But for all, without exception, the need of the Shepherd is imperative at the end. The victory, the happy issue of life’s struggle, “is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.”(71) All may run, all may strive, indeed, for the prize of eternal life, but none can be sure, short of the mercy of God, that he will be saved; none can merit this crowning glory of life. Whether young or old, whether favored or neglected, whether innocent or guilty, whether the life has been dowered with special blessings and never known the stain of grievous sin, or whether it has been eked out amidst deepest misery and defiled with hateful crimes, the same uncertainty for all remains as to the manner in which the end shall come. Men may reason and conjecture, from what they see and know, that this one or that is in God’s favor, and shall so persevere to the end; that the members of a certain family, or class, or station in life, are sure to be saved, and shall never fall short; but that those of another class or condition shall, on the contrary, die as they have lived, in the filth of their sins, to be forever in torment. But these are the reasonings of men, which are of no avail in the sight of God. It is only the Father in Heaven who knows the elect. He alone is able to tell who shall remain to be crowned, and who is to be condemned. Perseverance is a gratuitous gift of God, we cannot merit it. All our good actions and holy deeds, which are performed in the state of grace and out of a motive of charity, do, it is true, merit a reward in Heaven, they tend to increase our blessedness hereafter; but just as it is not in our power to merit the first grace, by which we are raised from a state of sin, so are we utterly unable to do anything which shall secure for a certainty the final grace, by which alone we can be saved. Wherefore the Preacher said: “All these things have I considered in my heart, that I might carefully understand them: there are just men and wise men, and their works are in the hand of God; and yet man knoweth not whether he be worthy of love or hatred. But all things are kept uncertain for the time to come, because all things equally happen to the just and to the wicked, to the good and to the evil, to the clean and to the unclean, to him that offereth victims, and to him that despiseth sacrifices. As the good is, so also is the sinner; as the perjured, so he also that sweareth truth.”(72)