after, they would sit down, fold their
arms, let the world move, but they wouldn't.

Especially is Christian hope absolutely necessary for the leading of a
Christian life, and no man would take upon himself that burden, if he
did not confidently expect a crown of glory beyond, sufficient to repay
him for all the things endured here below for conscience's sake. Hope
is a star that beckons us on to renewed effort, a vision of the goal
that animates and invigorates us; it is also a soothing balm to the
wounds we receive in the struggle.

To be without this hope is the lowest level to which man may descend.
St. Paul uses the term "men without hope" as the most stinging reproach
he could inflict upon the dissolute pagans.

To have abandoned hope is a terrible misfortune--despair. This must not
be confounded with an involuntary perturbation, a mere instinctive
dread, a phantasmagoric illusion that involves no part of the will. It
is not even an excessive fear that goes by the name of pusillanimity.
It is a cool judgment like that of Cain: "My sin is too great that I
should expect forgiveness."

He who despairs, loses sight of God's mercy and sees only His stern,
rigorous justice. After hatred of God, this is perhaps the greatest
injury man can do to his Master, who is Love. There has always been
more of mercy than of justice in His dealings with men. We might say of
Him that He is all mercy in this world, to be all justice in the next.
Therefore while there is life, there is hope.

The next abomination is to hope, but to place our supreme happiness in
that which should not be the object of our hope. Men live for
pleasures, riches, and honors, as though these things were worthy of
our highest aspirations, as though they could satisfy the unappeasable
appetite of man for happiness. Greater folly than this can no man be
guilty of. He takes the dross for the pure gold, the phantom for the
reality. Few men theoretically belong to this class; practically it has
the vast majority.

The presumptuous are those who hope to obtain the prize and do nothing
to deserve it. He who would hope to fly without wings, to walk without
feet, to live without air or food would be less a fool than he who
hopes to save his soul without fulfiling the conditions laid down by
Him who made us. There is no wages without service, no reward without
merit, no crown without a cross.

This fellow's mistake is to bank too much on God's mercy, leaving Hi