EVERY Christian knows what it is to be troubled with evil thoughts. Bunyan, than whom no uninspired man was ever better acquainted with the human heart, makes it one of his Pilgrim's trials that he bore away with him from the City of Destruction some of those things that he was conversant withal, especially his inward and carnal cogitations; and he adds, sorrowfully, "If I had my way, I would never think of those things more, but when I would do good, evil is present with me." How often is his experience ours! How many times we find ourselves haunted with what we would fain forget! Some one offers us an affront. We have no desire to cherish a grudge, and perhaps we make an act of forgiveness on the spot; but all day long the scornful word or the unkind act haunts our memory, and Satan conspires with the traitor in our own hearts to magnify the offense, and to suggest thoughts of malice and revenge. We are denied some pleasure or indulgence that others enjoy, and to which we think, perhaps, that we have a better right than they, and we dwell upon the matter, magnifying the forbidden pleasure or advantage till it becomes a dark fog, blotting out every pleasant prospect and shutting us up in measureless discontent. I believe that invalids are particularly subject to this kind of temptation. The horizon of the sick person is narrow at the best, and a small cloud suffices to obscure it. Moreover, there are certain disorders which seem of themselves particularly favorable to evil thoughts. The patient is, or fancies himself, neglected or forgotten. He is tempted to envy those better off than himself. He thinks of all the good work he has done, and of all he might do, and he is tempted to think hardly of the Master, who seems to have rejected his service. These and still darker thoughts beset the daily couch and nightly pillow of the invalid, till he feels as if Satan in bodily presence were standing at his bedside. Now what is the remedy for this unhappy state of things? The first thing to be done is to recognize these thoughts as sins. We are too apt to excuse them to ourselves as mere infirmities, consequent on our state of health. They may be so to some extent. All our sins are the consequence of some temptation. So long as we constantly make excuses for our faults, so long they will stay by us, and consider themselves as welcome guests. Let us call them by their right names to begin with, and, like the malicious dwarf in the fairy tale, they are half conquered already.