See, then, my dear brethren, how fearful a thing this sin is which can have such fearful effects. God has made us to enjoy him for all eternity in heaven, and yet by sin we turn against ourselves, and, if I may so speak, compel the good God to issue against us an eternal sentence of banishment from his divine presence. We prevent our own souls from reaching that end for which alone they were created. We reap for ourselves an eternity of untold misery, instead of one of surpassing bliss. Let us, then, to-day make a firm and constant resolution that, cost what it may, nothing in this world shall induce us to kill our souls by staining them with sin; and if any one is so unhappy as to be in that state now, let him now resolve that he will by a good confession cleanse his soul, and from henceforward, casting behind the things that are past, he will press forward to the things that are before. ------------------- {332} Sermon C. False Prophets. _Beware of false prophets._ --Gospel of the Day. I think, my dear brethren, that you all know pretty well what our Lord means when he says in to-day's Gospel, "Beware of false prophets." You would tell me, at least if you stopped to think for a moment, that he means to warn us against those who were to come after him, pretending to teach his doctrine, claiming that theirs was the true and pure Christian religion, or putting on, as he says, the sheep's clothing, but really striving to draw the faithful away from the unity of the church which he had established; being, in fact, to use his own words, ravenous wolves. Yes, you would tell me this, and you would be right in your explanation of his words. It is, indeed, of these false Christian teachers that he would warn us. It is against the innumerable errors which are taught as Christianity, and against the countless self-appointed guides to his one religion who were to multiply as time went on, that he wished to forewarn us; to keep us from listening to them, or allowing ourselves to be turned by them from the one source of truth which he has provided for us in his holy Catholic Church. And no doubt, in a way, we listen to his warning, and are not much deceived by their pretensions, at least in these days. If a Catholic loses his faith nowadays, it is usually easy enough to see that he does so, not because he is really deceived by the false prophet and takes him for a true one, but because he wishes to lead an easier life without being blamed for it; because he objects to confession and the other laws of the church as imposing too much restraint on him, or because his temporal interests will be advanced by the change. {333}