How much more zealous is Satan in the evil cause! He not only uses every opportunity that comes, but he counts himself to have done little unless he has forced occasions for wounding the divine Majesty and enslaving souls made in the image of God. (3) His persistency. Though it is within the power of the soul, by a stout and persistent defence, to discourage Satan in regard to certain particular temptations, yet in regard to temptation in general he is never discouraged. However many times we may inflict defeat upon him, however mighty in battle the soul of saint or sinner may wax, he never resigns the hope that he may yet secure dominion in the heart in which God now reigns. What a frightening suggestion this offers! He who knows us so well, better than we know ourselves, better than anyone knows us save God and our Guardian Angel, sees ever in us possibilities of final and eternal failure. There is always some definite thing in us that buoys up his hope that he may yet be able to persuade or deceive us into rejecting the service of God and accepting {39} his. Every time we yield to the slightest sin or laxity, we encourage and embolden him still more, until he feels that he can safely attack the soul that but a little time before he feared. It is thus that we become responsible for our own temptations, raise up occasions for sin, and give, by our often deliberate acts, vantage ground and footing to him from which he can drive home a deadly stroke. (4) A fourth characteristic is the patience with which he works. He bides his time. We should naturally think that when he found a soul in a sinful environment he would immediately use the occasion to lead it into some serious sin, but by no means does he always take this course. Often in the most sinful surroundings he does not, for a long time, allow the sight of sin to suggest participation in it. He waits until we are accustomed to its presence; until the sense of shock wears off. He begins by getting us to tolerate the fact of sin about us, for he knows that any toleration of sin in the general life with which we are surrounded is a long step towards tolerating it in ourselves. So he waits with a patience born of a deep-laid plot. He notes that after a while we see our Lord fearfully dishonoured, and our souls are not thereby grieved and outraged; that we come {40} and go in a world where He is being crucified daily, but with a smiling countenance that masks no broken heart beneath. Then he begins to insinuate his suggestions to evil. Perhaps the temptation at first is to some slight sin only, merely venial. He would not rouse our slumbering conscience by the frightening temptations to that which is serious. But Satan has no interest in a soul committing venial sins merely for their own sake. Venial sin cannot deliver us into his power, and cannot keep us out of heaven.