In an article on "Lent" the "Western Watchman" of March 9 says: The fasts imposed by the church in times past were far more severe than they are now. This does not imply that the mind of the church has undergone any change, or that such works of penance have been found any the less salutary; but rather that, men having grown older in piety and in the performance of works for God, the church, our spiritual mother, has dispensed with much that was formerly obligatory, lest she overburden the weak wills of her children. In a sermon in the same issue by the editor we have this vigorous declaration: People can not understand why in Catholic countries the church is persecuted. She is not assailed by heretics or Jews, but by degenerate Catholic debauchees. Vice rules in all the Latin countries to-day. Lust is enthroned and licentiousness reigns everywhere. All the clean Frenchmen are good Catholics. All infidel Spaniards are libertines. The decent men and women of Italy attend church and go to the sacraments. Why are we making so few converts in this country where there is so little opposition from Protestantism? We have to fight the unclean spirit incarnate in our people: the dumb, dirty devil of lust, who will not listen or dispute, but sins on with impunity. To remedy these things our Catholic friends exalt confession and penance, the stated fast of Lent, etc. This is stated in the article from which our first quotation is taken, as follows: The Lenten time is the Christian's burial of self with the crucified Lord, that they may rise after this period of penance, as He rose, to a brighter and more spiritual life. But that is not the New Testament idea. Never do we have placed before us by our Lord or His apostles stated periods of fasting and penance by which the flesh is to be conquered. Nor can man by such means conquer lust. The heart must be renewed, not by a long process of evolution, but by re-creation, regeneration, that it may reign in a fleshly body, holding in permanent captivity the lusts of the flesh. It means self-denial, crucifixion of the flesh, mortification of the low, base lusts of the human, but it means all these all the time in Christ Jesus. Listen:11And He [Jesus] said to them all, If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. Luke 9:23. Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. Rom. 8:12, 13. Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry. Col. 3:5. But now ye also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth. Col. 3:8. And all this self-denial, mortification, putting off, is not to be done for forty days in the year, or one day in the week, but every hour of every day. Under all trials and temptations of the flesh the Christian should keep before him the injunction, “Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Rom. 6: 11. Praise God, He gives us something better than the indulgence of the flesh; and he who knows Christ and His living presence may live above its power. Then he rejoices not in any work he or man may do to save him, but in the merits and power of Christ alone, who of God is made unto him “wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption: that . . . he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.” 1 Cor. 1: 30, 31. Our Lord Jesus Christ “is able to save to the uttermost.”