Page:The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy (Volume 7).pdf/90

 and how to tell them—Ye, who can speak of every thing existing, with unpolluted lips—instruct me—guide me

sins whatever, quoth the abbess, turning casuist in the distress they were under, are held by the confessor of our convent to be either mortal or venial: their is no further division. Now a venial sin being the slightest and least of all sins,—being halved—by taking, either only the half of it, and leaving the rest—or, by taking it all, and amicably halving it betwixt yourself and another person—in course becomes diluted into no sin at all.