A fourth reason is thus expressed by St. Francis in a letter to the famous Angelique Arnauld, Abbess of Port Royal: "If you accuse your soul without just cause, you spoil its courage, and turn it into a mere coward."[4] It is the Christian's duty by every means to encourage his soul and to do nothing to discourage it. The Psalmist gives us repeated examples of this, as for instance, when he cries, "Why art thou so heavy, O my soul, and why art thou so disquieted within me. Put thy trust in God, for I will yet give him thanks which is the help of my countenance and my God."[5] Discouragement has been called "the temptation of temptations."[6] {154} The soldier would not be tolerated in an army who made it his business to go up and down the lines in the course of the battle discouraging his fellows. We always feel that there is a peculiar meanness about the man who tries to take the heart out of those about him. We must in these spiritual matters, under pain of sin, be as fair to, and as considerate of, our own souls as of the souls of others, for we have no special rights over ourselves in such matters. Our souls are not our own. "All souls are mine,"[7] says God, and we wrong Him when we injure any soul. It does not acquit us to plead, as silly souls are sometimes heard to do, that we are injuring no one but ourselves. In the first place, this is not true. Every hurt we inflict on our souls, every discouragement into which we lead ourselves, is not only a wrong to God, but inflicts a hurt on every soul that is bound up with us in the Communion of Saints. This is just what the Apostle meant when he said, "Whether one member suffer all the members suffer with it."[8] The care and constant strengthening of our own souls is a part of the obligation laid upon {155} us as our brother's keeper;[9] and we know the curse that fell upon Cain not only for his crime of blood, but in punishment for the far greater crime of refusing to recognize the solidarity of humanity, and the duties that arise therefrom. He murdered one man's body, but who can tell how many souls we have been slaying though weakening our own power to help and rescue them in their hour of conflict. Even were it true that we injure none but ourselves by injustice to our souls, we are in this case injuring that which belongs, not to ourselves, but to another, namely to God, and He will let no such wrong go unavenged. Although we are not to accuse ourselves in such cases of doubt, it is well to speak of them to a wise spiritual guide.[10] This will afford us the opportunity of receiving such counsel as will aid us should the particular form of assault be repeated.