this way and that instead of spreading its wings for a heavenward flight into the pure and safe upper air, might plunge into the snares of the fowler. And yet all the while, although you were living this weak and vacillating life, which is the seed-field of sin, you were praying to God every day--"Lead us not into temptation." If we remember any such experience we may at least gather from it some lessons of safety and strength for the time to come. It reminds us first of all how vitally important is our general attitude towards every form of sin and its allurements. On this attitude it very often depends whether your life is to be comparatively free from pitfalls, or whether it is to be beset with dangers at every turning. If by your attitude and behaviour you cause it to be felt that sin is hateful to you, and that you are sincere when you pray that God may keep you from all evil, a great many of the temptations that would otherwise make your life difficult and dangerous will shrink away abashed; or if the tempter ventures to assail you, he will do it half-heartedly when he sees that you repel him with a whole-hearted repugnance. It is this attitude even more than individual acts which fixes the tone of a society. When there is no prevalent sense that there are those present who maintain this attitude of hatred and contempt for sin and everything that breeds or fosters it, the tone, as men say, becomes low, or lax, the air becomes corrupt, and life in such surroundings becomes full of peril. If the good are timid, shrinking, showing no positive fervour, no zeal for virtue, and no moral indignation against evil influence, then the bad in their society will lift up their heads and walk boldly. But when, on the other hand, they who are in their hearts convinced of the sinfulness of sin, and of the infinite mischief that may arise out of any form of it, are not ashamed to show it by their attitude, they cause the base to hide itself in its proper darkness, and they create an atmosphere around them in which temptations lose a great deal of their force and strength. Let this, then, be your feeling about your life--that when it is assailed by any sin, that sin is not something isolated or insignificant; it is not something which may be indulged or accepted, as if it had no relation with other sins; it is a part of an infinite brood of evil; and that if you admit it within the circle of your life, or tolerate it in the air you breathe, you never know where its pestilent germs may fall, and breed, and multiply, and what mischief may come of it.