The most efficacious means to help the suffering souls in Purgatory are prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and above all the holy sacrifice of the Mass. By fasting we mean all sorts of mortifications to abstain from certain things in our meals, to deprive ourselves of lawful amusements, to suffer with resignation trials and contradictions, humiliations and reverses of fortune. The alms we give for the dead prompt the Lord to be merciful to them. The sacrifice of the Mass, which was instituted for the living and the dead, is the most efficacious means of delivering them from their pains. "If the sacrifices which Job," says St. John Chrysostom, "offered to God for his children purified them, who could doubt that, when we offer to God the Adorable Sacrifice for the departed, they receive consolation therefrom, and that the Blood of Christ which flows upon our altars for them, the voice of which ascends to heaven, brings about their deliverance." Not only charity and gratitude demand that we should pray for the souls in Purgatory, but it is also for us a positive duty, which we are in justice bound to fulfill. Perhaps some of these poor souls are suffering on our account. Perhaps they are relatives or friends who have loved us too much, or who have been induced to commit sin by our words or example. We are also prompted to pray for them by our own interest. What consolation will it not be for us to know that we have abbreviated their sufferings! How great will their gratitude be after their deliverance! They will manifest it by praying for us, and obtaining for us the help which is so necessary in this valley of tears. In prosperity men forget those who have helped them in adversity; but it will not be so with the souls in Purgatory. After being admitted to the kingdom of heaven through the help of our prayers, "they will solicit," says St. Bernard, "the most precious gifts of grace in our behalf, and because the merciful shall obtain mercy, we will receive after our death the reward of whatever may have been done for the souls of Purgatory during our life. Others will pray for us, and we shall share more abundantly in the suffrages which the Church offers without ceasing, for those who sleep in the Lord." PURGATORIAL ASSOCIATION. A CARD FROM REV. S. S. MATTINGLY. (from the Catholic Columbian) We wish to call the attention of the members of this Association to the near approach of the commemoration of all the faithful departed, which takes place on Monday, the second day of next November. Our Association is in its fourth year of existence. Its numbers have increased beyond our expectations.