number, we should tremble, lest, adding another to our past sins, we complete the measure of our iniquities, be abandoned by God, and lost forever. This thought has powerful efficacy in dispelling the illusion by which the devil so often induces Christians to relapse into sin. Holding out the hope of pardon to them, he says: You may indulge your passions for this time; you will afterwards confess it, and obtain forgiveness. Oh! if Christians were penetrated with the salutary fear that any new sin should never be forgiven, would they not be struck with horror at the very idea of relapse? But through a false hope of pardon, innumerable souls return to their former crimes, until the measure of their iniquities is filled up, and they are thus irremediably lost.
Nor do I speak of venial faults of imperfect advertence, or of human frailty, when I say that a religious should cleanse her soul from all sins. From such imperfections no one is exempt: For, says St. James, in many things we all offend. Even the saints have fallen into the sins of frailty. If, says St. John, we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. Our corrupt nature is so strongly inclined to evil, that it is impossible for us, without a most special grace (which has been given only to the Mother of God), to avoid, during our whole lives, all venial sins — even those that are but imperfectly deliberate. God permits such defects even in souls dedicated to his love, to keep them humble, and to make them feel that, as they fall into light transgressions, in spite of all their resolutions and promises, so but for his divine support they should likewise be precipitated into grievous crimes. When we are guilty of a venial fault we must humble our souls, and, confessing our weakness, must endeavor to multiply prayer, and to implore the
