“What is the state of death?—­It is a state during which the heart cannot be moved to its depths, and though the world displays to it its beauties, its honours, and its riches, the effect is the same as if it offered them to a corpse, which remains motionless, and devoid of all desire, insensible to all that goes on....  The corpse may be agitated outwardly, and have some movement of the body; but this agitation is all on the surface; it does not come from the inner man, which is without life, vigour, or strength.  Thus a soul which is dead within may easily be attached by external things and be disturbed outwardly; but in its inner self it remains dead and motionless to whatever may happen.”

Nor is this all.  Olier imagines as far superior to the state of death the state of burial.

“Death retains the appearance of the world and of the flesh; the dead man seems to be still a part of Adam.  He is now and again moved; he continues to afford the world some pleasure.  But the buried body is forgotten, and no longer ranks with men.  He is noisome and horrible; he is bereft of all that pleases the eye; he is trodden under foot in a cemetery without compunction, so convinced is every one that he is nothing, and that he is rooted from among the number of men.”

The sombre fancies of Calvin are as Pelagian optimism compared to the horrible nightmares which original sin evokes in the brain of the pious recluse.

“Could you add anything to drive more closely home the conception as to how the flesh is only sin?  It is so completely sin that it is all intent and motion towards sin, and even to every kind of sin; so much so, that if the Holy Ghost did not restrain our souls and succour us with His grace, it would be carried away by all the inclinations of the flesh, all of which tend to sin.

“What is then the flesh?—­It is the effect of sin; it is the principle of sin.

“If that is so, how comes it that you did not fall away every hour into sin?—­It is the mercy of God which keeps us from it....  I am, therefore, indebted to God if I do not commit every kind of sin?—­Yes ... this is the general feeling of the saints, because the flesh is drawn down towards sin by such a heavy weight that God alone can prevent it from falling.

“But will you kindly tell me something more about this?—­All I can tell you is that there is no conceivable kind of sin, no imperfection, disorder, error, or unruliness of which the flesh is not full, just as there is no levity, folly, or stupidity of which the flesh is not capable at any moment.

“What, I should be mad, and comport myself like a madman in the highways and byways, but for the help of God?—­That is a small matter, and a question of common decency; but you must know that without the grace of God and the virtue of His Spirit, there is no impurity, meanness, infamy, drunkenness, blasphemy, or other kind of sin to which man would not give himself over.