In the evening exhortation, which it had been the Superior's custom to
add to the prayers of the vesper-hour, he dwelt with a terrible and
ghastly eloquence on the loss of the soul.
"Brethren," he said, "believe me, the very first hour of a damned spirit
in hell will outweigh all the prosperities of the most prosperous life.
If you could gain the whole world, that one hour of hell would outweigh
it all; how much more such miserable, pitiful scraps and fragments of
the world as they gain who for the sake of a little fleshly ease neglect
the duties of a holy profession! There is a broad way to hell through a
convent, my brothers, where miserable wretches go who have neither the
spirit to serve the Devil wholly, nor the patience to serve God; there
be many shaven crowns that gnash their teeth in hell to-night,--many a
monk's robe is burning on its owner in living fire, and the devils call
him a fool for choosing to be damned in so hard a way. 'Could you not
come here by some easier road than a cloister?' they ask. 'If you must
sell your soul, why did you not get something for it?' Brethren, there
be devils waiting for some of us; they are laughing at your paltry
shifts and evasions, at your efforts to make things easy,--for they know
how it will all end at last.
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