CHAPTER V.
THE DANGER TO WHICH AN IMPERFECT RELIGIOUS, WHO IS BUT LITTLE AFRAID OF THE CONSEQUENCES OF HER IMPERFECTIONS, EXPOSES HER SALVATION.
I. One can and should avoid all venial sins plainly voluntary.
The first step to be taken in the formation of a garden is to root out all useless and noxious weeds, and to put in their place fruitful and salutary plants. It was in this way the Almighty commanded Jeremiah to proceed when he imposed upon him the arduous task of cultivating the Church. Go, I have set thee this day over the nations and over kingdoms, to root up, and to pull down, and to waste, and to destroy, to build, and to plant. To become a saint, then, a religious must, in the first place, endeavor to eradicate from her soul all imperfections, and to plant in their stead the virtues of the Gospel.
"The first devotion," says St. Teresa, "is to take away all sins."
I do not speak of grievous sins, from which I suppose the religious who reads this book to be exempt. I hope that she has never lost the grace of God infused by baptism, or at least that she has recovered it, and that she is resolved to suffer a thousand deaths rather than forfeit it again. To prevent the danger of relapse, I entreat her to keep always in mind the alarming doctrine so strongly inculcated in the Holy Scriptures, and taught by St. Basil, St. Jerome, St. Augustine, and other Fathers, that God has fixed for each person the number of sins which he will pardon. Being ignorant of this
