Page:Life and life-work of Mother Theodore Guerin Foundress.djvu/18

xviii with the grace of God as it is given in general to the members of a body corporate. In her simple but fearless way the Foundress tells her Sisters that in the divine economy all have equal chances, since the Rule they follow is the one great channel through which grace is communicated to their souls. Then comes the startling corollary, that some may be lost eternally through the very means by which others ascend to high perfection. Correspondence with the grace of God distinguishes the saint from the sinner.

Equally salutary is the prudent Foundress's theory that a very busy life requires the strong counterpart of much prayer and deep recollection. A multiplicity of affairs and undisturbed devotion, while not positively incompatible, she says, are, nevertheless, uncongenial conditions. To establish a sympathy between duties in their nature inimical must be the constant aim of all who aspire to a successful career in spirituality.

seems to be a special grace or characteristic of the Sisterhood founded by Mother Guerin. The newly initiated, and the veteran alike, are imbued with the principle of devoting themselves to their work as though all depended on human effort, at the same time casting all their care upon the Lord, who governeth all things with number, weight, and measure; "by prayer and penitence and exercising the spirit" soliciting aid of the Most High, without whose help we cannot say: The Lord Jesus. The great boast of our age, and the great want of our age, leads us to be particularly impressed with the