But if we have not this oil, if the lamp of our soul is empty, if we are in the state of mortal sin, what dismay comes on us, what terrible fear and distress of mind, when we are suddenly told to prepare for death! We have been saying all along, "Oh! there will be plenty of time," and now there is not plenty of time. God is coming to meet us, and to demand of us an account of our lives; we cannot hide from his face, and he will not wait. The hour fixed in the eternal counsels of his wisdom has come, the hour on which everything depends, the hour for which the years of our life should have been one long preparation, those years so carelessly thrown away. Friends may stand around us who have not wasted the oil in their lamps as we have ours. Their souls may be full of the grace of God, preserved and increased continually by prayer and good works, by the love of God and frequent confession and Communion. They may have enough and to spare; but they can not lend to us. "No," they must say to us, "go rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves. Go rather," that is, "to the regular sources of that grace, the sacraments, which our Lord has placed in his church, to give life to the dead. Send for the priest, and with his help fill the lamp of your soul, and prepare to meet our Lord." {128} But too often it is as in the parable of the virgins. While the foolish Christian, who has put off his preparation for death, who has lived in the state of sin, expecting to die in the state of grace, goes to fill his lamp, his Lord comes, finds him, and judges him as he is. The priest comes, but only to look on him lying dead. Or even if the oil of grace is brought to the sinner, he has not, perhaps, the price to pay for it; that is, he has not those dispositions of sincere penitence and amendment of life, without which all sacraments are vain and ineffectual. Brethren, it is a fearful point in the parable of the wise and foolish virgins that not one of the five who were so carelessly unprepared was able to have her lamp ready to meet the bridegroom in his coming. It should teach us to expect that, as a rule, a man must die as he has lived. No doubt there are exceptions; the mercy of God is over all, and wills not that the sinner should perish. But the only safe way, the only way, indeed, that is not the wildest folly, and even insanity, is to live as all good Christians do live, continually prepared for death; with the grace of God always in their souls, with no stain of mortal sin on them; with "their loins girt, and lamps burning in their hands"; and "like to men who wait for their lord when he shall return from the wedding: that when he cometh and knocketh they may open to him immediately." ------------------- {129} Sermon XXXVII. Life's Purpose. _Brethren, know you not that they that run in the race, all run indeed, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that you may obtain._ 1 Corinthians. ix. 24.