that compose the sea, to tell the grains of sand
that lie upon the shore, is not absolutely impossible; but to
measure in eternity the number of days, of years, of ages, is what
cannot be compassed, because the days, the years, and the ages are
without number; or, to speak more properly, because in eternity
there are neither days, nor years, nor ages, but a single, endless,
infinite duration.

To this thought I devote my mind. I imagine I see and rove through
this same eternity, and discover no end, but find it to be always a
boundless tract. I imagine the wide prospect lies open on all
sides, and encompasseth me around; that if I rise up, or if I sink
down, or what way soever I turn my eyes, this eternity meets them;
and that after a thousand efforts to get forward, I have made no
progress, but find it still eternity. I imagine that after long
revolutions of time, I behold in the midst of this eternity a
damned soul, in the same state, in the same affliction, in the same
misery still; and putting myself mentally in the place of this
soul, I imagine that in this eternal punishment I feel myself
continually devoured by that fire which nothing extinguishes; that
I continually shed those floods of tears which nothing can dry up;
that I am continually gnawed by the worm of conscience, which
never dies; that I continually express my despair and anguish by
that gnashing of teeth, and those lamentable cries, which never can
move the compassion of God. This idea of myself, this
representation, amazes and terrifies me. My whole body shudders, I
tremble with fear, I am filled with horror, I have the same
feelings as the royal prophet, when he cried, "Pierce thou my flesh
with thy fear, for I am afraid of thy judgments."

That was a touching tribute from the elder to the younger--tribute
touching, whether wrung, perforce, from a proudly humble, or freely
offered by a simply magnanimous, heart--when, like John the Baptist
speaking of Jesus, Bourdaloue, growing old, said of Massillon, enjoying
his swiftly crescent renown: "He must increase, and I must decrease." It
was a true presentiment of the comparative fortune of fame that impended
for these two men. It was not, however, in the same path, but in a
different, that Massillon outran Bourdaloue. In his own sphere, that of
unimpassioned appeal to re