right, on some feeling which he holds dear and sacred, and once is enough. How many times must you spit in God's face, play the hypocrite with Him, turn your back on Him, trample on His most sacred commandments, before you expect Him to be angry? One mortal sin is enough because it is mortal. Many don't and won't believe this. Hear what they say: "I'm a good one to attend mass. I don't miss it of my own fault more than five or six times a year." "Do you ever get drunk?" "Oh, not a great deal, only a reasonable share, now and again, a few times in the course of the year;" and so on of other things. The devil has blinded them. They are travelling along with the great crowd, singing and laughing, down the broad road that leads to the pit of hell. Listen to what the Scriptures say: "_Be converted and do penance for all your iniquities, and iniquity shall not be your ruin. Cast away from you all your transgressions by which you have transgressed, and make to yourself a new heart, and a new spirit; for why will you die, O house of Israel_." [Footnote 80] That's it. "All" is the word. Nothing short of this will save from ruin. [Footnote 80: Ezechiel xviii., 30, 31.] {197} Another false maxim: _That we shall be saved by the sacraments, no matter how we receive them._ A great many have evidently some such principle lurking in their minds. The way they make confession shows it. The only idea with them seems to be to wipe off old scores and to be at more liberty to begin afresh. The load of sin gets heavy; it begins to press upon the conscience; it makes one uneasy. What's to be done to get rid of it? Pitch it off upon the Priest's back. Then he will become responsible; they need give themselves no farther trouble about it. They have brought the same load of mortal sin now for many years, perhaps every half-year, and, what's more, they really expect to do the same until their death. Some come concealing their sins time and again. If an absolution can be got out of the Priest, it makes no matter how. It is the absolution they want; all the same to them whether God sanctions it or not. So when the Priest refuses, seeing that they are not prepared, they beg for it. {198} "Oh Father, do give me the absolution!" "You are not fit for it." "Oh, but you can give it if you please," they say. Sometimes they threaten, "If I'm not absolved, I won't come again." Sometimes they plead occupation: "If I go away without absolution, I cannot come again without great inconvenience;" as if their convenience should entitle them to absolution, without penitence, and the purpose of amendment.