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5th Pastoral Letter of the Bishop of Acqui

not Christian, he will push you away, he will not recognize you
as his own, he will refuse you the reward, and he will send you
to eternal punishment. The one who continues to serve the
world, even at the cost of offending God, cannot escape such an
end. How can he not tremble at the thought of being among the
damned on the last day? Yet, it is true that as we sow, so shall
we reap: quae seminaverit homo, haec et metet. (Gal. VI. 8).
Thus it is a great mistake to take human respect as a rule of
life. The man who is so jealous of his freedom renders himself a
slave of the will of others, even of their whims and basest
instincts. They refuse good advice when it is a matter of doing
good, and then they follow evil in all their ways, degrading
themselves and rebelling against God. How can they explain
such a pretense of independence on the one hand, and so much
servility and abjection on the other? It is easily explained if we
realize that our faith is hardly practiced and has little life. If our
faith were lived and practiced a little more, we would easily
understand that in every case preference should be given to the
soul and to eternity and not to the approval of creatures and their
false enticements and promises. If we reflected that since it is
God and not the world who gives life and conserves it, who
gives us his grace, who promises and will give us His glory,
then it is always to God that service is due, and to the others
only in what is not opposed to God. No, to all the rest if we want
to be saved.
Dearly beloved, let us therefore raise our eyes on high and
let us aspire to the goods that God has prepared for those who
serve and love Him. Let us turn our desires to those heavenly
treasures that do not perish, to that glory that no one can take
away, to that happiness that will last for eternity. May the fear of
the world and the false hopes that it engenders not turn us away
from the observance of that law solely according to which we
will be judged with an irrevocable sentence. Let us fear God
alone and put our glory in him alone and we will enjoy, even

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