He will have no faith in man or God. He will
believe no good, he will have no hope, either for himself or for the
world.
This, this is death, indeed; the death of sin; the death in which
human beings may go on for years, walking, eating, and drinking;
worse than those who walk in their sleep, and see nothing, though
their eyes are staring wide.
Oh pitiable sight! The most pitiable sight in the whole world, a
human soul dead and rotten in sin! It is a pitiable sight enough,
to see a human body decayed by disease, to see a poor creature
dying, even quietly and without pain. Pitiable, but not half so
pitiable as the death of a human soul by sin. For the death of the
body is not a man's own fault. But that death in life of sin, is a
man's own fault. In a Christian country, at least, it is a man's
own fault, if he goes about the world, as I have seen many a one go,
having a name to live, and yet dead in trespasses and sins, while
his soul only serves to keep his body alive and moving. How shall
we escape this death in life? St. Paul tells us, 'If ye through the
Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.'
Through the Spirit. The Spirit of God and of Christ. Keep that in
mind, for that is the only way, the right way, to mortify and kill
in us these vices and passions, which, unless we kill them, will
kill us.
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