But was it, perhaps, that they thought they could keep the grace they had got by their own unaided strength; that they could fight the devil single-handed, or even that he would never trouble them much again? Ah! my brethren, if any of you thought that he made a terrible mistake. Satan does not give up the souls which he has once possessed so easily. He knows the advantage which all habits of sin give him, and he is going to make the most of them. He will surely attack you, and you are weak, while he is strong. If you undertake to fight him alone, you will go to the wall. You cannot conquer him unless God helps you. But, after all, there are not many Catholics who do not know that it needs God's help to persevere. Oh! yes; almost every one will say, when asked after confession if he is going to avoid sin for the future, that he will, "with the help of God." Well, then, what is the matter? If we know that we are in danger, and that we can escape from it, but only by God's help, why does not that help come and save us? I will tell you why it does not. And to do so I have only to turn to the first words of to-day's Mass: "He shall call on me, and I will hear him; I will deliver him and glorify him." That is the whole story. If we want God to deliver us, we must ask him to do it. In other words, if we wish to persevere, we must pray. If we do not go to God to get the strength which we need, we must be without it. {261} The sinner who repents, and does not pray often and fervently afterward to keep the grace he has, being especially careful of his morning prayers; who does not, above all, make often the best of all prayers--that of again coming to the sacraments--is a fool, and the devil's laughing-stock. The great majority of those who have been leading a bad life, and who abandon it at a mission, or at any other time, will not persevere unless they are willing to take the trouble to make frequent and earnest prayers, and to come to confession again within a month. That is simple fact; it is the teaching of experience, not mere guess-work. Are you, my friends, willing to take that trouble for your soul's sake, or do you prefer to fall as you have fallen before? ------------------- Sermon LXXVII. Bearing Witness For Our Lord. _And you shall give testimony, because you are with me from the beginning._ --St. John xv. 27. It might be asked, dear brethren, what need God has of _our_ testimony, or why the creature should act the part of witness for the Creator? Certainly Jesus Christ needed not the testimony of men, but in his infinite goodness and wisdom he has seen fit to commit to each one of us a sublime and holy mission, none other than that of giving testimony of him before the world, for the sake of our fellow-man. {262} "You are," says St. Peter, "a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, that you may declare the virtues of him who hath called you out of darkness."