Before it has advanced far on its pathway the soul becomes painfully aware of the dangers by which it is surrounded and of the obstacles which it must overcome. The road before it seems to be infested with enemies. Its defeats are frequent and humiliating. It learns much by experience; but the more it learns the clearer it seems to discern the difficulties which it must meet. In the midst of the confusion and failure it slowly becomes aware that warning voices are speaking, and that they are loudest when moral peril is near. This is one of those simple facts which may be verified by every thoughtful man, but which no thoughtful man would ever dream of trying to explain. So simple and elemental is this truth that it may best be enforced by commonplace illustrations, and by something like a personal appeal. A very distinguished man was one day walking with a friend along a street in Edinburgh, when they came to one of the numerous wynds which lead from the main thoroughfare into the midst of huge and gloomy buildings. There the man stopped and asked to be excused while he entered the wynd. Returning, after a moment, he explained his act by saying that, in his young manhood, he had been tempted to do something which would have wrecked his life. Just as he came to the place that he had visited there sounded in his ears such a vivid warning as made it morally impossible for him to proceed on his course of wrong-doing. He felt sure that that voice was from above, for his whole nature, until that instant, seemed to have been set on what would have led to moral ruin. Another person testified that he was once on the verge of doing what would have brought him undying disgrace when, as if she had been drawn out of the air, his mother stood before him, looking reproachfully at him. Thus the fascination of temptation was broken by what he always believed to have been a veritable spiritual presence.