ld not go to Communion, is
there anyone on earth who has such a high idea of his own virtue as to
think himself worthy? Such an opinion seems to be held by M. Arnauld
alone, who, having made the necessary conditions so difficult that St.
Paul himself might have feared to approach, does not hesitate to tell
us repeatedly that he says Mass daily."

It is evident that so cold and narrow a teaching could not but be
repugnant to a man of Vincent's breadth and charity. The monstrous
heresy held by the Jansenists that Christ did not die for all men, but
for the favored few alone, filled him with a burning indignation. No
one could have deplored more than he did the unworthy use of the
Sacraments; but he held firmly to the truth that they had been
instituted by a loving Saviour as man's greatest strength and as a
protection against temptation and sin. And he was not going to believe
that He who had been called the Friend of sinners and had eaten and
drunk in their company would exact from men as a condition of
approaching Him a perfection that they could never hope to attain
without Him.

Indeed, the chief aim of the company of Mission Priests was to draw
the people to the Sacraments as to the great source of grace, and it
seemed to Vincent that the means taken by the Jansenists to destroy
certain evils were very much more dangerous than the evils themselves.
It was better, according to his opinion, even at the risk of abuse, to
make the reconciliation of a sinner to his God too easy rather than
too hard. The rule of the Mission Priests lays down that "one of the
principal points of our Mission is to inspire others to receive the
Sacraments of Penance and of the Eucharist frequently and worthily."
The teaching of the Jansenists sought, on the contrary, to inspire
such awe of the Sacraments that neither priests nor people would dare
to approach them save at very rare intervals.

It was the great mass of the people--poor, simple and suffering, those
children of God whom Vincent loved and in whose service the whole of
his life had been spent--whose salvation was in danger. It was against
them that the Jansenists were shutting the doors of salvation. Is it
any wonder that Vincent de Paul fought against them as only men of
strong conviction can fight, with heart and soul aglow in the battle?
Compared with this all other evils were light. His business was to
relieve suffering, to comfort sorrow, but above all to help men to
save