An evil thing is proposed to your mind; you enjoy the thought of doing
it, knowing it to be wrong; you desire to do it and resolve to do it;
you take the natural means of doing it; you succeed and consummate the
evil--a long drawn out and well prepared deed, 'tis true, but only one
sin. The injustices, the scandal, the sins you might commit
incidentally, which do not pertain naturally to the deed, all these are
another matter, and are other kinds of sins; but the act itself stands
alone, complete and one.

But these interior acts of sin, whether or not they have reference to
external completion, must be sinful. The first stage is the suggestion
of the imagination or simple seeing of the evil in the mind, which is
not sinful; the next is the moving of the sensibility or the purely
animal pleasure experienced, in which there is no evil, either; for we
have no sure mastery over these faculties. From the imagination and
sensibility the temptation passes before the will for consent. If
consent is denied, there is no deadly malice or guilt, no matter how
long the previous effects may have been endured. No thought is a sin
unless it be fully consented to.



CHAPTER VIII.
CAPITAL SINS.

YOU can never cure a disease till you get at the seat or root of the
evil. It will not do to attack the several manifestations that appear
on the surface, the aches and pains and attendant disorders. You must
attack the affected organ, cut out the root of the evil growth, and