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chance of salvation, what advantage is it to me to belong to her body also? This advantage, that God having given you the light to know her for the true Church, you would by abandoning her commit a mortal sin and place your salvation in jeopardy. For he who belongs to her soul alone, should God at any time give him the light to know her as the true Church, is bound from that moment to join the visible body of the Catholic Church under pain of mortal sin. And if God does not give him this light, see what straits he is in. To be saved, one must at least belong to the soul of the Church. You are separated from it by sin, but regain your place in God's Church by the sacraments of reconciliation and love. Our good Protestant sins, and his only means of reuniting himself to the Church's soul is an act of perfect contrition. Now what Protestant can live long without a mortal sin? or easily make an act of contrition? or consequently easily save his soul? That is why I suspect that at the last day the vast majority of the elect will be from among professed Catholics, for the election of men from the world into the soul and body of the Church, is a harbinger of their final election from the Church militant into the Church triumphant. Nor must you imagine it is, therefore, better to leave a Protestant in his error than show him the truth and have him refuse it. Apart from the fact that you know not what he will do until you have instructed him, Christ bids us preach the truth to every creature without exception. Why then, you ask, does God give the light of