Look, Lord God of hosts, the captains of war are forming companies, each with its full complement of soldiers; and potentates have recruited vast armies. The ship-owners have whole fleets at their disposal, and the merchants are thronging to the markets and fairs. What a motley assembly of ungodly men!
Thieves, drunkards and profligates gather together every day under the flimsiest pretexts in order to oppose you!
Blow a whistle, beat a drum, show the blunt point of a sword, promise a withered laurel branch as a reward, offer a piece of gold or silver; in short, a whiff of fame, a worthless reward, a vile beastly pleasure, and, in the twinkling of an eye, along come the thieves, soldiers rally by battalions, and merchants flock together.
Gambling dens and market places are crammed full and the whole of land and sea is covered with an innumerable multitude of reprobates. These people, although at variance among themselves for reasons of distance, temperament or personal interest, are nevertheless all unanimously resolved to wage war to the death against you, under the banner and leadership of the devil.
How is it, then, great God, that although it is so glorious, so satisfying and so profitable to serve you, hardly anyone will support your cause? Scarcely one soldier lines up under your standard. Scarcely anyone fired with zeal for your glory will stand up and cry out, like St. Michael in the midst of his fellow-angels: Quis ut Deus? Who is like to God?
Let me then raise the cry of alarm: "The House of God is on fire! Souls are perishing in the flames! The sanctuary itself is ablaze! Help! Help! Good people! Help our brother who is being murdered. Help our children who are being massacred. Help our kind father who is being done to death!"
(Prayer for Missionaries, by St. Louis de Montfort)
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