I do not mean to say that they have no faith at all, for even the heathens have some faith; or that they never think of God, for then they would be brutes; but that these things have no real hold on their minds or influence over their hearts. They never reflect. They stay away from the sacraments. They do not listen to sermons. They have no correct idea at all of the advantage they enjoy in being Catholics; in a word, they break the commandments of God on the slightest temptation, are children of this world and immersed in its cares and enjoyments. Now, one of these men meets with a sudden death. {242} He goes out in the morning--perhaps he is a mechanic--and he falls from a height. He is taken up and put in a litter hastily made, and carried home. It is apparent that life is ebbing fast. In a few minutes he becomes speechless. He has lost his sight. Ah! does he breathe at all? It is hard to say. The doctor comes in great haste. He feels his pulse, looks at him, and says, "It is all over. He has received an injury in a vital part. He is dead." Yes, he is dead. This morning he was alive and well, he was making his plans, he was talking of the weather--now he is dead. All his old thoughts and experience are all rolled back by a new set of things that are forcing themselves on his vision. He is dead. He died suddenly; but not without warning. Others have died in his home before--he is not young. He has seen wife and children die. It made him weep for a while; but he forgot it, and now his turn is come--he is dead. I will not stop to notice the grief of the friends he leaves behind. No; I will follow his soul, as it enters eternity. The voice of his friends dies on his ear--he begins to hear other voices. As he ceases to see the people in his room he begins to see other objects. Who is that, that is standing at the foot of his bed? A neighbor was standing there but just now; but this is another form, a form beautiful, indeed, but majestic and terrible. No; it is not anyone he has ever seen before, and yet, he ought to know that face. He has seen it before; it is the face his mother looked on as she was dying-the face he had often seen in Catholic churches. Yes, it is Jesus Christ. He knows it; it is the same, and yet, how different! When he saw that face in pictures, it was crowned with thorns; now it is crowned with a diadem of matchless glory. When he saw that form in the church, it was naked, and hanging on the Cross; now it is clothed with garments of regal magnificence. Yes, it is Jesus Christ! and He is looking upon him with eyes of fire. He turns to escape those eyes, and he sees there are other figures in the scene. {243} There are two figures--one at the right hand, and one at the left. Who are they? He ought to know them, for they know more of him than anyone else--they have been his companions for life. One is very beautiful--a being with golden locks and cloud-like wings--that is his angel guardian; he looks sad now, for he has