As in the case of the Amalekites, they attack you in your most vulnerable points and at a time when you are faint and weakest; and they are as vigilant as they are cunning. Always and everywhere they are on the watch for souls. If you come to the house of God, they are here before you; if you enter your room in prayer, you cannot shut them out. By day they compass your path, by night they surround your pillow. Wherever you are they are; whatever you say, they hear it; whatever you do, they perceive it. From our birth to our burial--a frightful thought!--we are perpetually watched by myriads of malignant eyes, unclean and accursed spirits, ready to avail themselves of every opportunity to do us harm and ruin all our hopes. Or need we any examples for what harm they have done? Behold that lovely pair fresh from the Creator's hand walking the groves of Eden, and behold again the outcasts--we know the cause. Observe Job, that perfect man of Uz, robbed of his property and his children, and smitten in body with a sore disease. Who was it that instigated Judas to betray the Lord, Peter to deny Him, all Jerusalem to clamor for His blood, the Roman governor to condemn Him to the cross? St. John said in his day that the whole world was lying in the bosom of the Evil One, and it is much the same to this present day. All men are more or less subject to his influences, and two-thirds of the human race controlled by this evil genius. This, then, is the foe with whom we are obliged to contend.