times of more hardened guilt when we must feel, as did the traffickers in the courts of the temple, the scourge in the hand of the Lord to rouse us from our dangerous tepidity. Is the heart of man so perfect that merely love suffices as a motive for action? Then why goes up daily this wail of neglected parents and abandoned children? There are thousands who have no prudence with regard to the goods of the soul. Is there no remedy left for them? Ah, yes. At least there is the salutary dread of the consequences of their guilty lives. The dread that begets salvation, the awe and terror that dissipates for the moment at least, the seductive glamour of sin, and makes manifest the awful injustice and injury we do ourselves. Truly then the "beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord."

If there is any consideration calculated to stir the heart of the Christian to its very depths; if there is any thought that fills the soul with awe and overpowers every faculty of mind and body with deep fear and dread, it is this thought of the final reckoning. It has driven men, satiated and sick with the folly and inanity of this world, far into the desert to lead lives of perpetual prayer and penance. It has suddenly quenched, and forever, the false glitter and glow that lights up the eyes of dissipation and debauchery. It has dispelled for thousands the illusions with which the tyrant sin ensnares its victims. It has proved so effective a remedy against relapse that it has passed into a watchword and a warning-Think of thy last end and thou wilt never sin.

With this end in view the Church brings her Ecclesiastical year to a close by portraying in the words of her Divine Master the close of this earth's career, not only for us, but for all humanity, picturing also, at the

same time, for us, the scene that shall immediately succeed that of the General Judgment. This double thought then ought to engage the attention of our souls to-day. This world and all that is in it must pass away, and we are to be brought before the throne of the Great Judge and before the eyes of all that live to account for our lives.

This world of ours is not eternal. There was a time when there was no Earth. There will be a time when it shall not be. Out of the darkness of nothing God called it into being. With what absolute obedience the elements came forth, and under the powerful hand of the Creator moulded themselves into this wondrous universe. In that vast domain this Earth of ours had a place. How beautiful it is with its sparkling rivers and blue seas; its lofty mountain peaks that seem to touch the heavens, and its charming green-clad valleys and hillsides. Then there is the life of humanity with its thousand delights and pleasures, the light prattling of happy children, and the glad laughter of friends, and, more gladdening than all, the cheering faces of those that are near and dear to us. Oh, who can deny it? The earth is pleasant and beautiful. Its bounteous gifts of changing seasons and times fill us with a love for it that is gladsome and joyous; but alas for the man who in the contemplation of nature's charms is forgetful of the God of nature. Alas for him who sees not in the very changefulness of her beauties the best proof of her instability! How many there are and have been who have beguiled their lives away drinking in the pleasures of the earth, forgetful of the warning words that sound in your ears to-day-"Heaven and earth shall pass away but my words shall not pass away." The earth and the earth alone has satisfied thousands, who filled with her fleeting pleasures, have not once read the

lesson of the falling leaf or the wilting blossom. Sirenlike, this world has sung men to eternal death, and has strewn hell with the souls of her victims. Men toil and build and struggle and wrestle—and all that is good. No man who respects himself can be a sluggard. But to toil and build only for Earth; to be content to take the poor crumb of reward that the perishable world offers; to live forgetful of the Eternal Land, is, as Sacred Scripture says, to "give one's money for that which is not bread, and one's labor for that which satisfieth not," is the improvidence of the savage, translated into eternal values.

"Heaven and earth shall pass away." Not we alone, for death must claim us all; but Earth and all that is of earth. It were something of glory and ambition, though at best meagre, to build upon the earth a monument that would endure forever, to engrave one's name upon a work that would last eternally. Perhaps while the earth lasts the pyramids will stand, and Egypt's glory will be known even to the end of time. Perhaps it may be that the boast of the Romans may be fulfilled that while the Colosseum stands Rome stands, and when it falls, Rome will fall, and when Rome falls, the world. Ah, but even the pyramids and Colosseum, though they last till sounds the last trumpet, shall then at least fall forever. Perhaps we too build our little pyramids and colosseums. Perhaps we too give up our best strength and energies to some work of sand. Perhaps even now it has made the thought of God weaker in us. Perhaps even now it has dulled the consciousness of a higher duty. Perhaps it clogs the soul with its unjust demands. Perhaps the music of the world shuts out from our hearing the voice of God. Remember, "Heaven and earth shall pass away."

It is an awful scene that is to usher in eternity. It is the death agony of Nature, and, oh, the unspeakable horrors of that death. How hard and terrible will be that final disruption. The sun and moon shall be darkened, and all Nature shall be plunged into the blackest night. The stars that now roll so peacefully and regularly in their courses in the heavens shall fall through space like living things that fly from the face of impending disaster. They who then shall still be living upon the earth will tremble and quake with fear at the sight, and while they are thus awestricken, upon their ears will sound the far-reaching ominous blast of the last trumpet. The Earth shall disclose her dead, and shall no more cover her slain; "and Death and Hell shall deliver up the dead that are in them." High-seated in majestic state upon the clouds of heaven, before Him the triumphant standard of the victorious Cross, surrounded by myriads of adoring angels, will appear the Eternal Son of God. The sun has hid his face before Him" and the moon shall not give her light," and "the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken."

"Then shall the dead, small and great" from Adam to the last babe born upon earth "stand before the

Throne to be judged out of those things that are written in the Book." There will be there all nations and tribes, all kingdoms and dynasties. But not as Greek or Roman; not as Jew or Gentile; but as men. There will be no longer any distinction of race. Each one shall stand forth stripped of all wherein he felt pride. His nation's glory is but a dream now. The achievements of its prowess, the tales of its triumphs, now avail him nothing. He stands there without a country merely a man.

The King and the great ones of the earth, who have made men happy by a stroke of the pen, or caused them to tremble by a nod, will be there. The rich man of fabulous wealth, whose favor was so much courted, whose influence was so much envied, will be there too. But there will be no crown upon the head of the one, nor place of favor reserved for the other. Next to the King and the millionaire, and of equal importance where only one thing counts, is the lowest and humblest subject of the one and the once despised fellow citizen of the other. Wealth is nothing. It has lost its value in the grave. Birth is of no value. Reputation, influence, fame are of no avail. Each man stands alone. He can claim as his own only one possession, the record of his life. There it is in each man's hands, written in characters legible to all, not a word erased or exaggerated. There, by the absolute truthfulness of each individual action, deed, and thought must he now stand or fall. Upon that record and nothing else hangs his eternal doom. And oh the awful anxiety with which each terrorstricken man shall read now for the first time the story of his own life in absolute truth. For, alas, while we live self-love will never let us see ourselves exactly as we are. As we shall stand that day, our history will be thrown open to all the world and worst of all to the just Judge before whose keen scrutiny nothing remains hidden. No, we shall know ourselves and others; and we ourselves shall be known in absolute truth and with innermost perception. No secret sin, no, not one, but will stand out equally clear to the eyes of all the world as the greatest work we prided ourselves upon. O what an awakening!

This Universal Judgment revealed by the Son of God