trines, the Augustinus of Jansenius, was
read by only a few, and these mostly scholars. That the Sacraments
should be treated with the greatest respect and approached only by
those who were fit to approach them seemed at first sight a very
reverent and very proper maxim. Many people of holy lives took up this
teaching enthusiastically, among them some of Vincent's own Mission
Priests. When Antoine Arnauld, the youngest of the famous family which
did so much to further Jansenism, published his book _Frequent
Communion_, which might more truly have been called "_In_frequent
Communion," it was received with delight and eagerly read. That
Vincent clearly saw the danger is shown by one of his letters to a
member of the Jansenist company who had written protesting against the
attitude that St. Lazare was taking in the matter:

"Your last letter says that we have done wrong in going against public
opinion concerning the book _Frequent Communion_ and the teaching of
Jansenius. It is true that there are only too many who misuse this
Divine Sacrament. I myself am the most guilty, and I beg you to pray
that God may pardon me . . . . You say also that as Jansenius read all
the works of St. Augustine ten times, and his treatises on grace
thirty times, the Mission Priests cannot safely question his opinions.
To which I reply that those who wish to establish new doctrines are
always learned and always study deeply the authors of which they make
use. But that does not prevent them from falling into error, and we
shall have no excuse for sharing in their opinions in defiance of the
censure of their doctrine."

The letter was answered by a second protest in favor of Arnauld's
book, which was met by Vincent with equal energy:

"It may be, as you say," he writes, "that certain people in France and
Italy have drawn benefit from the book; but for a hundred to whom it
has been useful in teaching more reverence in approaching the
Sacrament, ten thousand have been driven away . . . For my part, I
tell you that if I paid the same attention to M. Arnauld's book as you
do, I should give up both Mass and Communion from a sense of humility,
and I should be in terror of the Sacrament, regarding it, in the
spirit of the book, as a snare of Satan and as poison to the souls of
those who receive it under the usual conditions approved by the
Church. Moreover, if we confine ourselves only to what he says of the
perfect disposition without which one shou