If you saw a young girl walking to the brink of one of those dreadful precipices formed by the lofty palisades on the North River, and, despite the cries of her friends, she continued her walk, gazing up at the sky, would you not say: "Ah! poor thing, she must be killed; she is as good as dead." {83} Oh, young woman, you are walking upon the brink of a precipice, by your dangerous familiarities, your late hours, your improper company-keeping; and despite the cries of your father, your mother, the pleadings of your friends, and the warning voice of your confessor, your heedlessness in sin will destroy you, body and soul, and you must lose reputation, honor, salvation, eternity. Deaf to the voice of God, you are as good as dead. Jesus daily prepares his divine banquet for you; but, alas! you have lost your spiritual taste for that heavenly food, and there is no life in you--you are dead; according to the words of the divine Saviour: "_Amen, Amen. I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you_." [Footnote 38] [Footnote 38: St. John vi., 54.] [Transcriber's note: The USCCB reference is: St. John vi., 53.] The Lord strikes you with afflictions of various kinds: disease, loss of friends, misfortune in your business. He sends his angel of death to your very doors; but you are insensible to his chastisements: they affect you no more than if you were a statue of marble. Is not this to be indeed dead? {84} "_You have put on malediction as a vestment, and it has entered like water into your veins, and as oil into your bones_." [Footnote 39] [Footnote 39: Psalms cviii., 18.] [Transcriber's note: Psalms cviii ends at verse 14.] Yes; corruption has commenced; you have become offensive as a corpse, of bad odor, and scandalous to the Christian community. The finger is pointed at you, your bad life is every where spoken of, but you do not believe it; like a corpse, you are not sensible of the disgust you excite. As the sister of Lazarus said to the Lord: "_It is now four days since he died, and already he stinketh_." Four days! Why, it is four months--four years--forty years, since _you_ died--since you committed mortal sin, and continued in it, oh! unrepentant sinner; and you have become insupportable. You have reaped the blasting curse you sowed: "_For he that soweth in the flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption_," the words of this day's Epistle. [Footnote 40] [Footnote 40: Gal. vi., 8.]