Part 1, lesson 19. Of the obligation we are under, in conse quence of our sins, to bear poverty, which is the third branch of the cross of Christians

Q. You have shown me that we are obliged, in consequence of sin, to carry the two first parts of the cross, namely, con tempt and persecution, or those violent pains which we call suf ferings; but you have not yet spoken to me of the third part, no less hard to bear than the others, I mean poverty, which is the third branch of the cross of Christians. '

A. It is very easy to do so, and to show you that we are obliged, in consequence of sin, to bear the greatest poverty imaginable. The justice of the kings of the world, who do nothing just but through a participation of the justice of God himself, teaches this to us in the laws enacted against criminals. For as soon as it has convicted a man of high treason, it strips him of all his goods, demolishes his house, and de prives of all right in the king dom, not only the criminal himself, but all his family and descendants.

Q. Is it thus that God has treated sinners ?

A. Yes, in the person of the first man, and,_afterhim, in that of all his children. First, he drove Adam out of his dwel ling place, the beautiful man sion of the terrestial Paradise, which is, as it were, demolished and destroyed for him and all his children; secondly, he dis possessed him of the empire of the world, deprived him of all rights, and reduced him to the state of a most wretched slavery.

Q. But why does God take away all goods from sinners ?

A. Because it is not just that a rebellious creature, a revolted servant, a traitor, an unfaith ful man should enjoy the goods of his master. Justice requires, on the contrary, that the master should take them out of his hands, expel him from his house, and suffer him no longer to eat his bread in his company. Justice requires then that God should take his goods from his enemies, since they ordinarily use them only to offend him.

Q. Why then do sinners enjoy so quietly the gifts of God? Why do they live so much at their ease ? Why do they abound in every thing ?

A. Because God does not always exercise his justice upon them in this world ; he reserves it to himself to punish them in the next. Then the richest of men shall not have a drop of water to cool their parched tongue, as our Lord says.* Then they

• Mitte Lazarum, ut intingat extrewill be so poor and miserable, that they will be stript of every thing, and even deprived of the use of their natural powers, by the excess of their tortures, and the subtraction of the help of God, who will leave them only so much of the exercise of their faculties as is necessary to make them feel more keenly the rigor of their punishment.

Q. The devils and reprobate are then very miserable ?

A. They are so miserable, that God alone can understand their misery; they themselves can not comprehend it, both mum digit! sui in aquam, ut refrigeret linguam meam, quia crucior in hac flamma. Luc. xvi, 24.

because their pain is so great as to exceed their understanding, and because it gives them no in termission to think deliberately about it. They cry incessantly in the excess of their rage and despair, and do nothing else. Sinners, according to the order of the justice of God, should be in a like state.

Q. What! ought sinners to be poor and deprived of every thing, like the evil spirits?

A. Yes; they should even be deprived of all their corporal and spiritual faculties, and be stripped of all the gifts of God.

Q. Why are they not de prived of them ?

A. Because our Saviour purchased for them, by the effusion of his blood, the rights which they had lost; it is on his account that they enjoy them; they have no spiritual or temporal gifts but through the pure mercy of God and the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, being moved with compassion for the misery of men, came himself to bear it for them, and to compensate by Ms poverty for that which they should suffer.

Q. Will you explain this more fully in relation to the gifts of the mind ?

A. We have no use of our powers, no light of the mind, no movement of the will, that Christ did not acquire for us ; because, having sinned in Adam, we deserved to lose all; but we received in Christ all we had lost, and even many more graces and gifts than sin had taken from us. Thus where sin abounded, grace does more abound* through Jesus Christ; and, we may say, with the Church: Happy fault, that has procured for us such and so great a Redeemer!!

• Ubi abundavit delictum, superabundavit gratia. Rom. v, 20.

t O felix culpa ! quse talem ac tantum meruit habere Redemptorem. Prae. Pasch.