If we Catholics go to hell it will be with our eyes wide open. The waves of passion can never drown that voice. It will always tell us of our sins, and will never let us be content in being hearers of the law, unless we are also doers. This is the way which is certainly pointed out to us; "and it shall be called the holy way." ----------------------- Sermon LXIII. _Jesus came, and stood in the midst, and said to them, Peace be to you._ --St. John xx. 26. In spite of there being so much fighting in the world, I think, my brethren, that there are not many of us who really like it for its own sake, or who would not rather have peace. Of course we are not willing to sacrifice everything for it; we do not want peace at any price. We do not want the peace of slavery--that which comes from being beaten. We want an honorable one--that which comes from having had the best of our adversary in a just war. {220} There is another kind of peace besides these two. It is that which comes from being let alone. But that is something which is not intended for us in this world. Somebody will always be interfering with us; if nobody else does, the devil, at any rate, will be sure to do so. No, arrange it as we may, our life will always be full of annoyances and conflicts, both from without and from within. And this kind of peace was not what our Lord wished and gave to his apostles on that glorious day when he arose from the dead. He knew very well that they, of all men in the world, were not going to be let alone. They were going to be put in the very front of the battle. Not only their neighbors but the whole world was going to rise up against them; and Satan, with his infernal host, was going to single them out as the special objects of his hatred and vengeance. No, the peace which our Lord gave to his apostles was not this, but that which comes from victory. And that is the peace which he wishes us also to have. Over whom, then, are we going to be victorious? In the first place, over the devil and all his temptations. Many Christians, I am sorry to say, make the opposite kind of peace with the devil--that is, the peace of slavery; one which they would be ashamed to make with anybody else. Should they be tempted by him to impurity, drunkenness, hatred, or blasphemy, they give in and strike their colors at once. Being tempted and sinning are all the same thing to them. Well, they have peace in a certain way by this; that is, the devil, when he finds what miserable and cowardly soldiers of Christ they are, does not trouble himself much about them. He feels pretty sure of them; they are his prisoners of war, and it is for his interest to treat them well as long as they are in this world. {221}