The next day brought death and judgement, stirring his soul slowly from its listless despair.  The faint glimmer of fear became a terror of spirit as the hoarse voice of the preacher blew death into his soul.  He suffered its agony.  He felt the death chill touch the extremities and creep onward towards the heart, the film of death veiling the eyes, the bright centres of the brain extinguished one by one like lamps, the last sweat oozing upon the skin, the powerlessness of the dying limbs, the speech thickening and wandering and failing, the heart throbbing faintly and more faintly, all but vanquished, the breath, the poor breath, the poor helpless human spirit, sobbing and sighing, gurgling and rattling in the throat.  No help!  No help!  He—­he himself—­his body to which he had yielded was dying.  Into the grave with it.  Nail it down into a wooden box, the corpse.  Carry it out of the house on the shoulders of hirelings.  Thrust it out of men’s sight into a long hole in the ground, into the grave, to rot, to feed the mass of its creeping worms and to be devoured by scuttling plump-bellied rats.

And while the friends were still standing in tears by the bedside the soul of the sinner was judged.  At the last moment of consciousness the whole earthly life passed before the vision of the soul and, ere it had time to reflect, the body had died and the soul stood terrified before the judgement seat.  God, who had long been merciful, would then be just.  He had long been patient, pleading with the sinful soul, giving it time to repent, sparing it yet awhile.  But that time had gone.  Time was to sin and to enjoy, time was to scoff at God and at the warnings of His holy church, time was to defy His majesty, to disobey His commands, to hoodwink one’s fellow men, to commit sin after sin and to hide one’s corruption from the sight of men.  But that time was over.  Now it was God’s turn:  and He was not to be hoodwinked or deceived.  Every sin would then come forth from its lurking place, the most rebellious against the divine will and the most degrading to our poor corrupt nature, the tiniest imperfection and the most heinous atrocity.  What did it avail then to have been a great emperor, a great general, a marvellous inventor, the most learned of the learned?  All were as one before the judgement seat of God.  He would reward the good and punish the wicked.  One single instant was enough for the trial of a man’s soul.  One single instant after the body’s death, the soul had been weighed in the balance.  The particular judgement was over and the soul had passed to the abode of bliss or to the prison of purgatory or had been hurled howling into hell.