purgatory: heaven like any other breach of God’s law. Repentance of course would wipe out the debt of punishment. But venial sin is often slight enough, does not stir the soul, is forgotten almost at once: so that frequently there is no repentance, and at death the debt of justice stands. The second condition is more delicate. When a man commits a mortal sin, he loses the Supernatural Life : when he is truly contrite he regains it. Now contrition is to be measured in two different ways. As to its motive, and as to the degree of its intensity. If a man is truly contrite (that is, sorry, for the right motive) and sufficiently contrite) that is, as sorry as the gravity of the sin demands) then all is forgiven, guilt and punishment alike. But what of a man whose sorrow, while true arid sincere, falls short of the necessary degree of intensity? The guilt of his sin is forgiven : the Supernatural Life is restored to his soul, and God allows him to make up by suffering for what is lacking in his sorrow: in other words, some punishment still remains, even after the guilt is forgiven. If a man die in either of these states — with venial sin not repented of, or mortal sin repented of but not sufficiently — there is still the debt of justice to be satisfied and the soul brought altogether to freedom from sin, and union with God : and in Purgatory, by God’s mercy, this cleansing and compensating suffering is undergone. The souls in purgatory suffer: but the strife is over. They know that heaven is theirs. ’ 139