And this day will come, shall come, must come:  the day of death and the day of judgement.  It is appointed unto man to die and after death the judgement.  Death is certain.  The time and manner are uncertain, whether from long disease or from some unexpected accident:  the Son of God cometh at an hour when you little expect Him.  Be therefore ready every moment, seeing that you may die at any moment.  Death is the end of us all.  Death and judgement, brought into the world by the sin of our first parents, are the dark portals that close our earthly existence, the portals that open into the unknown and the unseen, portals through which every soul must pass, alone, unaided save by its good works, without friend or brother or parent or master to help it, alone and trembling.  Let that thought be ever before our minds and then we cannot sin.  Death, a cause of terror to the sinner, is a blessed moment for him who has walked in the right path, fulfilling the duties of his station in life, attending to his morning and evening prayers, approaching the holy sacrament frequently and performing good and merciful works.  For the pious and believing catholic, for the just man, death is no cause of terror.  Was it not Addison, the great English writer, who, when on his deathbed, sent for the wicked young earl of Warwick to let him see how a christian can meet his end?  He it is and he alone, the pious and believing christian, who can say in his heart: 

    O grave, where is thy victory? 
    O death, where is thy sting?

Every word of it was for him.  Against his sin, foul and secret, the whole wrath of God was aimed.  The preacher’s knife had probed deeply into his disclosed conscience and he felt now that his soul was festering in sin.  Yes, the preacher was right.  God’s turn had come.  Like a beast in its lair his soul had lain down in its own filth but the blasts of the angel’s trumpet had driven him forth from the darkness of sin into the light.  The words of doom cried by the angel shattered in an instant his presumptuous peace.  The wind of the last day blew through his mind, his sins, the jewel-eyed harlots of his imagination, fled before the hurricane, squeaking like mice in their terror and huddled under a mane of hair.

As he crossed the square, walking homeward, the light laughter of a girl reached his burning ear.  The frail gay sound smote his heart more strongly than a trumpet blast, and, not daring to lift his eyes, he turned aside and gazed, as he walked, into the shadow of the tangled shrubs.  Shame rose from his smitten heart and flooded his whole being.  The image of Emma appeared before him, and under her eyes the flood of shame rushed forth anew from his heart.  If she knew to what his mind had subjected her or how his brute-like lust had torn and trampled upon her innocence!  Was that boyish love?  Was that chivalry?  Was that poetry?  The sordid details of his orgies stank under his very nostrils.