If we turn to the Scriptures, under the guidance of the teaching Church, for enlightenment concerning the doctrine of everlasting punishment, we shall find two things stated in them with painful clarity by our Lord himself. There is a final punishment for the unrepentant; it is eternal and it is fire. If thy hand scandalize thee, cut it off. It is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into unquenchable fire; where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not extinguished (Mark ix, 42). And again: Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire, which was prepared for the devil and his angels (Matt. xxv, 41-42). In the moving passage too, in St John's gospel, where our Lord sets out his teaching about himself as the way, the truth and the life, under the image of the vine and the branches, the same warning is contained; that burning by fire is the inevitable result of complete separation from him.

When, in the Mass, we pray for the dead we speak of them as ‘sleeping in the sleep of peace'. There seems to be an echo here of our Lord's words, ‘The maid is not dead but sleepeth', and again of his use of the same verb when speaking of Lazarus. Chrysostom suggests that he is telling his followers not to be afraid of death; and perhaps he is contrasting two very different ideas of the after-life: the grey, wraith-like half-existence of Sheol or Hades with the Christian idea of fulfilment, glory, peace. Certainly nowadays we need to be taught not to fear death: in earlier days it was the sex-words which were taboo; now the taboo has been transferred to the death-words, and one must speak not of dying but of passing on or away or even over.

The Church is like a noble house and estate, and we are welcome to the run of it—to wander through the apartments, explore the galleries and secret courts, go roof-climbing, sample the cellars, walk in the garden, exclaim at the vistas, inspect the stables, swim in the lake, take our ease, and contemplate the domain stretching to the distance, over the hills and far away. Non est hie aliud nisi domus Dei et porta caeli. And it is our home. Of course we know that in a sense, but in fact are we not inclined to think of it as National Trust and behave like respectful trippers? The motor-coaches crunch on the gravel and we follow the guide inside, stare at some of the treasures, buy our postcards and then have tea.

The eyes of the Lord are upon the just'; no need to be afraid then of your difficulties; the Lord's eyes are on you. ‘And his ears are open to their prayers.’ What more could you want? If the complaints of a slave in a large household didn't reach the head of the family, he would have something further still to complain about, and say: ‘What we have to put up with here, and nobody takes any notice of us!’ you cannot say about God, can you, ‘The things I endure and no one takes any notice'?—Well, if he did take any notice of me, perhaps you will say, he would remove my troubles for me. I clamour and I am in trouble. —Youjust keep to his ways, and when you are in trouble, he notice it.

Louis Lallemant, born in 1587, was educated by the Jesuits, and entered the Society of Jesus at the age of eighteen. After his tertianship he taught philosophy for three years, mathematics for four, and theology [in two periods) for five. From 1622 till 1625 he was novice-master and from 1628 till 1630 master of the tertianship. From 1631 till 1633 he was prefect of higher studies at Bourges and in 1634 rector of the same college. He had long suffered from ill-health, and he died there in 1635, aged only forty-seven, greatly esteemed for his holiness and his excellent spiritual influence.

He was described by a contemporary as being ‘of tall stature and majestic bearing; he had a wide, benign forehead and chestnut coloured hair, but was beginning to grow bald.