warning that bruised his soul. We have all been told before of the trials which await us. Is any coast so thickly studded with lighthouses and storm-drums as the coast along which we sail ? Is any dangerous channel of the sea so abundantly defined by buoys and light-ships as the sea of life? Is any railway track so completely furnished with guiding-lamps, flags, and semaphores, as the path of our pilgrimage is with index-fingers and danger-signals? And is "the intelligence department" of an army so ample and instructed as that which counsels us who wage the battle of life? The sad thing is that we are not so thoughtful and watchful as becomes our situation. A most popular proverb declares that, "To be forewarned is to be forearmed"; but is it so? Too often we are found exposed and helpless, although the most solemn warnings. have been given us. "How could I fail to win?"

said Frederick the Great, after the battle of Rosbach; "Soubise had seven cooks and one spy-I had seven spys and one cook." Some modern military disasters are explained by a similar excess of indulgence over vigilance. And in life we are often surprised and vanquished because of our lack of caution, anticipation, and seriousness; we are worldly, carnal, and careless, and do not duly note when we are being led into temptation. We may by attention and prayerfulness form a habit of forethought. We may

see a sin beforehand in all the ghastliness and suffering which alas! too often are not realized until too late. When you contemplate a step, think of all it implies. We may penetrate the future, picture it, and so realize it that we shall be effectually warned off from alluring temptations. We have sufficient imagination to picture the pleasures of sin; let us employ that faculty to image forth the sorrows of sin, so that we may be arrested and saved. "Looking carefully lest there be any man that falleth short of the grace of God; lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one mess of meat sold his own birthright. For ye know that even when he afterwards desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected (for he found no place of repentance), though he sought it diligently with tears."

XXVII

THE JOY OF BATTLE

Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he hath been approved, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord promised to them that love Him.-Jas. 1:12.

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HE source of temptation is clearly revealed in this passage and its context. "Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God," or, from God. It is of vital importance to understand that, whatever temptation to unrighteousness may assail us, God has no complicity in it. It is impossible that He should, whatever may be the mystery of evil. "Each man is tempted, when he is drawn away by his own lust, and enticed." Our great advantage is thoroughly to be persuaded of this. Temptation happens to the purest; but it fascinates and imperils only as it finds affinities in the soul itself. And it is truly astonishing, when we once yield ourselves to the delirium of desire, how alluring even the most vulgar and vicious things become. In the Book of Revelation we behold an angel clothed with the rainbow; but the balance and sanity of the soul once lost, we see the devil clothed with it. The bushmaster

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of South America is the most terrible of all serpents: it is not only highly venomous, it also grows to a great length, and is very aggressive. For its venom there seems absolutely no antidote. He who has the misfortune to be bitten by it seldom lives longer than twenty minutes; the whole of his blood is turned to a frightful corruption. Yet the creature is most beautifula sort of living rainbow, every color being beautifully shown with superb iridescence as it glides and shimmers in the sunlight. Meet symbol of the power of evil transfigured in the imagination and passions of faithless souls!

The blessedness of endurance. Wherein does this lie?

First, there is the blessedness of resistance. "The desire accomplished is sweet to the soul: but it is an abomination to fools to depart from evil" (Prov. 13: 19). The desire when pastthat is, the temptation successfully resisted, the inordinate appetite conquered-is pleasant, very pleasant to the soul. In the presence of temptation there seems no other joy than that of acquiescing in the inordinate desire, and grasping with ecstasy the forbidden thing; the pain being in denial and resistance. Yet surely we forget the strange delectableness, the rich satisfaction of refusal and withstanding. There is ever a fierce delight in resisting foes; and whilst the joyfulness of Mansoul is still and solemn, it is never

deeper and purer than in those hours when it heroically withstands the beleaguerment of evil. Whenever we catch ourselves brooding longingly over the gratification of possessing forbidden things, let us remember the serene, strong joy of moral mastery, the sovereign satisfaction of letting such things alone. Resistance is rich in the consciousness of right, power, and honor. The cup of the sorcerer most sweetly intoxicates when untasted; the flowers of guilty pleasure yield their best fragrance when we crush them underfoot; and whatever we may wear, we are adorned the most when we spurn godless gold and purple. A new temptation is an invitation to a new pleasure, a crowning pleasure; the pleasure of reprobating the base and of choosing afresh the noble and pure.

Secondly, there is the blessedness of victory. "The crown of life." How sublime the moment when we put to flight the principalities and powers of darkness! Charles Reade writes thus glowingly of one of his characters who has vanquished the tempter: "Well done, sullen and rugged but honest man; the capital temptation of your life is wrestled with and thrown. is always to every man a close, a deadly, a bitter struggle; and we must all wade through this deep water at one hour or another of our lives; it is as surely our fate as it is one day to die." Yes, that crucial struggle comes to all; but if, by the

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