For he must be a wretched creature
indeed, who would not spare a single moment in all his lifetime to put
a chaplet on his arm, or a rosary in his pocket, and thus secure his
salvation; and that, too, with so much certainty that none who have
tried the experiment have ever found it to fail, in whatever way
they may have lived; though, let me add, we exhort people not to
omit holy living. Let me refer you to the example of this, given at p.
34; it is that of a female who, while she practised daily the devotion
of saluting the images of the Virgin, spent all her days in mortal
sin, and yet was saved after all, by the merit of that single
devotion."
"And how so?" cried I.
"Our Saviour," he replied, "raised her up again, for the very
purpose of showing it. So certain it is that none can perish who
practise any one of these devotions."
"My dear sir," I observed, "I am fully aware that the devotions to
the Virgin are a powerful means of salvation, and that the least of
them, if flowing from the exercise of faith and charity, as in the
case of the saints who have practised them, are of great merit; but to
make persons believe that, by practising these without reforming their
wicked lives, they will be converted by them at the hour of death,
or that God will raise them up again, does appear calculated rather to
keep sinners going on in their evil courses, by deluding them with
false peace and foolhardy confidence, than to draw them off from sin
by that genuine conversion which grace alone can effect.
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