dispositions to begin a really Christian life, without a longer probation; and therefore refused to baptize her during the mission. After the last sermon she went nearly frantic, and made loud exclamations that she wished to be taken out of the devil's hands, and the father would not do it, but was going away, leaving her in his power. Touched by her entreaties, and finding that her mistress had taught her the rudiments of the catechism, I instructed her for some days, and endeavored to impress upon her mind especially, that if she wished for the graces of baptism and the friendship of God, she must renounce all sin and live a good and holy life. So fearful was she that she might sin, and receive baptism unworthily, that for a day before her baptism she would not speak a word to any person, not even her mistress. She refused to speak even when she was asked about her sponsors and her baptismal dress, and her whole demeanor at her baptism was like that of one oppressed with the most intense sentiment of religious awe, and of the sacredness of the promises she was making to God. It is not to be supposed that every bad Catholic was reformed, or that, of those who were really brought to a resolution to mend their lives, all of them persevered. The hydra-headed monster of vice is not killed by a blow, nor can we hope ever to exterminate sin by any means, even those which have a divine efficacy. It is a continual warfare which we have to wage, by both spiritual and moral weapons, which the free will can always resist. {151} God alone has coercive power over the spirit of man, and He will not exert it to compel him to obey His law. Temptations to sin ever beset the human will, especially in a corrupt, irreligious, and immoral state of society. The Catholic Church is not intended to be a society of saints who have already attained perfection, but a training and reformatory school for the human race. It has no means of charming or mesmerizing the human will into sanctity, and its gracious influences do not supersede the struggle for life which exists in the spiritual as in the natural world. It has all the means of sanctifying the human race, and of elevating men to the summit of possible human virtue, limited only by the extent to which the free human will co-operates with grace. It must actually produce these results on a great scale, in order to prove that it is the Church; because God would not have created it for this purpose, foreseeing its essential failure to fulfil its work and attain its predestined end. It is easy enough to show that the Church possesses this note of sanctity, correctly understood in this way. But it is perfectly true also that the free-will of man, by its failure and perversion, hinders the Church to a vast extent from exhibiting its regenerating and sanctifying power. Great numbers of individuals in the Catholic Church live and act in contradiction to their faith, neglect or