This should be said especially about the development of will and moral character. A person's will develops only through small victories. Temptation has grown on your way. You have not succumbed to temptation, you have suppressed a bad desire by an effort of will, you have conquered yourself - your will has become a little stronger, it has become stronger, because any exercise associated with tension is accompanied both in the physical organism and in the soul of a person by the accumulation of strength. The second and third victories will strengthen your will even more... And so the strength of character and its stability in good gradually grows. Holiness is nothing but a long series of moral victories, an endless series of sparkling dots that merge to the outside eye into a continuous line of light, like the Milky Way. Look at the clear starry sky at night. You will see above you a luminous nebula, wavy stretching from horizon to horizon. It is the Milky Way, which seems to be a continuous river of fire. But look closely, and you will see that it is all made up of countless myriads of individual little stars.

In Philadelphia, at the mint, they say, there is a room whose floor is covered with a solid layer of gold. When cutting coins, the smallest dust particles of gold fell to the floor and over time covered it with solid gilding.

It is the same in man: we often admire the moral beauty, meekness, and crystal purity of his soul, but do we know what it costs and how it is achieved? Most often, this is not a natural gift given to a person in full from birth, but the result of countless efforts and individual small moral victories over oneself.

But, on the other hand, the negative qualities of the soul also develop through numerous concessions and moral defeats. Each such concession already disintegrates the moral energy of the will. Dip one drop of swamp mud into a glass of clean water, and the water will become noticeably cloudy. Poison is harmful even in small doses, and it should be beware. The violin string, weakened for a second, introduces falsehood into the entire harmony of the concerto. That is why minor weaknesses and misdeeds must be treated strictly and attentively.

Have you seen how those streams are formed, which rush in muddy streams through the streets on a stormy autumn day? Look at the window: the moisture of the autumn rain falls like fine water dust on the cold glass; from this dust, large drops swell, grow; they increase, roll down, merging with others and forming small streams; they are joined by other, new... And now muddy and dirty streams are running along the drainage ditches. So it is in the moral life: muddy streams of passion and vice are formed from individual sinful actions repeated many times. Often minor sins add up to a great vice. Beware of petty sins!

Beware of them especially because the moral sense is weakened and the conscience is dulled. It turns out to be something like an ordinary children's story with a new dress. Children usually take great care of their new clothes and carefully clean them. But with the first occasional dirty stain, all sense of respect for the new thing drops. The dress is no longer cared for, not taken care of, it immediately falls into the category of everyday costumes and in a short time is covered with stains and patches.

The same thing happens with the soul. A person sometimes avoids sin for a long time, but with the very first fall he can give up on the carefully guarded purity of the soul and say to himself: "I could not restrain myself.. Anyway now! What was, happened. You can't bring back the past! There is nothing more to worry about: it is no longer worth guarding oneself from dirt.." And in a short time the clean garment of the soul is all covered with stains of sin.

But what specks can we talk about? We are afflicted with sores and leprosy from head to toe, as the prophet Isaiah says. All our clothes are dirty. What is there to be careful about?

Not exactly. We lie, for example, but we try not to lie to someone (mother, friend). This is our piece, stolen for the truth from a defiled soul, and we carefully preserve this corner of truth. But the first concession, and the "fence" is broken. Waves of sin will pour through the breach, and soon only a sad memory will remain from the corner of truth.

Beware of petty sins and moral concessions!

The external consequences of minor sins are, for the most part, insignificant, but their influence on the soul of the sinner is very pernicious.

He who humbles the little will fall little by little, says the all-wise son of Sirach (Sir. XIX, 1), that is, he who values little things will gradually fall into decay. "Do not object, how can the spiritual fall? — writes St. Mark in his sermon "On Repentance." When he accepts into himself something small from the realm of sin and does not expel this little from himself by repentance, then, having become rigid in him and developed, it no longer tolerates being alone, but draws him to another, akin to himself, by force, as if by a chain. If a spiritual person enters into a struggle with the evil that has appeared and repels it with prayer, he will remain in his measure of success, losing, however, some of his impassibility to the extent to which addiction to the creeping evil was allowed."

A speck of dust that gets on the eyeball irritates him. Thus is the conscience sensitive to the point of admitting small sins into it. But when they are repeated, the conscience becomes like the stomach of an ostrich, which also carries iron. Conscience can also be compared to a lake that in summer did not hold even a small pebble on its surface, and, having frozen, can withstand carts.

Conscience is the guardian of the soul, at first vigilant, sensitive. But small sins plaster this watchman's eyes and ears. Here is an example of the loss of sensitivity of the heart from a single admission of sin. Alypius, a friend of Augustine, hated the bloody spectacle of gladiator wrestling. But once, at the insistence of a friend, he went to the amphitheater. At first he did not open his eyes in horror and disgust. When the audience clapped with delight, he timidly glanced through. From that time on, he became a lover of bloody spectacles.