ch secret and unseen toil, to be able thoroughly to sift and
scrutinize our thoughts, and to exercise the languid senses of the soul
to discern both good and evil. We must continually arouse and excite
the debilitated members of the soul by a close application of our minds
to God."--_Institutes of Christian Perfection_, Bk. I, ch. vii.

{187}

CHAPTER XII

THE RETURN FROM CAPTIVITY

We may set before ourselves the methods of warfare that lead to
spiritual victory; we may study them with all care and prayer; but the
weakness of our nature being what it is, we must not expect to go
through life without meeting defeat at the hands of the enemy. Even
the Saints have not been immune from sin. When St. Paul spoke of
sinners, he added, "Of whom I am chief."[1] St. John not only said,
"If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves," but he added
those terrible words, "If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a
liar."[2]

A most necessary part, therefore, of our instruction in the school of
the soldier is concerning the course we are to follow when we find we
have fallen; how we are to find our way back from the captivity; by
what means we are to renew our allegiance to our divine Leader.

We all know that the necessary thing is _Repentance_, but it is not
everyone who understands what repentance is. In its essence repentance
is {188} not an emotion; it is not a mere attitude of mind; it is a
work, a serious work, and in many instances a hard work. In this
chapter we do not purpose using any special method, scholastic or
otherwise, of showing what this work is, or how it should be
accomplished. In a simple, perhaps informal way, we shall, as the Holy
Ghost may guide us, consider some of the aspects of the interior spirit
we must cultivate if, after a fall, we would by true repentance come
back to our loving Father.

I. _Hastening to Repent_

It will help us if we recall one of the principles we thought of in the
beginning of our study, when we were considering the terms and
conditions of the warfare. We learned then that any fall into sin, in
the measure of its seriousness, means, "not an idle, passive
confinement in some spiritual prison, but an active enlistment in the
armies of hell to fight against our Lord Jesus Christ."

When we think of this, we shall understand that the first consideration
must be the speed with which we must hasten to release ourselves from
the horrid bondage int