have lost their souls; their greatest suffering in hell is and always will be the thought of how easily they might have saved their souls by asking the necessary graces from God, whereas now they are no longer able to do so. Therefore,
Pray, pray always!
St. Teresa was accustomed to say that she would have wished to place herself on the summit of a mountain, whence she could be heard by all living souls, solely that she might cry out to them,
Pray, pray always!
VI.
We have here, then, given a summary of St. Alphonsus' magnificent and consoling doctrine concerning prayer. He did not content himself with recording this salutary teaching in numerous parts of his writings, but he also put his teaching in practice by composing a great number of formulas equally admirable for their substance and their form, and all of them bearing the impress of the Spirit of God. A heavenly unction will always impart a singular charm to them. The Saint wrote them from his heart; one might even say he dipped his pen in the blood of the burning Heart of Jesus. Many of them were written immediately after his having been in a state of ecstatic prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, or the crucifix, or the venerated image of Mary. They speak the language of the heart, of a heart wounded by divine love, a heart that fully recognizes how worthy is its own well-beloved of being loved by all men. Who is there that in hours of solitude, or when prostrate at the feet of his God, has not felt his heart melted and inflamed when repeating and reiterating the
