CHAPTER XXIV. All Evil Inclinations must be purged away.

FURTHERMORE, my daughter, we have certain natural inclinations, which
are not strictly speaking either mortal or venial sins, but rather
imperfections; and the acts in which they take shape, failings and
deficiencies. Thus S. Jerome says that S. Paula had so strong a
tendency to excessive sorrow, that when she lost her husband and
children she nearly died of grief: that was not a sin, but an
imperfection, since it did not depend upon her wish and will. Some
people are naturally easy, some oppositions; some are indisposed to
accept other men’s opinions, some naturally disposed to be cross, some
to be affectionate–in short, there is hardly any one in whom some such
imperfections do not exist. Now, although they be natural and
instinctive in each person, they may be remedied and corrected, or even
eradicated, by cultivating the reverse disposition. And this, my child,
must be done. Gardeners have found how to make the bitter almond tree
bear sweet fruit, by grafting the juice of the latter upon it, why
should we not purge out our perverse dispositions and infuse such as
are good? There is no disposition so good but it may be made bad by
dint of vicious habits, and neither is there any natural disposition so
perverse but that it may be conquered and overcome by God’s Grace
primarily, and then by our earnest diligent endeavour. I shall
therefore now proceed to give you counsels and suggest practices by
which you may purify your soul from all dangerous affections and
imperfections, and from all tendencies to venial sin, thereby
strengthening yourself more and more against mortal sin. May God give
you grace to use them.
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