Once let the mind become dissatisfied with some trifling circumstance, and that fly spoils the whole pot of ointment. Once get the notion that the house is too small, and then morning, noon and night you never see a picture that is in it, or acknowledge the comfort of one corner in all the little habitation. The one thing that is present in the mind throughout all the weary hours is that the house is too small. Once get the idea that the business is undignified, and you go to it late in the morning and leave it early in the afternoon, neglecting it between times; you are also ashamed to speak of it, and will not throw your whole heart and soul during business hours into its execution. Once get the notion that the neighborhood is unfashionable, and it goes for nothing that the rooms are large and airy, that the garden is one of the best you ever had, that there is ample scope for a rich library, that all the neighbors are men of peculiar intelligence and goodness. All go for nothing, because the tempter has said: “This neighborhood is not a fashionable quarter of the town, and when people come to know that you are living here they will lose confidence in you and respect for you.” If we live in circumstances, we shall be the sport of events; we shall be without dignity, without calmness, without reality and solidity of character. Let us, therefore, betake ourselves into inner thoughts, into spirituality of life, into the soul’s true character, into the very sanctuary of God. There we shall have truth and light and peace; there the stormy wind can not disturb us, and the great darkness is but an outside circumstance, for within there is the shining of the light of God. Then notice in Ahab a childish servility to circumstances. [Illustration: THE PROPHET AMOS. From the Painting by Gustave Dore.] [Illustration: THE DESPAIR OF JUDAS. From a Photograph of the Character in the Passion Play.] “Ahab came into his house heavy and displeased … and he laid him down upon his bed, and turned away his face, and would eat no bread.” Yet he was the king of Israel in Samaria! He actually had subjects under him. He was in reality a man who could give law, whose very look was a commandment, and the uplifting of his hand could move an army. Now we see him surely at his least. So we do, but not at his worst. All this must have an explanation. We can not imagine that the man is so simply childish and foolish as this incident alone would describe him. Behind all this childishness there is an explanation. What is it? We find it in the twenty-fifth verse: “But there was none like unto Ahab, which did sell himself to work wickedness in the sight of the Lord, whom Jezebel, his wife, stirred up.” That explains the whole mystery. The man had sold himself to the devil. And men are doing that self-same thing every day.