their faith, and with the loss of faith, have shaken off all moral restraints. You, my dear young friend, will have to go out into life, you will find yourself in circumstances which are apt to imperil your faith. How important, therefore, it is, that you should be made aware of your danger betimes and so be on your guard against it.
2. Against this danger to faith St. Paul warned his disciple Timothy, when he wrote: "There shall be a time, when they will not endure sound doctrine; but according to their own desires, they will heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and will indeed turn away their hearing from the truth, but will be turned to fables. But be thou vigilant" (2 Tim. iv. 3-5). We are living in an age such as he described. There are in the present day only too many men who resemble those whom the Apostle depicts in the words quoted above; men who can not endure the sound doctrine of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, but disparage, blaspheme, and contemn it. Sometimes they express doubts as to a particular dogma, sometimes they jeer at abuses, sometimes they ridicule the external practices and ceremonies of Holy Church. But above all things they seek to implant in the mind of inexperienced youth, and above all in the soul of the young man who is just entering upon life, the germ of unbelief.
3. What a misfortune it would be, if such men should succeed in rendering you unstable in your faith, or in causing you to lose it altogether. Beware therefore of ever following the false, deceptive, luring light, which unbelief too often kindles in order to lead men astray; it is a light which dazzles, a. false show, an ignis
