Nothing is more frightfully true than this principle, namely, that what has once enslaved us always retains its power over us, even after our deliverance. It is the law of strength against weakness, the chastisement that sin brings with it. Hence it is, that so many persons converted and purified, fall back on the first temptation, on the first occasion which their old master shows them. The old law has again seized upon them.
-St. Peter Julian Eymard
