This is not the only place in Holy Writ, my brethren, where eternal life and death are set before us as the wages we shall some day be paid. The word of God frequently admonishes us of the choice we are compelled to make between eternal sorrow and eternal joy, and for this most evident reason: we are always actually engaged in making the choice. The very essence of our merit hereafter will be that we shall have freely and deliberately chosen Almighty God and his friendship, in preference to any and everything besides. And the reason, and the only reason, why a man will lose his soul will be because he committed mortal sin and died unrepentant--that is to say, choosing to love what God bids him hate. What we call the choice between virtue and vice St. Paul calls the choice between life and death. And with that choice we are constantly confronted. Not that we always realize it, nor do I mean to say that the first time one grievously offends God he settles his fate eternally; but that each mortal sin really earns the wages of eternal death, and only the blessed mercy of God saves us from our deserved punishment. And furthermore, it is some mortal sin or other that at last breaks down God's patience. If at any particular occasion he does not see fit to take us at our word, so to speak, and leave us for ever in that state of enmity that we have chosen, it is not because we do not deserve it; it is because he is a loving Father to us, and is often willing to stand a great deal of wickedness on our part; or because we have some dear friends who are servants of God and who pray for us; or because the Blessed Virgin has acquired some special attachment to us and intervenes for us; or because God reserves us for a later day, when he will make such an example of us as will save other sinners; or because, again, he saves us for a later day to make us models of true penance. {336} But just look around you, brethren; just call to mind what you have heard or perhaps seen of God's judgments, and the Apostle's lesson becomes object-teaching. Have you not heard of a sudden and unprovided death and then remembered how years ago that man started a disreputable business? It was thus that he made his decision for all eternity. On the other hand, a man now temperate, once a drunkard, will tell you that long ago he took the pledge and broke it, and broke it again, but still persevered, and finally, by the grace of God, has managed to keep it. He was fighting the battle of fate and he won the victory. That dreadful appetite overcome, the practice of religion became easy to him. In another case a man is led away little by little from the rules of honest dealing; at last he refuses to pay a certain just debt, one that he can easily pay if he wishes. After that avarice eats into the core of his heart and he is lost for ever. And, brethren, what a relief to hear after a sudden death that the poor soul was a monthly communicant!