That is all a man can do, pray for strength to crush down the evil that is in him, and to keep it held down day after day. I never hear washy talk about "changed characters" and "reformed natures" but I think of a sermon I once heard at a Wesleyan revivalist meeting in the Black Country. "Ah! my friends, we've all of us got the devil inside us. I've got him, you've got him," cried the preacher--he was an old man, with long white hair and beard, and wild, fighting eyes. Most of the preachers who came "reviving," as it was called, through that district, had those eyes. Some of them needed "reviving" themselves, in quite another sense, before they got clear out of it. I am speaking now of more than thirty years ago. "Ah! so us have--so us have," came the response. "And you carn't get rid of him," continued the speaker. "Not of oursel's," ejaculated a fervent voice at the end of the room, "but the Lord will help us." The old preacher turned on him almost fiercely:-- "But th' Lord woan't," he shouted; "doan't 'ee reckon on that, lad. Ye've got him an' ye've got ta keep him. Ye carn't get rid of him. Th' Lord doan't mean 'ee to." Here there broke forth murmurs of angry disapproval, but the old fellow went on, unheeding:-- "It arn't good for 'ee to get rid of him. Ye've just got to hug him tight. Doan't let him go. Hold him fast, and--LAM INTO HIM. I tell 'ee it's good, healthy Christian exercise." We had been discussing the subject with reference to our hero. It had been suggested by Brown as an unhackneyed idea, and one lending itself, therefore, to comparative freshness of treatment, that our hero should be a thorough-paced scamp. Jephson seconded the proposal, for the reason that it would the better enable us to accomplish artistic work. He was of opinion that we should be more sure of our ground in drawing a villain than in attempting to portray a good man. MacShaughnassy thirded (if I may coin what has often appeared to me to be a much-needed word) the motion with ardour. He was tired, he said, of the crystal-hearted, noble-thinking young man of fiction. Besides, it made bad reading for the "young person." It gave her false ideas, and made her dissatisfied with mankind as he really is. And, thereupon, he launched forth and sketched us his idea of a hero, with reference to whom I can only say that I should not like to meet him on a dark night. Brown, our one earnest member, begged us to be reasonable, and reminded us, not for the first time, and not, perhaps, altogether unnecessarily, that these meetings were for the purpose of discussing business, not of talking nonsense. Thus adjured, we attacked the subject conscientiously.