"I claim this soul as mine. Look at it; see if it does not belong to me? Does it not look like me? Wilt thou take a soul like that and place it in thy paradise?" At these words the sinner looks down upon himself and sees his own soul. He has never seen it before. Oh, what a sight! As a man is horror-struck the first time he sees his blotched and bloated face after an attack of small-pox, so is he horror-struck at the sight of his own soul. {246} Oh, how horribly ugly and defiled it is! What are those stains upon his soul Ah! they are the stains of sin. Each one has left its separate mark; and to look at that soul you might see its history. There is the gangrene of lust, and the spot of anger, and the tumor of pride, and the scale of avarice. Ah! how hideous it is, and how horrible to think how it is changed, for it was once like that beautiful angel that stands by its side, all radiant with light and beauty. It has no resemblance now. The words of the demon are true; it resembles him. But the accuser goes on: "I claim this body as mine." He turns to the body, as it lies in the bed: "I claim those eyes as mine, by the title of all the lascivious looks they have given. I claim those hands as mine, by the title of all the robberies and acts of violence they have committed. I claim those feet as mine, because they were swift to carry him to the place of forbidden pleasures, and slow to go to the house of God. I claim these ears as mine, by the title of all the detraction they have drunk in so greedily. I claim this mouth as mine, by the title of all the blasphemies and impurities it has uttered. See," says he, "this body is mine; it bears my mark;" and as he speaks he points to a scar in the forehead, the remnant of a wound received in a drunken affray in a house of ill-fame. Surely he has said enough; but he is not accustomed to be believed. He has now spoken the truth indeed, because truth serves his purpose better than falsehood would have done. But he knows he is a liar, and therefore needs confirmation; so he goes on: "I have witnesses, if you want them. Shall I bring them up?" Jesus Christ gives his permission. And now see, at his word, a band of lost spirits come up from hell. Oh! how pale and haggard they look, and how they glare on the sinner as they fix on him a look of recognition. Who is that who speaks to him first, and holds out her long withered fingers to him, and says, with a horrid laugh: "I think you know me." {247} Oh! that is the poor girl he seduced. She says: "I followed thee to ruin; it is fitting thou shouldst follow me to hell." But there is another woman. Who is that? That is his poor wife; his poor wife, who had to put up with all the cruelties and violence he practised in his beastly drunkenness; who was led by want to steal, and by despair to drunkenness. She looks upon him with a blood-shot eye. "My husband," she says: "thou wert my tormentor in time; I will be thy tormentor in eternity." But who are those