In _the second case_, the Will proposes to itself to attain a bad end, and to reach that uses good and legitimate means. For instance, the truth is spoken when we know that by speaking the truth we shall rouse violent passions and produce discord. We do not mean that the truth should be perverted into untruth, but that it may be withheld. We are not bound _always_ to say everything we know, but to maintain a prudent reserve. If A. has said something harsh of B., we are not bound to tell B. what A. has said of him. It may be perfectly true what we retail, but if we do retail it we know it will be productive of discord. So it is quite possible for a person with an ill intention to use quite legitimate means--that is, means in themselves unobjectionable--to attain an evil end. Self-deception may, and does sometimes, blind people to the badness of the object they seek, by representing to them that they have done nothing wrong in the way by which they have worked to reach it. [Illustration] Fourth Tuesday in Lent. _PRACTICAL CONCLUSIONS._ From what has been said about the Will of man and the Nature of Sin, some plain and Practical Conclusions may be drawn. 1. Those evil thoughts that pass in us, to which we give no consent direct or indirect, are not sinful to us, entail on us no guilt. That is to say, we are not responsible for evil thoughts, images unseemly, profane, uncharitable, for distractions in prayer, dreams of the night, unless we arrest them and give them our consent. Living in this evil world, surrounded by evil, we cannot avoid the knowledge of evil; that knowledge may, however, pass over the mind darkening momentarily, but not staining, like the shadow of a cloud on a hill side. So also with regard to wandering thoughts and unsuitable ideas presenting themselves to us in prayer, we cannot help them, but if we allow our thoughts to wander without effort to recollect them and harbour the unsuitable ideas, then they become sinful. 2. Sin consists in the assent given by the will to the suggestion of evil. That has been sufficiently insisted upon, and need not have anything further said thereon in this place. 3. If certain evil effects are foreseen, more or less distinctly, as likely to ensue, if we follow a certain line of conduct, and there be no reasonable motive to force us to adopt that line of conduct, and those evil effects ensue, then we are guilty of them. It lay in the power of our will to avoid that line of conduct which brought us into peril of doing those things which are evil, and, foreseeing the risk, we took the perilous course. This is the case of rushing into temptation. For instance, we foresee that association with certain individuals will lead to a lowering of our religious fervour, a laxity of view with regard to our moral obligations, and, nevertheless, we cultivate their society, then we are guilty of the coldness that ensues in our religion and the laxity that occurs in our moral look-out.