around him was broken, despair seized on his soul, he hanged himself and went "to his own place," bequeathing the memory of his infamous treason to the execration of all future generations. {229} This is the history of many a one, besides Judas. For instance, take this from the life of St. Francis of Assisi. [Footnote 102] [Footnote 102: F. Challipe's Life, vol. i.. p. 91.] "A sixth disciple, named John, and surnamed de Capella, began well, and finished ill. He was charged with distributing among his brethren the alms that had been contributed, and took on himself voluntarily the office of procuring all that was wanting for the community. But, by degrees, he became attached to temporal things, went abroad too much, and relaxed extremely in the observance of regular discipline. The holy Founder, after giving him a number of severe reprimands in vain, threatened him with a frightful malady and a miserable death, as the punishment of his indocility. In fact, this bad religious was smitten with a horrible leprosy, which he had not the patience to bear. He abandoned his companions, the poor of Jesus Christ, and giving himself up to despair, hanged himself, like Judas." This example is no doubt an unusual one, in this respect, that the penalty of this unhappy man's sinful life was more striking and visible than is commonly the case. {230} But it is essentially like thousands of examples everywhere, and in every-day life, in which the origin, progress and end of sin are really the same, though more secret and hidden. So the careless Christian begins his downward career, by a negligence which goes from bad to worse, from small things to those of greater and greater moment, until all fervor is lost, and his conscience falls into a deadly slumber. Then come grievous sins; singly at first, but afterward in quick succession. This stage of the disease lapses at last into the state of obduracy and final impenitence. Sacrilege is very commonly mixed up with it, more or less, as the religions, ecclesiastical or secular condition of the person, or his peculiar character and circumstances, may in a greater or lesser degree expose him to the occasion of profaning sacraments. He may be hurried along into an open, and perhaps, from his station and antecedents, a very scandalous apostacy from the faith, and thus become a declared traitor to his allegiance to Jesus Christ and the Church. He may fill up the measure of his wickedness in some other way; but it ends the same, in self-destruction: not by suicide, but by the gradual and sure destruction of conscience, and of moral and spiritual vitality, ending in a spiritual and eternal death which knows no resurrection forever. {231} So he goes "to his Own place," to the place he has prepared for himself, the place he has merited, the place that suits his moral condition, the place assigned to him as his eternal abode by the unerring justice of God.