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ing thereto. Convinced as I am of the necessity of prayer, I say that all books treating of spiritual subjects, all preachers in their sermons, all confessors in every confession which they hear, should attach the greatest importance to inculcating the necessity of constant prayer on the minds of their readers and hearers, and they should never tire of impressing it on them and of repeating over and over again: Pray, pray always; if you pray, you will certainly save your souls; if you do not pray, you will certainly lose them. It is true that many excellent ways of persevering in the grace of God may be recommended to souls; for instance, avoiding occasions of sin frequenting the sacraments, resisting temptation, listening to sermons, meditating on the eternal truths, etc., all of which are most salutary practices, as every one must admit but, I ask, of what good are sermons, meditations, and the other means suggested by the masters of the spiritual life, without prayer? since Our Lord has declared that He will only grant His grace to those who pray for it: 'Ask and ye shall receive' (John. xvi. 24). According to the ordinary course of Providence, all our meditations, resolutions, promises, are useless without prayer, if we do not pray, we shall always be faithless to the lights we have received from God and to the resolutions we have taken. Because, in order to do right, to overcome temptation, to practise virtue, to observe God's