Here, then, I mean to speak only of deliberate and fully voluntary venial sins. All these may be avoided, and are seldom or never committed by holy souls, who live with the firm and constant resolution rather to suffer death than, with full advertence, to be guilty of a venial violation of God's holy law. St. Catharine of Genoa used to say, that to a soul inflamed with the pure love of God the smallest fault is more intolerable than hell itself. Hence she frequently protested that, rather than wilfully commit a venial sin, she would suffer to be cast into an ocean of fire. It is no wonder that the saints had such a horror of the smallest sin: for, illuminated by the light of God, they saw and felt that the least offence against his infinite Majesty is a much greater evil than the death and destruction of all men and angels. " What sin," says St. Anselm, " will the sinner dare to call small? For when can it be a slight fault to dishonor God?" ' Who shall ever be daring enough to assert that such a sin, because it is venial, is not a great evil? Can it be ever said that an indignity to the Lord is but of little moment? If a subject said to his sovereign, In other things I will obey you, but not in this, because it is unimportant, — what censure and chastisement would he not deserve?
Hence St. Teresa used to say: " Would to God we had a horror not of the devils, but of every venial sin from which we may suffer far greater injury than from all the devils in hell." She would frequently say to her spiritual children," From all deliberate sins, however small, may God deliver you." Religious should take particular care to
