Under such conditions there is much consolation in learning that we do not fight alone but have the constant help and sympathy of those who are endued with the strength of perfect purity.  Their likeness to us in that they have lived the life of the flesh assures us of their understanding, and it assures us too of their active co-operation.  We cannot understand the saints standing outside human life and from the vantage point of their achievement looking on as indolent spectators.  The spectacle offorded by the Church Militant must call out the active intercession of all the saints; but especially do we look for helpful sympathy from her who is our all-pure Mother, whose very purity gives her intercession unmeasured power.  She is not removed from us through her spotlessness, but by virtue of her clearer understanding of the meaning of sin and of separation from God that it brings her, she is ready to fly to the help of all sinners by her ceaseless intercession.

The difficulty of our spiritual lives rises chiefly out of the clash of wills.  A disordered nature, a tainted inheritance, a corrupt environment conspire to make the life of grace tremendously difficult.  It is only in a very limited sense that we can be said to be free, and there is no possibility at all of overcoming the handicap of sin, except firm and careful reliance on the grace of God.  That grace, no doubt, is always at our disposal as far as we will use it.  Grace moves us, but it does not compel us; and we are free always to reject the offer of God.  We have only to open our eyes upon the world about us to see how rarely is the grace of God accepted in any effective way.  Even in convinced Christians the attempt to live the divided life is the commonest thing possible.  It sometimes seems as though the prevalent conception of the Christian life were that it is sufficient to offer God a certain limited allegiance and that the remainder of the life will be thereby ransomed and placed at our disposal to use as we will.  We find the theory well worked out in the current attitude of Christians toward the observance of the Lord’s Day.  It appears to be held that an attendance at Mass or Matins is a sufficient recognition of the interests of religion and that the rest of the day may be regarded, not as the Lord’s Day, but as man’s—­as a day of unlimited amusement and self-indulgence.  The notion of consecration is abandoned.  The only possible outcome of such theories of life is what we already experience, spiritual lawlessness and moral degradation.  I suppose that it will only be through social disaster that society will come (as usual, too late) to any comprehension that the will of God is what it is because it is only by following the road that it indicates that human life can reach a successful development.  God’s laws are not arbitrary inflictions; they are the expression of the highest wisdom in the guidance of human life.