A reprobate in hell will always appear in the eyes of God stained with that blood which he has so basely treated.  God will then always abhor him; and, as the aversion of God from His creature is that which makes hell, it must be inferred that hell will be eternal.  And in this, O my God, Thou art sovereignly just, sovereignly holy, and worthy of our praise and adoration.  It is in this way that the beloved disciple declared it even to God Himself in the Apocalypse.  Men, said he, have shed the blood of Thy servants and of Thy prophets; therefore they deserve to drink it, and to drink it from the cup of Thine indignation.  “For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink.”  An expression which the Scripture employs to describe the extreme infliction of divine vengeance.  Ah! if the blood of the prophets has drawn down the scourge of God upon men, what may we not expect from the blood of Jesus Christ?  If the blood of martyrs is heard crying out in heaven against the persecutors of the faith, how much more will the blood of the Redeemer be heard!

Then once more, Christians, behold the deplorable necessity to which we are reduced.  This blood which flows from Calvary either demands grace for us, or justice against us.  When we apply ourselves to it by a lively faith and a sincere repentance, it demands grace; but when by our disorders and impieties we check its salutary virtue, it demands justice, and it infallibly obtains it.  It is in this blood, says St. Bernard, that all righteous souls are purified; but by a prodigy exactly opposite, it is also in this same blood that all the sinners of the land defile themselves, and render themselves, if I may use the expression, more hideous in the sight of God.

Ah! my God, shall I eternally appear in thine eyes polluted with that blood which washes away the crimes of others?  If I had simply to bear my own sins, I might promise myself a punishment less rigorous, considering my sins as my misfortune, my weakness, my ignorance.  Then, perhaps, Thou wouldst be less offended on account of them.  But when these sins with which I shall be covered shall present themselves before me as so many sacrileges with respect to the blood of Thy Son; when the abuse of this blood shall be mixed and confounded with all the disorders of my life; when there shall not be one of them against which this blood shall not cry louder than the blood of Abel against Cain; then, O God of my soul I what will become of me in thy presence?  No, Lord, cries the same St. Bernard affectionately, suffer not the blood of my Savior to fall upon me in this manner.  Let it fall upon me to sanctify, but let it not fall upon me to destroy.  Let it fall upon me in a right use of the favors which are the divine overflowings of it, and not through the blindness of mind and hardness of heart which are the most terrible punishments of it.  Let it fall upon me by the participation of the sacred Eucharist, which is the precious source