(3) Let me ask you to notice that this petition illustrates _the spirit of true Christian courage_. It is not courage, but foolhardiness that courts danger. It is not courage that risks life and limb in an utterly stupid, needless, bootless task; it is folly. It was not courage that made that mad youth climb the sheer face of the cliff at Folkestone the other day, it was mere senseless bravado. True courage will keep away from danger; true courage will only incur risk and peril when duty demands. Let us learn this lesson. You young men learn this lesson. It is not courage to venture into doubtful places; it is not courage to unite with questionable companions; it is not courage to peer into unclean books; it is not courage to spend your evenings in the public-house; it is not courage to dally with the intoxicating cup; it is not courage to frequent the theatre, with its evil associations, to accustom yourselves to gaze upon the indecencies and to listen to the pruriencies too often heard upon the stage. It is not courage to court company where the filthy jest and the coarse laugh and the brutal blasphemy are common; it is not courage to see how near you can go to the edge of the precipice without falling over. No, this is not courage, unless you are prepared to say that it is courage that makes the silly moth flutter round the flame until at last it flutters into it. Courage? No! it is not courage—it is wicked, mad bravado! Your safety, brethren, against sin lies in being shocked at it. True courage looks at the incitements to evil with which life abounds and confesses, “I am afraid of them,” and then makes this petition its prayer, “Father, bring us not into temptation.”