into an excess of wickedness." (Bern, de ord. vit. et mor. instit.) That is to say, that commonly speaking, none ever ascend at once to the highest point of vice or virtue, hut that good and evil gradually insinuate themselves, and grow insensibly in us. It happens in spiritual as it does in corporal diseases; both the one and the other increase by little and little: so that when you see a religious commit some great fault do not imagine, says the saint, that his disease then begins, for none ever fall on a sudden into an enormous sin, after having a long time led an innocent and virtuous life. But they begin first by negligence in those duties which they consider as unimportant, then their devotion growing cold, it diminishes daily more and more: so that at length they deserve that God should withdraw his hand, and no longer supported by him, they easily yield and fall under the first great temptation that attacks them.
Cassian explains this very well, by a comparison taken from holy Scripture. Houses fall not to ruin on a sudden, but the damage first begins by some gutters out of repair and neglected, through which the rain entering, by degrees rots the timber that sustains the building; in process of time it penetrates the wall, dissolves the cement, and at last undermines the very foundation, so that the whole edifice tumbles to the ground, perhaps in one night. " By slothfulness," says the Holy Ghost m Ecclesiastes, "a building shall be brought down, and through weakness of hands, the rain shall drop through." (Eccles. x. 18.) Every one knows, that by neglecting to repair a gutter, or to examine the roof carefully in time, the whole building at last falls. It is just so with us, says the same author, a certain natural inclination which we have to evil, first flatters our senses, then gains ground, and insinuating itself into our souls, shakes the firmness of our good resolutions, and at last so weakens and undermines the whole foundation of our piety, that the entire spiritual edifice falls in a moment. A little care and vigilance in the beginning might have easily prevented the growth of the evil; but because we neglected it when it was but small, and did not take care in time to correct such faults, as appeared to us but inconsiderable, it happens that this shameful sloth is the cause, why we suffer ourselves to be overcome by any temptation that occurs; nay, some thereby abandon their religious order, and become miserable apostates. Would to God that sad experience had not taught us, that these woful examples are too frequent amongst us! In
