is, it is the result of ignorance and not of malice. Where there is not knowledge there is not responsibility - except the responsibility to know, which should always be taken into account. There appears to be a very widespread ignorance in the Church as to the obligation to be present at a celebration of the Holy Communion on Sundays and Holy Days. A child is usually ignorant of some of the responsibilities of its state of life. Now, when an act is committed which is materially mortal sin, and the person who commits it is ignorant of the nature of the act and of its relation to God's will, the act cannot be formally mortal sin, that is, it cannot have the full effect of mortal sin on the relation of the soul to God. It is quite possible under present conditions for persons to contract matrimony within the forbidden degrees and so to live in material sin without knowledge of the fact. This of course would not be formal sin.

The third mark of mortal sin is that it should be committed intentionally, with full consent of the will. In the last illustration, of marriage within the forbidden degrees, there is lack of intention to sin as well as lack of knowledge. So long as one does not intend to break the law of God with full knowledge that it is God's law one cannot be held to have sinned mortally.

Venial sin is sin that while failing in one or the other of the above notes of mortal sin is still in conscious violation of the will of God. Perhaps our most frequent failure is in this matter. Most of our sins are about trivial things; pride, anger, covetousness and the rest do have some hold upon our lives and do manifest themselves there, but not in any very grievous way, not in a way that we should call grave matter. There are other sins which we commit with partial knowledge; we suspect that we ought not to do them but we have never completely informed ourselves. There are still other acts which are done because we are not watchful or careful sins of inadvertence, of surprise, of carelessness.

I am afraid that it is rather the fashion to think lightly of venial sin. But in fact, in the case of Christians who are at all in earnest about the spiritual life, venial sin is the real and besetting danger. Earnest Christians rarely fall into mortal sin; if the temptation to mortal sin presents itself they are under no illusion as to its nature and meaning, and resist accordingly. Even if they fall, the very greatness of the fall sends them to repentance. But the constant daily temptations, the perpetual opportunity of petty sins,these are the spiritual danger of earnest Christians. They do not kill the soul? That is true;

but they do reduce the spiritual vitality, they do keep the spiritual life at a low ebb. If one were to ask, Why do not "good people" make more progress in the spiritual life? I think the answer would be quite ready at hand-tolerated venial sin. So long as we are content to live at close quarters with all sorts of petty violations of the will of God, excusing ourselves on the ground that they are not of much importance, we cannot expect to advance in the spiritual life. Hence, I take it, the reiterated exhortations in the Prayer Book to acknowledge and confess our sins.

What is the penalty of sin? "The penalty of sin is to be a sinner." It is a great misfortune that most of our words describing sin and its outcome are words derived from legal process. This at once injects into the description of the relation of the sinner to God the notion of a possible arbitrariness in God's dealing with us. The average man appears to think that the Christian teaching is that God forgives or punishes sin just as He feels at the moment; that when He punishes He might just as well pardon if He wanted to or vice versa. That can only be because we conceive both punishment and forgiveness as arbitrary, that is, as having no meaning in connection with the sin itself. But if we try to think it out, that is quite inconceivable. A sin is an act

having a certain reaction on the relation of our soul to God. It may injure that relation (venial sin) or it may destroy it (mortal sin); but in either case the outcome is not a punishment inflicted but a result that follows. There is no other punishment than that involved in the sin itself. Hell is the state of being in mortal sin, that is, of being excluded from the presence of God. God does not sentence any one to hell; the man who dies in mortal sin, dies with a destroyed spiritual capacity and therefore incapable of the Beatific Vision. The divine love always does what it can to win man from sin, but it cannot force men to give up sin. If man loves sin rather than God, that is the right of his free will. But the life and death of our Lord is the constant proclamation of the love of God for sinners, the proclaiming of the Cross the constant summons of the children to the Father. More than invite,

not even God can do.

XVII

THE REMISSION OF SIN

'HE New Testament has a good deal to say about sin and its effect on the relation of man to God. One of the most wonderful things about the revelation of God in Christ, is the revelation of the divine attitude toward the sinner. "While we were yet sinners Christ died for us." Christ came to put away sin." In fact the life and death of our Lord are shown as an effort on God's part to overcome sin and death. The willingness of God to forgive is at the center of the Christian Revelation.

As we have seen in the preceding chapter, the Prayer Book simply echoes the biblical language about sin. It warns continually of the dangers of sin and warns the members of the Church to deal with it seriously, especially when they are preparing to approach the sacraments.

Now we can imagine some one coming fresh. to this teaching and saying, "I see the truth of what the New Testament and the Prayer Book say about sin; I acknowledge my own selfishness