Son of perdition

“ The record of Thy will doth say,
Revealing Thee in glory’s ray,
On Sinai’s mount with justice crowned,
Throwing Thy awful thunders round,
But most, when pitying the hard lot
Of man, Thy Son rejoiced to die
Upon the mount of Calvary,
Thy voice was heard—Forget me not!
Forget us not! Forget us not!
In that dread hour when tyrant death
Shall gripe this form and stop its breath;
Oh! in each struggling throe, that clay
Feels when the soul is wrenched away,
And it is left for earth to rot,
Look down in mercy—Lord, be nigh,
To curb the dying agony;
We are but dust—Forget us not! ”

“ Sons of Perdition.—There is a class of souls with whom the justice of God must deal, which will not and cannot be classified in the celestial, terrestrial or telestial glories.
They are the sons of perdition. But though they will not be assigned a place in either of these grand divisions of glory, the revelation from which we have drawn our information respecting man's future state describes the condition of these sons of perdition so far as it is made known unto the children of men. It also informs us as to the nature of the crime which calls for such grievous punishment. ”

“ Then she began to chant.
She chanted her sorrow in a rhythm that rose and fell regularly, like the palpitation of a heart.
It was an ancient monody that, from time immemorial, in the region of the Abruzzi, the women chanted over the loss of their kin. It was the melodious eloquence of the sacred sorrow that spontaneously wells up from the depths of the being, that hereditary rhythm in which the mothers of other times had modulated their lament.
She chanted, chanted:
"Open your eyes, arise, walk, my son! How beautiful you are! How beautiful you are!" ”

“ The beginning of old age in the voluptuary, the implacable work of vice and time, the vain and clumsy artifice to hide the senile grayness, the menace of a sudden death—all these sad, miserable, and tragic things of human life filled the son's heart with profound distress. An immense pity entered into his heart, even for his father. "Blame him? But he suffers, too. All this flesh, which inspires such a strong aversion in me, all this heavy mass of flesh, is inhabited by a soul. What anguish he may have felt, and what weariness! He certainly has a terrible fear of death." ”

“ No, the grave itself does not remind us of our loss like the company of those who have no loss to mourn. Go back to thy solitude, young orphan — go back to thy home: the sorrow that meets thee on the threshold can greet thee, even in its sadness, like the smile upon the face of the dead. ”

“ Thou art my God!
"To thee I pour my tears for sacrifice morning
"and evening: my days are covered with sorrow!
"shut up, darkened: by night I am deceived!
"Who says that thou wast born of mortal kind?
"Destruction was thy father, a lioness suckled
"thee, thy young hands tore human limbs, and
"gorged human flesh! Come hither, Death ”

“ Intreat, pray, beg, and raise a doleful cry—
'What, will he still persist, on death resolve,
And in his ruin all his house involve!'
He still persists his reasons to maintain;
Our pray'rs, our tears, our loud laments, are vain.
"Urg'd by despair, again I go to try
The fate of arms, resolv'd in fight to die:
'What hope remains, but what my death must give?
Can I, without so dear a father, live? ”

“ Some wander at such an awful distance, that the voice of mercy which once came home to them with power, now, dies away in whispers upon their obdurate hearts. They wander, until they "stumble" at last "upon the dark mountains," and plunge headlong, into the whirlpool of endless perdition. ”

“ What needs my blood, since thine will do,
To pay the debt to justice due?
O, tender mercy’s art divine!
Thy sorrow proves the cure of mine!
Thy dropping wounds, thy woeful smart,
Allay the bleedings of my heart:
Thy death, in death’s extreme of pain,
Restores my soul to life again!
Parnell.
The Son of God
Only begotten, and well-beloved, between
Men and His Father’s justice interposed;
Put human nature on, His wrath sustained,
And in their name suffered, obeyed, and died;
Making His soul an offering for sin,
Just for unjust, and innocence for guilt. ”

“ In fact, my daughter is dead to us—dead: do you hear, Clémence, from this day you must begin to wear mourning for her in your heart—in your heart, so filled with maternal affection for her. Is our child buried under the marble of a tomb or under the vaults of a cloister—for us, what is the difference? From this day, do you understand, Clémence, we must regard her as dead. Besides, she is so very weak; her health, impaired by so much sorrow, by so many shocks, is so feeble. Why not that other death, still more complete? Fate is not weary. ”

“ Or light our sorrow with its starry eyes;
And so—regret is vain.
One hour of pain and dread,
We killed our Love, we took its life away
With the false words we said;
And so we watch it, since that cruel day,
Silent, and cold, and dead.
We should have seen it shine
Long years beside us. Time and Death might try
To touch that life divine,
Whose strength could every other stroke defy
Save only thine and mine.
No longing can restore
Our dead again. Vain are the tears we weep,
And vainly we deplore
Our buried Love: its grave lies dark and deep
Between us evermore. ”

“ When we have watched through a long vigil with a great and agonizing sorrow, when we have rebelled against it, and battled and fought with the air, in our vain outcry against its injustice, when we have longed and wept and prayed for release in vain, and then, at last, have laid it in its ashes and stood beside that open grave, which yawns sooner or later in every past, then—the coming of its ghost is bitter with the bitterness of death. ”

“ This sorrow compares in dignity and terror with the most sublime sorrows of which humanity is capable. The death of a parent or child, though rendered more imposing to the spectator by the ceremonies of the sepulchre, does not chill the heart more deeply than the death of love. ”

“ It is to the little graves that we turn in our keenest anguish and not to the larger mounds; to the little graves that our hearts are drawn in our hours of triumph. And so the child, though dead, lives its appointed time and dies only in the fullness of its years. ”

“ But this world's life has much to dread,
Not so, my Father, with the dead.
'Oh! not for them, should we despair,
The grave is drear, but they are not there:
Their dust is mingled with the sod,
Their happy souls are gone to God! ”

“ As peacefully as a child sinks to rest on a mother's bosom, sunk he into Death's embrace.
The agony of the hour, when it is said of a beloved one, "he is dead," has never—nor can it be justly portrayed. ”

“ Nor writ her name, whose tomb should pierce the skies.
Presumptuous fear! How durst I dread her foes, 180
While nature’s loudest dictates I obey’d?
Pardon necessity, bless’d shade! of grief
And indignation rival bursts I pour’d;
Half execration mingled with my prayer;
Kindled at man, while I his God adored; 185
Sore grudged the savage land her sacred dust;
Stamp’d the cursed soil; and with humanity
(Denied Narcissa) wish’d them all a grave.
Glows my resentment into guilt? What guilt
Can equal violations of the dead?
The dead how sacred! ”

“ It is no more a father, a wife, a child,—humanity itself is rising from its dust.
It is impossible to judge of the catholic, apostolic, and Roman faith, unless the soul has known that deepest grief of mourning for a loved one lying beneath the pall; unless it has felt the emotions that fill the heart, uttered by that Hymn of Despair, by those cries that crush the mind, by that sacred fear augmenting strophe by strophe, ascending heavenward, which terrifies, belittles, and elevates the soul, and leaves within our minds, as the last sound ceases, a consciousness of immortality. ”

“ Yet a few struggles, yet the throat-rattle, and the leaden hand of death choked the wounded man's last sigh, imprinted on his brow the seal of the last grief; gathering whole years of repentance into one rapid moment, in which the soul, tearing itself from the body, fears equally the tortures of life and of nothingness, feels at once all the gnawing of the past and all the agony of the future. ”

“ They beheld fall the family wealth, fall, disappear forever. The immensity of the sacrifice plunged them into despair, and their distress extended to their kinsmen. The relatives ended by uttering piercing shrieks altogether. The young man alone remained silent, keeping constantly fixed on the Image his eyes, from which gushed two streams of silent tears. ”

“ All is over. I must die! The grave yawns to receive me. Alas! what a place for my mortal remains! Forgotten, unknown, concealed by the darkness of a horrible crime! Not a tear will fall upon the tomb of the unfortunate victim; not a cross will mark the spot where I lie; not a prayer will be whispered over my body! Death approaches. Ah! I must not thus cling to life; I will pray and lift my hands in supplication to God. He alone—"
He stopped under the influence of a sudden emotion. ”

“ In a shroud of mourning liest thou among the woes,
My senses in a horrid darkness trapped expire.
Thy hands are bound, my freedom’s gone; eternal throes
Of death have chained my mind upon a funeral pyre. ”

“ I wish to die with thee, if fate brings thy turn to perish first, and not to prolong my span of life at all, when once dismal death has cast thee to the tomb.
"For if thou chance to close thy eyes for ever, a victim to the maddened attack of the men-at-arms;—by whatsoever doom thy breath be cut off, by sword or disease, by sea or soil, I forswear every wanton and corrupt flame, and vow myself to a death like thine; that they who were bound by one marriage-union may be embraced in one and the same punishment. ”

“ What on earth is now beautiful or bright since the dearest, best treasure is removed? Oh, no! there can be no bright spot in affliction like this; there can be no bright ray to gild this night of sorrow.
Ah! thou erring mortal, repine not. The all-wise Father knew thy frail heart, saw thy whole life and soul bound up in that one creature, weak and sinful like thyself; forgetful of the Creator; and wilt thou dare raise thy feeble voice against the Almighty when He removed the idol that He alone may reign? ”

“ And then He told them that, although He came on earth on purpose to die, yet the man who sinfully betrayed Him would bring upon himself the utmost wrath of God. "The Son of man, indeed, goeth as it is written of him: but woe to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! ”

“ But Thou knowest that it is all but a shadow which a glance from Thee can dissipate. Hast not Thou Thyself been a man? It was sorrow that made Thee God; sorrow is an instrument of torture by which Thou hast mounted to the very throne of God, Thy Father, and it is sorrow that leads us to Thee with our crown of thorns to kneel before Thy mercy-seat; we touch Thy bleeding feet with our bloodstained hands, for Thou hast suffered martyrdom to be loved by the unfortunate. ”

“ But the bread that is wet with the tears of orphans cries to Heaven for vengeance, the blessing of God rests not upon it. Thou art old and thou wilt die. Thou shalt leave none behind thee, thou shalt bury all whom thou didst ever love. But I shall remain alive to see thy grave. ”

“ Whenever it came, a heavy, numbing throb seemed to take hold of my heart, and say, 'Dead-dead-dead.' And I cried out, 'The living, the living shall praise Thee, O God; the dead cannot praise thee. There is no work in the grave; in the night no man can work. ”

“ Death ensues when things propitious reign! Upon the ornamented beam will settle at the close of spring the fragrant dust! Your reckless indulgence of licentious love and your naturally moonlike face will soon be the source of the ruin of a family. ”

“ He alluded with many tears to the brethren who had perished in the burning streets, or lay buried under the ruins of fallen houses, and he bade them not to sorrow as men without hope, since the dead who die in the Lord were blessed. How far more awful was the fate of those worshippers of false gods, who had lived in defiant wickedness, and who, instead of passing from life to life, had passed from death unto death, and a fiery looking for of judgment! ”

“ Full of life and generous vigor, you bind to your heart a putrefying corpse! You court your own destruction, clinging to a vain belief in privileged orders, in worn-out relics, in the bones of dead men, in mouldering escutcheons and forgotten coats of arms—and yet in your inmost heart you are forced to acknowledge that your brother nobles have deserved their punishment, that forgetfulness were mercy for them! ”

“ One sees a ghastly figure of emaciation and decay; the eyes lying deep in their sockets, in a frightful stage of decomposition, and the whole frame exhibiting the power of death over the flesh of the Saints, but suggesting that, while patiently submitting to the worst that worms can do, it rests in hope and speaks out of the very grave—“I know that my Redeemer liveth.” ”

“ just such tears, sir, as you dropped into the coffin where lay your first-born son; such tears, woman, as you shed when you heard the cries of your dying babe. For, sir, he was a man,—and you are but another man. And, woman, though dressed in silk and jewels, you are but a woman, and, in life's great straits and mighty griefs, ye feel but one sorrow! ”

“ Invoking vengeance on the dust below.
'Lo! rising there above each humbler heap,
'Yon cipher'd stones his name and wealth relate,
'Who gave his son—remorseless—to the deep,
'While I, his living victim, curse my fate.
'Oh, my lost love! no tomb is placed for thee,
'That may to strangers eyes thy worth impart!
'Thou hast no grave but in the stormy sea!
'And no memorial but this breaking heart!
'Forth to the world, a widow'd wanderer driven,
'I pour to winds and waves the unheeded tear,
'Try with vain effort to submit to Heaven,
'And fruitless call on him—"who cannot hear." ”