ADDITIONS. FINAL ADVICE IN REGARD TO HOLY COMMUNION. A cause of frequent error and trouble, particularly in regard to Holy Communion, is that feelings are confused with acts of the will. The faculty of willing is the only one we possess as our own, the only one we can use freely and at all times. Hence it follows that it is by the will alone that we can in reality acquire merit or commit sin. The natural virtues are gratuitous gifts of God. The world is right in esteeming them for they come from Him, but it errs when it esteems them exclusively for they do not of themselves give us any title to heaven. God has placed them at the disposal of our will as means to an end, and we can make a good or bad use of them just as we can of all God’s other gifts. We may be deprived of these natural virtues and live by the will alone, spiritually dry and devoid of sentiment, and yet in a state of intimate union with God. This explanation is intended to reassure such persons as are disposed to feel anxious when they find nothing in their hearts to correspond with the effusions of sensible love with which books of devotion abound in the preparation for Holy Communion. These usually make the mistake of taking for granted the invariable existence of sentiment, and of addressing it exclusively. How many souls do we not see who in consequence grow alarmed about their condition, believing they are devoid of grace notwithstanding their firm will to shun sin and to please God! They should, however, not give way to anxiety, nor exhaust themselves by vain efforts to excite in their hearts a sensibility that God has not given them. When He has granted us this gift we owe Him homage for it as for all others; but God only requires that each of His creatures should render an account of what he has received, and free-will is the one thing that has been accorded indiscriminately to all men. Thus we find Saint Francis de Sales, who possessed in such a high degree sensible love of God and all the natural virtues, making this positive declaration: “The greatest proof we can have in this life that we are in the grace of God, is not sensible love of Him, but the firm resolution never to consent to any sin great or small.” Pious persons can make use of the following prayers with profit when they are habitually or accidentally in the condition described above. They will then see how the will alone, without the aid of feeling, can produce acts of all the christian virtues. Act of Confidence. I will go unto the altar of God. (Ps. XLII.)