a little suffering here is so painful to me,how shall I ever endure immeasurable agony?O God,it indeed I were now to die thus,how would it be with me?What a load have I not still upon me!Lord,this very day I will set a poor man[12]to pray for my poor soul,and since all her friends have forsaken her I will befriend her.
Eternal Wisdom.--See;this shouldst thou diligently look to whilst thou art in thy youth,and whilst thou hast still time to make things better.But when,in truth,thou hast reached this hour,and thou canst not make things better,then shouldst thou look at nothing on earth,except My death and My infinite mercy;so that Thy trust may repose wholly in Me.
The Servant.--O Lord,I prostrate myself at Thy feet,and I beseech Thee with bitter tears to chastise me here as Thou wilt,only keep it not in store for me in the next world.Woe is me,Lord,the fire of Purgatory and its unspeakable torments,how could I ever be so foolish as to think lightly of them,and how do I now stand in such great fear of them!
Eternal Wisdom.--Be of good heart,this thy fear is the beginning of wisdom,and a path to salvation.Or hast thou forgotten how all the Scriptures declare what great salvation is contained in the fear and diligent contemplation of death?Thou shouldst always praise God,for not to one in a thousand has it been granted to know Him,as to thee.Listen to a lamentable thing:they hear it spoken of;they know of it beforehand,and yet they allow it to pass by,and heed it not till they be swallowed up by it,and then they howl and weep when it is too late.Open thy eyes,count upon thy fingers,see how many of them have died around thee in thy own times;talk with them a little in thy heart;join thy old man to them as though it were dead;question them together;see with what fathomless sighs,with what bitter tears they will say:Oh,blessed is he that ever he was born,who follows sweet counsel and,in the misfortunes of others,learns wisdom!Prepare thyself well for thy departure hence;for truly thou sittest as a bird on the bough,and art as a man who stands on the water's edge,and looks at the swift sailing ship in which he will presently take his seat,and sail away for a strange land whence he will never more return.
Therefore,so regulate thy life that when the ship comes for thee thou mayest be ready,and mayest joyfully take thy departure hence.
CHAPTER XXII.How One Should Live An Interior and Godly Life The Servant.
--Lord,many are the rules,many the ways of a godly life,the one is so,the other so.Many and various are the ways.Lord,the Scriptures are inexhaustible,their precepts innumerable.Teach me,O Eternal Wisdom,in a few words,out of the abyss of all the things they contain,to what I ought chiefly to hold fast in the way of a truly pious life.
