One while it sees the million times ten million genera and species of pains of sense which meet and form a loathsome union with this vast central pain of loss.

Another while all the multitude of graces, the countless kind providences, which it has wasted pass before it, and generate that undying worm of remorse of which Our Saviour speaks.

Then comes a keen but joyless view, a calculation, but only a bankrupt's calculation, of the possibility of gains for ever forfeited, of all the grandeur and ocean-like vastness of the bliss which it has lost.

Last of all comes before it the immensity of God, to it so unconsoling and so unprofitable; it is not a picture, it is only a formless shadow, yet it knows instinctively that it is God.
With a cry that should be heard creation through, it rushes upon Him, and it knocks itself, spirit as it is, against material terrors.

It clasps the shadow of God, and, lo! it embraces keen flames.