Those words are from the Epistle appointed for this Sunday, and St. Peter, when he wrote them, meant that a man who gets his heart full of charity is sure to be truly penitent for his sins, no matter how many they may have been, and will thus win the mercy of God and receive full pardon for them. St. Peter's words are quite a popular saying. You will hear all sorts of people quote them with evident satisfaction and belief in their truth. But do they all mean just what I have said _he_ meant? I am not so sure that they do. I fear that some think that giving a few dollars to the poor (which they call charity) is a convenient way of throwing a cloak over a multitude of sins--covering them up, as it were--and hiding them rather than getting rid of them. I know the Scripture says also that "almsgiving redeems the soul from death," and tells the sinner to "redeem his sins with alms and his iniquities with works of mercy to the poor." But the Catholic doctrine is that charity must prompt the almsgiving in order to work the miracle of pardon. It is not the money or the clothing, the food or the fire, given to those who need, which compounds for sins and buys pardon at a cheap rate; but the virtue of divine charity, a Christ-like love of God and of our neighbors, that wipes out the judgment of condemnation and cleanses the guilty stains from the soul. The giving of alms to the suffering poor is certainly one of the first things that a sinner who is trying to get back, or has already got back, the love of God will set himself to do; and it is the very sacrifice of his goods for God's sake and for God's love that proves he wants to have done with his sins, and that he is anxious to do penance for them. It would be the greatest folly in the world for a man to give alms _for his sins_, if he was not trying to do so for the love of God. {262} It is all very well and very benevolent to help a poor wretch with food and raiment because we do not like to see a fellow human being suffer. But thieves, and adulterers, and drunkards, and Easter-duty breakers, and all sorts of sinners who have no intention whatever of stopping their sinful career will do that; and when they say, "Charity covereth a multitude of sins," they are very well content to have their benevolence accounted as a set-off to their sins. But mere benevolence is not charity, and to think it is would be a very great mistake. St. Paul says that a man may distribute all his goods to feed the poor, and yet not have charity. So then, dear brethren, if you want your almsgiving to be profitable to your own soul as well as helpful to your suffering neighbor, stop your sins and begin to be, first of all, a little generous with God. Give him what he is constantly knocking at the door and begging for--your heart, your love. Then you will have the charity that covereth a multitude of sins, even before you give the poor a cent. Get into the love of God, and