Wickedness will hinder you, by putting you altogether out of the right road. If a man be laden with sins; stupid, lazy, careless, over fond of pleasure;—much more, if he be given up to enjoying himself in bad ways, about which we all know too well—then he is like a man who starts in a race, weak, crippled, over-weighted, or not caring whether he wins or loses; and who therefore lags behind, or grows tired, or looks round, and wants to stop and amuse himself, instead of pushing on stoutly and bravely. And therefore St. Paul bids us lay aside every weight (that is every bad habit which makes us lazy and careless), and the sin which does so easily beset us, and run with patience our appointed race, looking to Jesus, the author of our faith—who stands by to give us faith, confidence, courage to go on—Jesus, who has compassion on those who are ignorant, and out of the way by no wilfulness of their own; who can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; who can help us, can deliver us, and who will do what he can, and do all he can. He can and will strengthen us, freshen us, encourage us, inspirit us, by giving us his Holy Spirit, that we may have spirit and power to run our race, day by day, and tide by tide. And so, if he sees us weak and fainting over our work, he will baptize us with the Holy Ghost. And yet there are times when he will baptize a sinner not only with the Holy Ghost, but with fire—I am still speaking, mind, of a sinner, not of a wicked man. And when? When he sees the man sitting down by the roadside to play, with no intention of moving on. I do not say—if he sees the man sitting down to play at all. God forbid! How can a man run his life-long race—how can he even keep up for a week, a day, at doing his best at the full stretch of his power, without stopping to take breath? I cannot, God knows. If any man can—be it so. Some are stronger than others: but be sure of this; that God counts it no sin in a man to stop and take breath. ‘Press forward toward the mark of your high calling,’ St. Paul says: but he does not forbid a man to refresh and amuse himself harmlessly and rationally, from time to time, with all the pleasant things which God has put into this world. They do refresh us, and they do amuse us, these pleasant things. And God made them, and put them here. Surely he put them here to refresh and amuse us. He did not surely put them here to trap us, and snare us, and tempt us not to run the very race which he himself has set before us? No, no, my friends. He made pleasant things to please us, amusing things to amuse us. Every good gift comes from him.