[Footnote 1: Baronius, An. 1024.]
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I wish, again, they would in this but follow the example of King Louis of France, who was son to Louis the Emperor, surnamed the Pious. For they tell us [1] that this Emperor, after he had been thirty-three years in Purgatory, not so much for any personal crimes or misdemeanors of his own as for permitting certain disorders in his empire, which he ought to have prevented, was at length permitted to show himself to King Louis, his son, and to beg his favorable assistance; and that the king did not only most readily grant him his request, procuring Masses to be said in all the monasteries of his realm for the soul of his deceased father, but drew thence many good reflections and profitable instructions, which served him all his life-time after. Do you the same; and believe it, though Purgatory fire is a kind of baptism, and is so styled by some of the holy Fathers, because it cleanses a soul from all the dross of sin, and makes it worthy to see God, yet is it your sweetest course, here to baptize yourself frequently in the tears of contrition, which have a mighty power to cleanse away all the blemishes of sin; and so prevent in your own person, and extinguish in others, those baptismal flames of Purgatory fire, which are so dreadful. (Pp. 151, 152.)
[Footnote 1: Baronius, An. 874.]
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What shall I say of those other nations, whose natural piety led them to place burning lamps at the sepulchres of the dead, and strew them over with sweet flowers and odoriferous perfumes. [1] Do they not put Christians in mind to remember the dead, and to cast after them the sweet incense of their devout sighs and prayers, and the perfumes of their alms-deeds, and other good works?
[Footnote 1: Herod lib. 2.]
It was very usual with the old Romans to shed whole floods of tears, to reserve them in phial-glasses, and to bury them with the urns, in which the ashes of their dead friends were carefully laid up; and by them to set lamps, so artificially composed as to burn without end. By which symbols they would give us to understand, that neither their love nor their grief should ever die; but that they would always be sure to have tears in their eyes, love in their hearts, and a constant memory in their souls for their deceased friends….
They had another custom, not only in Rome but elsewhere, to walk about the burning pile where the corpse lay, and, with their mournful lamentations, to keep time with the doleful sound of their trumpets; and still, every turn, to cast into the fire some precious pledge of their friendship. The women themselves would not stick to throw in their rings, bracelets, and other costly attires, nay, their very hair also, the chief ornament of their sex; and they would have been sometimes willing to have thrown in both their eyes, and their hearts too. Nor were there some wanting, that in earnest threw themselves into the fire, to be consumed with their dear spouses; so that it was found necessary to make a severe law against it; such was the tenderness that they had for their deceased friends, such was the excess of a mere natural affection. Now, our love is infused from Heaven; it is supernatural, and consequently ought to be more active and powerful to stir up our compassion for the souls departed; and yet we see the coldness of Christians in this particular; how few there are who make it their business to help poor souls out of their tormenting flames. It is not necessary to make laws to hinder any excess in this article; it were rather to be wished that a law were provided to punish all such ungrateful persons as forgot the duty they owe to their dead parents, and all the obligations they have to the rest of their friends. (Pp. 156-158.)
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