You desire, let us hope, to keep your soul unstained by evil ways. If, then, you remember that to secure such a stainless and unpolluted life you have not only to fight with some external enemy now and then, but against dark and insidious powers of evil which seem to start up around you and in the very citadel of your heart unawares, and that except through a constant sense of God's presence in your life you cannot hope to keep free from their influence, this feeling should give reality and earnestness to our daily prayer to be delivered from the evil. And, indeed, this feeling that our life is set in the midst of many and great dangers is one of the first requisites for its moral safety. It stands beside us with its warning, whenever a temptation to some sin besets us, reminding us that, no matter how pleasant or attractive the temptation may seem to be, or how trifling the sin that it suggests, it is in fact an outpost of a great army, whose name is legion, and that we should hold no parleyings and have no dealings with it, for it breathes corruption, and it brings degradation and death behind it. "_Obsta principiis_" may indeed be said to be a warning specially needed by us in regard to every kind of temptation. But we may go further than this. Our safety from particular sins depends very often and very largely, at a critical moment, upon our general attitude and feeling towards sin in every shape. It must be acknowledged, I think, that most sins which lay their hold upon us and master us, or struggle long and hard for the mastery, make their first entrance into the soul so easily, because they find it swept and garnished for their reception, and its doors wide open. With reference to this you have only to reflect on some chapter of your own experience. Has it never happened that, when some wrong or sinful act or thought or speech was first presented to you, it stirred a feeling of shrinking, or strong dislike, or fear, or uneasiness, or, it may be, disgust; but instead of listening to that warning voice, and spurning the temptation utterly, as your feeling bade you do, you were attracted somehow to turn and gaze upon it. You knew it to be sin, but you felt no repulsion. Your soul was not garrisoned and defended by any strong sense of the hatefulness and deadly influence of all sin as such; so if you fled from it it was with a backward look; and then you allowed yourself to think of it in others, or you lived on friendly and familiar terms with those who were stained by it; possibly you even jested about it; you let your thoughts feed upon it; you expressed no stern disapproval of it; you allowed the atmosphere of your life to be tainted by it; and at last your adversary the devil, having rejoiced to see his wiles thus gathering round you, saw you slip or plunge into the sin, and go one great step nearer to becoming his bondslave--just as some foolish bird, fluttering