For the prophet himself, in the course of former times, when the people had abandoned their ancestral piety, and had trampled upon the accuracy of the laws, and had slipped into the worship of idols, became a herald of repentance, urging conversion and holding out the threat of punishments. Would that I A might be permitted, at least in some way, to make use of the zeal of ancient history! But may it be far from us to see the outcome of the things that happened then. For the people were contumacious, and like a stubborn foal impatient of the bridle—biting it—they were not drawn toward what was profitable; rather, having turned aside from the straight path, they wandered so much in disorder, and railed against their charioteer, until, having fallen into pits and precipices, they suffered the destruction which was the deserved penalty for their disobedience. B May this, my children, whom I have begotten through the Gospel, whom I have swaddled through the blessing of my hands, not come to pass for us! But let there be a kindly hearing, and a compliant soul, softly receiving the exhortations, yielding to the speaker like wax to the one impressing a seal, so that through this single effort both I may receive the joyful fruit of my labors, and you, when you have been delivered from these evils, may praise this exhortation of ours. What, then, is it that the discourse indicates? For it still holds the souls of the hearers in suspense with the hope of hearing, while it has delayed bringing forth into the midst what is expected.
2. We see the heaven—hard, C bare, and cloudless, creating this gloomy serenity, and causing us grief with its purity, which we greatly desired at first, when—long covered over by clouds—it had brought darkness upon us and deprived us of the sun. But the earth, being dried up to the extreme, is unpleasant to behold; sterile and unfruitful for agriculture, broken into fissures, and receiving the shining rays of the sun into its depths. The fountains, both copious and perennial, have failed us, and the streams of the great rivers have been consumed; the smallest children cross them on foot, and burdened women pass over; drink has also failed many of us, and we are established in a state of distress regarding the necessities of life. New Israelites, they seek a new Moses and a rod that is a maker of wonders, that the rock, being struck again, might—for the D need and penury of the thirsty—
people—A cause strange clouds to sprinkle down food for men, like manna. Let us fear lest we become for our descendants a new story of famine and punishment. I have seen the fields, and I have wept much for their barrenness; and I poured forth a lamentation, because no rain was poured out upon us. Some of the seeds withered before they had even sprouted, remaining among the clods just as the plow had covered them; others, having pushed up a little and sprouted, were miserably withered away by the heat and burning. Thus, one might now suitably invert this saying of the Gospel and say: The laborers indeed are many, but the harvest is not even a little. The farmers, sitting in the fields, and clasping their hands over their knees—which is indeed the posture of those who mourn—weep for their own vain labors, looking toward their infant children and lamenting, gazing at their wives and mourning, touching and feeling the dry stalks of the crops, and crying out with great wailing, just like fathers who have lost their sons in the flower of their youth. Let it be said, therefore, even to us by the same prophet, whom we mentioned a little while ago in the introduction: "And I," he says, "withheld the rain from you three months before the harvest: and I will rain upon one city, and upon one city I will not rain: and one part shall be rained upon, and the part on which I do not rain shall be withered. And two or three cities shall be gathered together into one, to drink water, and they shall not be satisfied; for you have not returned to me, says the Lord." Let us learn, therefore, that God sends us these plagues because of our turning away from Him and our negligence, not wishing to destroy, but desiring to correct, in the manner of good fathers toward their careless children; who are angry with the young and rise up against them, not because they wish to inflict any evil upon them, but leading them from childish neglect and the sins of youth toward care and diligence. See, therefore, how the multitude of our sins has led the seasons of the year away from their own nature, and shifted the forms of the times into strange temperatures. C Winter did not have its usual moisture mixed with the dryness, but bound up all moisture with ice and dried it out, and remained entirely devoid of snows and rains. Spring, in turn, displayed one part of its characteristics, I mean the heat; but it did not have the substance of moisture. Heat and cold, having strangely stepped across the bounds of creation, and having conspired maliciously to our harm, [separate us] from the... D sustenance of life.
What, then, is the cause of this disorder and confusion? What is this new face of the times? Let us search, as those possessed of a mind; as reasonable beings, let us reason. Is there no one who governs the universe? Has the supremely skilled craftsman, God, forgotten His own governance and administration? Has His power and might been taken away? Or does He retain the same strength, and has He not been rendered powerless B, yet has He turned toward harshness, and changed His extreme goodness and His guardianship over us into hatred of mankind? No one of sound mind would say so; but the causes for which we are not managed in the accustomed manner are clear and evident. We who receive, do not give to others; we praise benevolence, and yet we deprive the needy of it. Having been made free from being slaves, we do not pity our fellow slaves; we are fed while hungry, yet we pass by the one in need. Having God as an inexhaustible provider and steward, we have become thrifty and unsharing toward the poor. Our flocks are prolific, yet there are more who are naked than there are sheep. Our granaries are straitened by the multitude of stores, yet we do not pity the man who is straitened by necessity. For this reason, the just Judge threatens us. For this reason, even God does not open His hand, because we have closed off brotherly love. For this reason the fields are dry, because love has grown cold.
3. The voice of those making supplication is cried in vain, and is scattered C into the air. For we ourselves did not listen to those who were asking. And what is our prayer and our entreaty? You men, except for a few, are occupied with businesses; you women, you serve these men for the labor of mammon. Only a few, therefore, are with me and the prayer, and even these are troubled by dizziness, yawning, turning themselves around constantly, and watching to see when the psalmist will complete the verses, when, as if from a prison, they will be released from the church and the necessity of prayer. But these tiny children, having laid aside their tablets in their schoolrooms, and crying out with us, rather go about this business as if it were a relaxation and a delight, treating our sorrow as a festival, because they are freed for a little while from the burden of the teacher and the care of their studies. But the multitude of mature men, and the common people D caught up in sins, are unconcerned, and live licentiously, and wander through the city in glee; they who carry within their souls the cause of the evils; they who have set in motion and wrought this disaster. Yet infants, lacking sense and subject to no blame, hasten and gather for confession, not knowing the cause of these lamentable things, nor of the—
A know-how or capacity to pray as they are wont. Come forward into the midst, you who are defiled with sins; do you fall down, and weep, and groan; allow the infant to perform what is proper and fitting for its age. Why do you hide yourself, when you are the one accused, and why do you bring forward the innocent for your own defense? Or is the Judge to be mocked, that you should substitute a surrogate person for your own? It was fitting that he should also be present, but with you, certainly, not alone. You see how the Ninevites, by their repentance, placating God and mourning for those sins against which Jonah, having experienced the sea and the whale, cried out, not only caused the infants to be subject to penance, B while they themselves lived their lives in luxuries and banquets: but fasting subdued the elders themselves who had sinned, and punishment afflicted the parents, while the infants were forced to wail as a kind of additive, so that sadness might lay hold of every age, both that which has sense and that which lacks it—the one by choice, the other by necessity. And thus, when God saw them so humbled, as having judged themselves worthy of an overwhelming and universal misery C of every kind, He both took pity on their suffering and remitted the punishment, and granted joy to those who had repented with sound counsel. O harmonious repentance! O wise and well-wrought affliction! Not even the brute beasts did they leave exempt from the punishments, but they even compelled them by a certain artifice to cry out of necessity. For the calf was separated from the cow, the lamb removed from its mother’s udder, the nursing child was not in the mother’s arms; in separate stalls the mothers were shut up, in separate ones the offspring; miserable voices were emitted by all, crying out and resounding in turn. The offspring, famishing, sought the fountains of milk; the mothers, torn by natural affection, recalled their young with voices signifying their compassion. In the same way, the infants, suffering from hunger, were broken by most vehement wailing and were palpitating, and the mothers’ viscera were pierced by natural pains. And for this cause, the divine word preserved their repentance in writing as a common lesson for life. Among them, the old man was weeping, and was plucking and tearing at his white hair. The young man, and one in his prime,
began to lament more vehemently; the poor man groaned: the rich man, forgetting his delicacies, took up hardship as a sober exercise. A Their king transformed his splendor and glory into shame. He laid aside his crown and poured dust upon his head; having cast away the purple, he put on sackcloth; having abandoned his high and lofty throne, he crawled upon the ground in a pitiable state; having left behind his peculiar royal comforts, he joined in mourning with the people; he became one of the many when he saw the common Master of all in anger.
4. B Such is the prudence of those who are held fast by their sins. We, however, commit sin sharply and quickly, but we embrace repentance negligently and slothfully. Who is there who, in prayer, sheds a tear that he might receive the rain and timely drops? Who is there who, to blot out sins, has watered his bed with tears after the example of the blessed David? Who has washed the feet 83 of strangers and rinsed away the dust of their journey, so that he might appease God in due time, seeking a release from the drought? Who has fed a fatherless child, so that God might now feed our grain 84, just as that orphan is buffeted by the intemperance of the winds? Who has cared for a widow afflicted by the difficulties of life, so that she might now have her necessary food measured out to her? Tear up the unjust bond, that in this way sin may be dissolved. Blot out the agreement for grievous usury, that the earth may bring forth its accustomed fruits. For while copper and gold, and things that are by nature barren, produce contrary to nature, the earth, which brings forth naturally and is fertile, is rendered sterile and is condemned to unfruitfulness to punish those who dwell upon it. C Let those, therefore, who value greed and who gather up wealth to excess show what is the power of those hoarded treasures, or what is the benefit, if God, being angry, prolongs the punishment still further. Those who heap up such things will perhaps become paler than the gold itself, if they lack bread—bread which, until yesterday and the day before, was despised because of the ready availability of abundance. Suppose now that there is no seller, and that there is no grain to be found in the storehouses; what, I ask, will those heaviest of purses profit you? Will you not be buried along with them under the same mound? Is not gold earth? Will not useless mud lie beside mud—I mean, your body? You possess everything, and yet you lack the one thing that is necessary: the ability to feed yourself. D From all your wealth, create but one cloud; induce a few drops to descend; urge the earth to bring forth its fruit; drive away the calamity with your haughty and insolent wealth. Perhaps you will persuade some pious person, so that by his prayers, like Elias the Thesbite, he may grant you a release from your troubles—a man without property, pale, unshod, homeless, without shelter, in need, covered by only one tunic, like Elias.
A With his prayer as his companion, and temperance as his fellow-lodger. And if, upon seeking help [(87)] from such a person, you should succeed, will you not long laugh at these wealths full of many cares? Will you not spit upon gold? Will you not cast away silver like dung, having recognized that what you previously called everything and most dear is a powerless helper in a time of need? For your sake, God has brought down this calamity, because you did not give when you had; because you passed by those who were hungry; because you did not turn toward those who were lamenting; because, when worshipped [(89)], you did not have mercy. For the sake of a few, evils descend upon a whole people, and the community has shared in the wickedness of one. Achar committed sacrilege, and the entire host was scourged. Zambri, again, played the harlot with the Madianite women, and Israel fell in judgment.
B Let us all, then, both privately and in common, examine our lives, and attend to the drought as to a tutor, reminding each of his own sin. Let us also, with a sensitive heart, utter the words of the noble Job: "The hand of the Lord is what has touched me 47." And most of all, let us primarily attribute our calamity to our sins. But if something else must be added, it sometimes happens that such misfortunes in life are brought upon men for the testing of their souls, so that those who are upright may be revealed in the midst of difficulty, whether they be poor or rich; for both are precisely tested through endurance. And in this time, it is especially demonstrated: the one, whether he is generous and brotherly; the other, whether he is grateful and not, on the contrary, blasphemous, quickly changing his mind with the shifts of life.
C I know many (not having learned by hearsay, but having known these men by experience) who, so long as their lives were measured out with prosperity, and things were proceeding by fair winds, as the saying goes—at least moderately, if not perfectly—would give thanks to the beneficent giver. But if, by chance, circumstances were reversed and things turned to the worse—the rich man became poor, the strength of the body turned to sickness, and glory and splendor into disgrace and dishonor—then they were exposed as ungrateful, uttering blasphemies, becoming sluggish in prayer, complaining against God as if He were a slow debtor, and not behaving toward Him as if He were a Lord who is angered. But away with such a notion from your thoughts! And when you see God not bestowing the usual things, reason with yourself thus: Is God unable to provide nourishment? How so? When He is Lord of heaven and all its arrangement; D of the seasons [(90)].
and the turnings of the year, having appointed them to give way to one another like a kind of ordered dance, so that by their own variety they might assist our varied needs. And thus, let the moisture arrive at the proper time, and then again let the heat return, and let the cold be tempered throughout the year, so that we may not lack the need of dryness. God is therefore powerful. But since his power is present and acknowledged, has goodness perhaps failed? Not even that B argument holds. For what necessity persuaded the good God to create man in the beginning? And who is it that compelled the Creator, even against His will, to take up earth and fashion such beauty out of clay? Who is it that persuaded Him by necessity to grant the [word] to man according to His own image, so that, having taken a beginning from thence, he might receive instruction in the arts and learn to philosophize about the highest things, which he cannot grasp by the senses? If you reason thus, you will discover that goodness resides in God, and that it has not failed Him even now. For tell me, what hindered there from being—not the drought we see—but a perfect and total conflagration? And what prevented the sun from swerving slightly from its accustomed path, and by approaching closer to the bodies on earth, consuming all visible things in a moment of time? Or from raining fire from heaven, after the manner of the punishments of sinners already C mentioned? Come to yourself and your own reasonings, O man; do not act like foolish children who, when rebuked by a teacher, break his tablets, or tear the garments of a father who has delayed their food for their own benefit, or lacerate the face of their mother with their nails. For the storm tests the navigator, the stadium tests the athlete, the battle-array tests the general, calamity tests the great-souled man, and temptation tests and examines the Christian. And just as fire proves gold, so do adverse circumstances prove the soul. Are you poor? Do not be despondent. For excessive dejection becomes a cause of sin, as sorrow submerges the mind and produces distress, and from the perplexity of one's thoughts, D gives birth to ingratitude. But keep your hope in God. For does He not see the straitness? He has the food in His hands, and yet He delays the giving, in order to test the firmness of your resolve; to learn your sentiment, to see if it is perhaps like that of the intemperate and ungrateful. For they, as long as food is in their mouths, speak well, flatter, and admire beyond measure; but when the table has been delayed for a little, they attack with blasphemies—as if with stones—those whom a little while before they worshipped like God for the sake of their pleasure. Run through the Old Testament and the New, and you will find many in each who were nourished in various ways. Carmel had Elijah, a high and uninhabited mountain, a desert of deserts; but the soul of the righteous man was worth all of them.
A And for the righteous man, all things are provisions for life, and the hope in God is his sustenance. Though he lived in this way, he did not end his life through famine; rather, the most rapacious and gluttonous of birds, these very ones brought him food, and became ministers of sustenance to the righteous man—they who are accustomed to snatch the food of others—and by the command of the Lord they changed their nature, becoming faithful guardians of the bread and the meat. We have learned from spiritual history that these were brought to the man by ravens. The Babylonian pit also held the Israelite youth; a captive in his misfortune, but free in his soul and his disposition. And what of the events there? The lions fasted against their nature, while his feeder, Habakkuk B, was carried through the air, with the angel transporting the man together with his food; and so that the righteous man might not be pressed by famine, the prophet was conveyed over so vast a distance of land and sea in a short moment of time, as much as stretches from Judea to Babylon.
6. What again of the people of the wilderness, over whom Moses presided; how was their life provided for during forty years? There was no man there to sow, no ox to draw a plow, no threshing floor, no winepress, no storehouse; and yet they had food without sowing and without plowing, and the rock supplied them with fountains that had not existed before, but had burst forth at the time of need. I pass over the individual works of divine providence, which He has often displayed in a fatherly way toward men. But do you, like the noble Job, be patient for a little while in your calamity, and do not be overturned by the storm, nor cast away any of the wages of virtue C that you carry with you. Keep in your heart gratitude as your most precious cargo, and you too shall obtain for your gratitude a reward double the delight. Be mindful of the apostolic saying: *In everything give thanks*. Are you poor? There is another who is certainly poorer than you. You have food for ten days, he for one. As a good and grateful man, share your surplus with the needy. Do not hesitate to give from your little; do not prefer your own convenience over the public danger. Even if your food is reduced to a single loaf, and a beggar stands at your doors, bring forth that one from your store, and placing it upon your hands and looking up to heaven, utter a word at once piteous and grateful: "This is the one loaf, Lord, that You see, and the danger is manifest, but I put Your commandment before my own, and from my little I give to my starving brother; do You D also give to Your servant who is in danger. I know Your goodness, I trust also in Your power; You do not delay your benefits for long, but scatter your gifts whenever You will." And if you speak and act in this way, the bread which you give from your necessity becomes seed for husbandry, and generates an abundant harvest, being a down payment of provision and a harbinger of mercy. Say also
you the word of the widow of Sidonia in the same straits, and timely recall the history to your memory: "The Lord lives, that I have this alone in my house for food for me and my children." And if you give from that which is lacking, you too shall have the cruse of oil bubbling over by grace, and the jar of flour unemptied. For the grace of God, being bountiful towards the faithful, imitates the wells, which are always being emptied and never exhausted, bringing back a twofold return. Lend, you who are needy, to the rich God. Believe in Him who always receives on His own behalf for the sake of the oppressed, and restores the grace from His own house. He is a trustworthy surety, having His treasures spread out over every land and sea. And if you should ask for the debt while sailing, you will receive the principal with interest in the middle of the sea. For He is ambitious in His additions.
B 7. The disease of hunger is a piteous affection. Famine is the head of human calamities; it is of all deaths the most miserable, to have this as one's end. For in the case of other dangers, either the edge of the sword quickly brings mortality, or the onrush of fire swiftly extinguishes life, or wild beasts, tearing apart the vital parts of the limbs with their teeth, do not allow one to be punished by the lingering of pain. But famine brings a slow punishment, long pain, a disease lurking and hiding within, a death always present and always delaying. For it consumes the natural moisture; it cools the heat; it shrinks the bulk and gradually wastes away the strength. The flesh sits upon the bones like a spider's web. The skin has no flower. For the ruddiness flees, the blood being drained away; whiteness is absent, the surface turning black through emaciation; the body is livid, C miserably blended by the disease with pallor and blackness; the knees do not support, but are dragged along by force and with difficulty. The voice is thin and languid; the eyes, weakened in their hollows, lie vainly in their sockets, like the fruits of nuts dried up within their shells. The belly is empty and collapsed, and shapeless, having no bulk, no natural distension of the bowels, but stuck to the bones of the back. Who then, passing by a body of this kind, is worthy of how many punishments? What will be lacking to him for the heap of cruelty? How will he not be rightly and deservedly numbered among the most savage wild beasts, or not be held as a wicked man and a murderer? For he who is able to heal the evil, but of his own accord and for the sake of avarice puts it off, D can deservedly be condemned for injury as a murderer. The distress of famine has often compelled many, and has driven them beyond the bounds of nature, to feed upon human bodies, and ma—
trem filium, whom she brought forth from her womb, to receive him again into the womb in such an impious manner. A Indeed, that tragic act is commemorated by the Jewish history written by the diligent Josephus, when the Jerusalemites were weighed down by dire evils, undergoing the just penalties for their impiety toward the Lord. You see that our God Himself, while often passing over other passions, compassionately feels for those who are hungry. "For I have compassion," He says, "on the crowd." Therefore, even at the final judgment, when the Lord calls the righteous, the one who was bountiful and liberal takes the first place; the provider holds the primary rank among those to whom rewards are given; he who distributed bread is called before all; he who was kind and liberal is sent forward to life before the rest of the righteous. He who was illiberal and sordid is delivered to the fire before all sinners. B Now the very opportunity of time calls you to the mother of commandments; and take great care lest the occasion for the market and for commerce pass you by. For time flows, and does not await the laggard: the days hasten, they pass by the slothful. And just as it is not granted to halt the course of a river, unless someone, intercepting it at its first encounter and passage, makes timely use of the water; so time, driven by necessary revolutions, can neither be restrained, nor can the past be recalled, unless one grasps it when it arrives. On that account, detain the commandment as if it were fleeing, and fulfill it, and taking hold of it from everywhere, embrace it in your arms. Give a little, and acquire much; resolve the primigenial sin by the largesse of food. For just as Adam, by an wicked act of eating, transmitted sin, so do we abolish the insidious food, if we care for a brother's need and hunger.
8. Hear, O peoples: Christians, accept with your ears: C thus says the Lord, not speaking with His own voice, but D [commentary: Migne's Latin analysis of the Greek passage continues] ...most worthy of note; and I scarcely know if there exists among the Greek Fathers any testimony more significant or more valid for proving original sin. For if it is necessary for us to resolve the sin of origin, we must be conscious of it. For no one is ever compelled to pay what he does not owe. "That," thus Volaterranus translated: *Just as Adam, by eating evilly and by using food evilly, incurred sin.* But it is a far different thing to incur sin, and another to transmit sin. To interpret it thus is to obscure a most grave pronouncement in such a way that, unless the Greek is understood, it can in no way be perceived. Nor should it disturb anyone that the primigenial sin is said to be resolved by the generosity of food, when it is nevertheless established that it is resolved by baptism. For by speaking in this way, Basil was exhorting the catechumens who were then present in large numbers among others at the sermons, that they might, as far as was in their power, prepare themselves through the almsgiving which is an effective remedy for the primigenial sin, which is baptism.
A sounding forth as if from instruments through the mouths of the slaves. Let us not appear more brutal than the irrational animals. For they use as common property those things which grow from the earth by nature. Flocks of sheep graze upon one and the same mountain; very many horses browse in one and the same plain; and thus, in all such individual cases, they yield to one another for the enjoyment of their necessary food; we, however, hide in our bosom things that are common, and things that belong to many we possess alone. Let the humaneness described among the Gentiles strike us with shame. A law of humaneness among some of them makes a single table, common meals, and one hearth, almost the whole of a populous city. Let us leave aside those outside, and come to the example of the three thousand; let us emulate the first assembly of the Christians: how all things were common to them, life, soul, unanimity, the table common, an undivided brotherhood, an unfeigned love, rendering the many bodies one, B fitting the various souls into one concord. You have many examples of brotherly love from the Old Testament and from the New. If you see an old man laboring from hunger, send for him and feed him, as Joseph did Jacob. If you find an enemy in distress, do not add to the anger that holds you, vengeance; but feed him, as that man did the brothers by whom he had been sold. If you happen upon a younger man afflicted, weep for him, as he did for Benjamin, the son of his old age. Perhaps avarice also tempts you, as the mistress tempted Joseph; she pulls at your garments, that you might despise the commandment and love that gold-loving and ornament-loving spirit rather than the mandate of the Lord. When, therefore, a thought comes against that commandment, enticing a well-disposed mind toward avarice, compelling it to neglect brotherly love, and holding you fast with it, strip off your garments as well, and in your anger, depart; keep your faith for the Lord, C as that man kept his for Potiphar; for one year, as he did for the seven, manage the scarcity and the want. Do not give everything to pleasure, but give something also to the soul. And consider that you have two daughters: present prosperity here, and the life in the heavens. If you are not willing to give everything to the better one, at least share it equally between the incontinent daughter and the chaste one. When it is necessary for you to stand before Christ, and to come into the sight of the Judge, do not show this life puffed up beyond measure, while showing the other—which is established according to the prescription of virtue, and has the form and name of a bride—naked and covered in tattered rags. D Beware, therefore, of [bringing] a deformed and unadorned bride
A to the bridegroom, lest when he sees her, he turn his face away, and having seen her, hold her in hatred and renounce the union. But having arrayed her in the fitting adornment, keep her beautiful until the appointed time of the marriage; so that she too may light her lamp along with the wise virgins, having the unquenchable fire of knowledge and not lacking the oil of good deeds—so that the God-bearing prophecy may be confirmed in works, and the saying may apply to your soul: *The queen stood at thy right hand in vesture of gold, encompassed [and] variegated. Hear, O daughter, and see and incline thine ear, and the king shall desire thy beauty* (Ps. XLIV, 10, 11). For these things the Psalmist foretold in a general way, proclaiming the beauty of the body in general; but they also apply specifically to the soul of each one, insofar as the Church gathers her system from every single person.
9. Take care, I ask you, lest you betray for shameful gain B or lose that which is present and future. The body—that mark and sign of your life—will abandon you. You yourself will shut off from yourself before the judge who is expected and who will undoubtedly come, the giving of the honors and the heavenly glory; and you will open up unquenchable fire, and Gehenna, and places of torment, and ages bitter in sorrows, in place of a long and blessed life. Do not think that I, like some mother or nurse, am shaking false terrors at you and threatening you, as they are accustomed to do regarding infants: when they cry immoderately and ceaselessly, they make them quiet and silent through concocted tales. These things are not a fable, but words proclaimed long ago by a truthful voice. C And know accurately, according to the evangelical prediction, that *one iota or one tittle shall not pass away*. But also the body, consumed in its tombs, will rise again, and the same soul which had been separated by death will dwell again in the body. Furthermore, our actions will be laid bare clearly and openly, with not others bearing witness, but the conscience itself attesting. To each, according to his desert, the just Judge will measure out the reward; to Whom belongs glory, power, and adoration, unto the ages of ages. Amen. D