Again; mere feelings of irritability, indolence, impurity, collapse, weariness, partisanship, unkindness, suspiciousness, and so forth, are not in themselves sins. They must be consented to and harboured before they can become so. Just as musicians prelude their pieces by a flourish, so Satan occasionally runs his fingers. over the key-board of the mind, awakening all these feelings, in their turn, and confounding us by the consciousness of the amount of evil which there is within. But there is still no sin, so long as we reject and renounce these feelings, and thrust them out by prayer and instant application to some useful work. Our minds may be rendered uncomfortable by them, or, as the Apostle Peter phrases, we may be "in heaviness through manifold temptations;" but heaviness and discomfort are no sins. Nay, heaviness of spirit, resulting from temptation, is the Cross of the Garden laid on us by Him who bore it in Gethsemane; and it is a great honour and privilege to be called upon, like the three chosen ones of the chosen, to come and watch with Him for one short hour.

Yes! multitudinous temptations are, indeed, a great dignity, as helping to assimilate us to the image of Christ; and, if we comport ourselves well under them, a great means of spiritual advancement. When a hard winter sets in, and the earth is covered with a mantle. of snow, and each little knot and spray in the hedgerow is encrusted with icicles, vegetation seems to be killed, and every green thing blighted. But it is not so. The genial forces of the earth are driven inward, and working deep in her bosom. The snow mantle is doing for her what the fur mantle does for the human frame,— concentrating and preserving the vital heat within. So

it is in Temptation: the time of temptation is a cheerless and dreary hour, when everything seems at a standstill, and the spiritual pulse can no longer be heard, it beats so faintly to the outward touch: but if the will is faithful and true, and the soul patient, the life is really concentrating itself, and rallying its forces within. The cheerless outward aspect is nothing;— there are hidden agencies at work, which in due time shall bring out the full bloom and redolence of a spiritual spring. There have been moderate Christians, there have been shallow Christians, without very much temptation; but there never yet was a saintly Christian, never yet one who pressed to the higher summits of the spiritual life, never one, whose banner bore the strange device "Excelsior," who was not made the victim of manifold temptations. There are many good men in the world who seem to live in a continual light gaiety and sunshine of heart, and yet whom it would be quite wrong and wide of the mark to reckon irreligious men; they pay a very unfeigned attention to the concerns of Religion, are in high esteem both for kindness and prudence, are counted examples in their social circle, and are in their way devout, and all this without seeming to find much difficulty and im pediment. If they are what they appear to be, they are not deep men; and while we may not for a moment judge them otherwise than charitably, we need not for a moment envy them. When God besets the soul with temptations, He is calling it to something high in spiritual enterprise, and great in spiritual attainment. Let us recognize it as being so, and pray earnestly not to frustrate the vocation by the per versity and sluggishness of our own wills.

"My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing."

CHAPTER VII.

FIGHT WITH DISTRUST IN SELF AND TRUST IN
CHRIST.

"And in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went unto them, walking on the sea. And when the disciples saw him walking on the sea they were troubled, saying, It is a spirit: and they cried out for fear. But straightway Jesus spake unto them, saying, Be of good cheer; it is I: be not afraid. And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water. And he said, Come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus. But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me. And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?"—MATT.

xiv. 25-31.

THE harmony with themselves of the characters described in Scripture is a proof that these characters really existed, an internal evidence in favour of the authenticity of the Bible. It would be very difficult for an impostor, for example, to frame two such incidents as St. Peter's failure in his attempt to walk upon the waters, and St. Peter's denial of his Master,

both exhibiting precisely the same weak point in the Apostle's character under circumstances totally different. Or, had he framed them, he would not have thrown them out, as St. Matthew has done, far apart from one another in the narrative without any remark to connect them; but would have given his reader some hint that, if compared and set side by side, they would be seen to have, under great diversities, a similarity of principle. As it is, the coincidence is too subtle to have been designed: and we cannot otherwise account for it, than by supposing St. Peter to have been an actually existing man, whose sayings and doings are recorded; and the same points of character are constantly coming out in the same man, whatever the variety of circumstances in which he is placed.

But when pointed out, the coincidence is full of interest. It is interesting to see St. Peter's boast of attachment to Christ, and St. Peter's fall both rehearsed beforehand, as it were, to a private audience, when comparatively little was at stake. The Apostle was enthusiastically attached to his Master, and conscious of the strength of his attachment. He was also bold with all the boldness of chivalry, presumptuous, and self-reliant. These latter qualities procured for him a tremendous fall in the great crisis of the apprehension of Christ; but they had procured for him already a fall in a previous lesser crisis. Then, too, as just before his denial, he had virtually professed his faith in Christ, and his attachment to Christ, and had challenged a trial of that faith and that attachment: "Lord, if it be Thou, bid me come unto Thee on the water." Then, too, he had gone on well, and in pursuance of his professions, up to a certain time, walking on the waters for a few paces, just as on the latter occasion he drew his sword

and smote a servant of the High Priest, and cut off his ear. Then, too, he had failed after the expiration of a time, and exposed himself to the remarks of his less enterprising colleagues, as being unable to go through with that which he had begun when he saw the wind boisterous, his heart failed him, and he was afraid, and began to sink. Thus both his trial, and his shortcoming in trial, had been practised, if I may so say, beforehand.

Now here at once a thought meets us, very necessary to be dwelt upon, in discussing the subject of Temptations. Temptations, then, are not always of the same magnitude, or on the same scale. Occasionally only, in the course of a lifetime, some great crisis comes to approve the steadfastness of our Christian Principle. There are inducements to form a connexion which is doubtful, or to desert a right cause which is becoming unpopular, or to be lenient in condemning evil, or to hazard a crooked policy for a great gain or a high distinction. These great opportunities, however, occur but seldom. Days and days wear away, each of them formative of our character,-each of them leaving upon that character the visible stamp and impress of the way in which it has been spent,-which are unmarked by any momentous trial, and when our conduct is in no sense before Society. These days furnish nothing more than the petty temptations to indolence, vanity, temper, selfishness, loquacity, and so forth, which are never at any

time absent from us, and from which no sort of life, whether public or private, can claim exemption. Yet think not, disciple of Christ, that these petty temptations are to be despised. It is in these miniature trials that God rehearses His actors behind the scenes, before He brings them forward on the public stage,