Life of St John Vianney.pdf - the Catholic Kingdom!

""THE LAST DAT OF THE YEAR. 295me, for I have forgiven. There was a large cmeiflxthere, which bowed its head in token of assent. A manwho had been imprisoned on an unjust charge of sheepstealingwas about to fall into despair. An angel appeared to *him, and said, It is true thou art not guiltyof that of which thou art now accused ;but dost thounot remember how thou didst neglect to draw thatdrowning man out of the water whom thou mights!have saved, and didst not save ? It is for this that thouart suffering to-day.On the last Day of theYear."The world passes away; we pass away with it.Kings,emperors, all pass away ; they are swallowed up in eternity, whence they return no more. We have but one thingto do, to save our poor souls. Look at the Saints ; theywere not attached to the things of earth ; they cared onlyfor the things of Heaven. Men of the world, on the contrary, think of nothing but the present.A good Christian does as those who go into a foreigncountry to amass wealth ; they never think of remainingthere ;they have nothing so much at heart as to returnto their own country as soon as their fortune shall bemade. We must do like kings on the point of beingdethroned ; they send their treasures before them, towait for them in the land whither they are going. So agood Christian sends all his good works before him tcHeaven. The good God has placed us upon earth to seehow we behave ourselves, and whether we will love Him.But nobody remains here. A man from Bourg, whohad been condemned to a hundred years on the galleya,IB said to have lived to return. All his contempo-