f life; the other is interior, and
is the direct action of the Holy Spirit on the human soul. There is
great danger in separating these two.

"The key to many spiritual problems is found in this truth: The
direct action of God upon the soul, which is interior, is in harmony
with his external providence. Sanctity consists in making them
identical as motives for every thought, word, and deed of our lives.
The external and the internal (and the same must be said of the
natural and supernatural) are one in God, and the consciousness of
them both is to be made one divine whole in man. To do this requires
an heroic life-sanctity.

"All the sacraments of the Church, her authority, prayer both mental
and vocal, spiritual reading, exercises of mortification and of
devotion, have for their end and purpose to lead the soul to the
guidance of the Holy Spirit. St. Alphonsus says in his letters that
the first director of the soul is the Holy Ghost Himself.

"It is never to be forgotten that one man can never be a guide to
another except as leading him to his only Divine Guide.

"The guide of the soul is the Holy Spirit Himself, and the criterion
or test of possessing that guide is the Divine authority of the
Church."

What follows was published by Father Hecker in _The Catholic World_
in 1887. It throws new light on the questions we have been
considering, abounding in practical rules of direction, and
therefore, though somewhat long, we venture to close the chapter with
it:

"'If any one shall say that without the previous inspiration of the
Holy Spirit and His aid, a man can believe, hope, love, or repent as
he should, so that the grace of justification may be conferred upon
him, let him be anathema.'

"These are the words of the holy Council of Trent, in which the
Catholic Church infallibly teaches that without an interior movement
of the indwelling Holy Spirit no act of the soul can be meritorious
of heaven. This doctrine, embodying the plain sense of Holy Scripture
and the unbroken teaching of the Church in all ages, bases human
justification on an interior impulse of the Third Person of the
Divine Trinity. This impulse precedes the soul's acts of faith, hope,
and love, and of sorrow for sin: the first stage in the supernatural
career, then, is the entering of the Holy Spirit into the inner life
of the soul. The process of justification begins by the divine life
of the indwelling Spirit taking up into itself the human l