_POINT III._ _All this influence of the Holy Ghost requires our cooperation._ The best teacher cannot make a scholar of a careless boy. Cardinal Manning in his Internal Mission of the Holy Ghost has a passage explaining this point very forcibly. He says: “No grace that God gives ever fails of its effect, except through our fault. The seed that falls upon the barren sand can bear no fruit; that which is cast upon the sea cannot cast a root; that which falls upon a mind which is like the troubled sea, or upon a heart which is like the barren sand, will bear no spiritual fruit. Nevertheless the grace of God in itself is always fruitful; it never fails of its effect unless we mar it. Are you then corresponding with the exuberant graces which God is always bestowing upon you?... Learn then to have a delicate conscience, to understand promptly, and to correspond, if you can, proportionately; not to receive great graces languidly, and squander one-half of them, and correspond faintly with the rest. Try with your whole soul and strength to rise up and to obey, when the grace of God calls you to any higher state or to any better action” (Pages 32 and 33). Yet, whatever our natural disposition may be, by the aid of the Holy Ghost we may become diligent and fervent in the pursuit of every virtue; for, as St. Paul says: “The Spirit also helpeth our infirmity. For we know not what we should pray for as we ought; but the Spirit himself asketh for us with unspeakable groanings” (Rom. viii, 26). Let us carefully consider what we must improve on this occasion. _Colloquy_ with the Holy Ghost, the Sanctifier, begging for light and grace to advance rapidly in holiness. MEDITATION VI Effects Produced by the Holy Ghost _1st Prelude._ Imagine you behold the scene of the descent of the Holy Ghost on the Apostles, as narrated in Acts ii, 1-4. _2nd Prelude._ Ask for a liberal infusion of the Gifts of the Holy Ghost. We will consider the principal effects produced by the Holy Ghost in the soul as they are expressed in four verses of the _Veni Creator_.