Yes, a bad habit is a disease of your soul, a weak spot in it which you must guard. It is there your enemy is going to enter. What does St. Peter go on to say? "Be sober, and watch," he says, "for your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour." Very well; the devil is not such a fool as to neglect your weak points. So it is those which you must watch and guard. If, then, you would be saved, keep before your mind all the time your habitual sins. Be on your guard against them continually, just as a man going on slippery ice is all the time careful how he places his feet. Repeat your resolutions frequently; make them practical and definite. Say to yourself, "Next time I am provoked I will keep down that profane word; next time such an object comes before my eyes I will turn them away; next time such a thought occurs I will instantly repel it." {304} Be on the lookout for danger, as a sailor is for rocks or icebergs in his course. Pray, of course, earnestly and frequently, but watch as well as pray. If you do you will save your soul; if you do not you will lose it. ---------------------- Sermon XC. _There shall be joy in heaven upon one sinner that doth penance, more than upon ninety-nine just who need not penance._ --St. Luke xv. 7. I do not think, my brethren, that there is any parable in the Gospel which comes more home to your own experience than these which you have just heard about the lost sheep and groat. I am sure you have all of you lost something at some time or other; and I am sure, too, that, even though it was not very valuable, you began to think it was when it was lost, and hunted for it high and low. It seemed to you that you cared more for it than for any other article of your property, and that you did not mind much what became of your other things as long as that was missing. That, of course, was not really the case. For, although you seemed to give all your thoughts and energy in searching for the lost article, you cared just as much all the time for what you meanwhile left at home or unnoticed. And if, while you were hunting up one thing, another should get lost, you would start out after that with just as much anxiety as you did for the other. {305} So our Lord spends his time, not only now and then but always, chiefly in hunting after what he has lost, and lets what he has got shift a good deal for itself. Always, I say; for he has always lost something. He keeps losing things all the time. The sheep keep straying away from his fold continually. As soon as one is brought back another has gone, and he has to set out in pursuit of it. And meanwhile the sheep in the fold do not seem to get as much care and attention as they think they deserve for their obedience and general good behavior.