In the first place, the evil habit produces blindness. And why is it that the saints ever beg God to give them light, and why do they fear lest they should become the greatest sinners in the world? It is because they know that if for one moment they were to lose the light, they might commit any wickedness. How is it that so many Christians have been willing to live in sin, until they have at last condemned themselves? " Their own malice blinded them." (Wisd. ii. 21.) Sin has deprived them of sight, and so they have become lost. Each sin produces blindness, so that when the sin increases, so does the blindness increase. God is our light; the more, therefore, the soul withdraws itself from God, the more does its darkness increase: " His bones are full of the sin of his youth." (Job xx. 11.) As the light of the sun cannot enter in a vessel filled with earth, so the Divine light cannot enter a heart that is filled with vices. And therefore it is that we see many relaxed sinners lose this light, and go on from sin to sin, and never again think of amending their ways. "The ungodly walk on every side." (Ps. xi. 9.) These miserable sinners have fallen into that dark pit, where they can do nothing but sin, speak only of sin, think only of sin, and, at last, they scarcely recognise that there is any evil in sin. S. Augustine observes, that " the habit itself of evil does not suffer sinners to see the evil which they do." So that they live as if they no longer believed in a God, a paradise, a hell, or an eternity.
And, behold, for that sin which, at one time, caused them to feel great horror, through the evil habit, no longer causes them to feel it. " Make them like unto a wheel; and as the stubble before the wind." (Ps. lxxxiii. 13.) " Observe," says S. Gregory, "with what ease a bit of straw is moved by the slightest puff of wind;" even thus do we often see some, who, before they fell, once resisted, at least, for some time, and strove against the temptation, but after the sin became habitual, they yielded to every temptation, and every occasion to sin that was presented to them. And wherefore? Because the evil habit has deprived them of light. S. Anselm tells us that the devil acts with many sinners, like any one who holds a bird tied by a string, who allows it to fly, but directly it flies he pulls it back again to
