_Our resolutions are weak._ Some wills are much weaker than others. Nothing can be a greater blessing than to have a strong will rightly directed. A strong will perverted to evil is a great evil; but so also, and only a little less so, is to have a feeble will devoid of resolution. This is what most have, poor, crippled, infirm wills, and we must strive after God's strengthening grace to brace and nerve these limp wills, so that we may have the will to do after God's good pleasure. Half the sins, indeed, more than half the sins, committed are committed, not from deliberate wickedness of the will, but from infirmity of the will, which has not the strength to stand against temptation. _The force of bad habits_ is very great. We say that habit becomes a second nature. If we have allowed a bad habit to grow, it requires great resolution and Divine grace to enable us to cast it off. _The warmth of imagination_ which unfolds pictures before the mind encouraging to evil. Imagination is a faculty that may be of great service to us, but it is also one that may lead us into danger. Many a sin is committed out of curiosity. It was curiosity that led to the first transgression. 6. _Malice._ The sin committed out of malice is the most condemnable of all, for it issues from a _will_ that is corrupted and resolved on disobedience. In temptation, through our frailty that leads to fall, the will is overcome; it may wish the good, but be powerless to take the right course; but where the will is set determinately on evil, there the sin is of the worst kind conceivable. This is the condition of Satan, one of continuous and complete revolt against God out of hatred of what is good. [Illustration] Third Saturday in Lent. _TEMPTATIONS TO SIN._ 1. There are three exterior sources whence temptation arises. As we have seen, there are springs of temptation in our own selves, but we are also subjected to temptation from without. There are, (_a_) The Devil who seeks our destruction; (_b_) Created beings that seek to draw us from God to make of them our ends; (_c_) The world that endeavours to bring us down to obedience to its low tone of morality instead of following the high course as indicated by revelation.