wished Him, not to be at all.

6. It will be said that this argumentation supposes the habits of
vice, contracted on earth, to remain in the soul after departure: but
there is no proof of that: nay of some vices--those that have more to
do with the body, as drunkenness--the habits cannot possibly remain,
seeing that the appetite wherein they were resident has perished with
the body. First, as regards the instance cited, I reply that we may
consider drunkenness in two ways, on the one hand as a turning to the
creature, on the other as a turning away from reason and the Creator.
The craving for liquor cannot remain in the soul after death exactly
as it was before, though it probably continues in some analogous form,
as a thirst for wild and irregular excitement: but the loathing and
horror of the ways of reason and of God, engendered by frequent
voluntary intoxication, still continues in the soul. And from this
observation we draw the general answer, that whereas in every sin,
whether sensual or spiritual, the most important part is played by the
will, and the will is a spiritual, not an organic faculty, a faculty
which is a main element of the soul whether in or out of the
body,--therefore the evil bent and inclination of the will, which sin
involves, must remain even in the departed spirit. Lastly, we may ask:
To what purpose is our free-will given us, if all souls, good and bad
alike, users and abusers of the liberty they had on earth, enter into
their long home all of one uniform and spotless hue?

7. Thus then it comes to be, by order of nature and good consequence,
that the man who has abandoned God, goes without God; and he who has
shunned his last end and final good, arrives not unto it; and he who
would not go, when invited, to the feast, eats not of the same: and
whoso has withdrawn from God, from him God withdraws. "A curse he