removed from the perfection of this virtue. We must, then, in the first place, detest and deplore all our sins: if our sorrow and detestation extend only to some, our repentance cannot be sincere or salutary: " Whosoever shall keep the whole law," says St. James, " but offend in one point, is become guilty of all." [1] In the next place, our contrition must be accompanied with a desire of confessing and satisfying for our sins: dispositions of which we shall treat in their proper place. Thirdly, the penitent must form a fixed and firm purpose of amendment of life, according to these words of the prophet: " If the wicked do penance for all his sins which he hath committed, and keep all my commandments, and do judgment and justice, living he shall live, and shall not die: I will not remember all his iniquities which he hath done;" and a little after; " Be converted, and do penance for all your iniquities, and iniquity shall not be your ruin. Cast away from you all your transgressions, by which you have transgressed, and make yourselves a new heart." [2] To the woman caught in adultery the Redeemer himself imparts the same lesson of instruction: " Go thy way, and sin no more," [3] and also to the lame man whom he cured at the pool of Bethsaida: " Behold, thou art made whole, sin no more." [4] That a sorrow for sin, and a firm purpose of avoiding sin for the future, are indispensable to contrition, is the dictate of unassisted reason. He who would be reconciled to a friend, must regret to have injured or offended him; and the tone and tenor of his conduct must be such that the charge of violating the duties of friendship cannot, in future, justly attach to his character. These are principles to which man is bound to yield obedience; the law to which man is subject, be it natural, divine, or human, he is bound to obey. If, therefore, by force or fraud, the penitent has injured his neighbour in his property, he is bound to restitution: if, by word or deed he has injured his honour or reputation, he is under an obligation of repairing the injury, according to the well known maxim of St. Augustine: " the sin is not forgiven unless what has been taken away is restored." [5] In the fourth and last place, and the condition is no less important, true contrition must be accompanied with forgiveness of the injuries which we may have sustained from others. This our Lord emphatically declares and energetically inculcates, when he says: " If you will forgive men their offences, your heavenly Father will forgive you also your offences; but if you will not forgive men, neither will your Father forgive you your offences." [6] These are the conditions which true contrition requires. There are other accompaniments which, although not essential, contribute to render contrition more perfect in its kind, and which will reward, without fatiguing the industry of the pastor.
It will conduce in an eminent degree, to the spiritual interests
