Accustom the mind with unwearied diligence to such thoughts as we can readily, conceive finding place in the mind of Christ, rejecting all others. "Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things."[15] Let the mind be thus employed, and Satan may indeed be able to lead us along some line of thought up to the place of temptation, but it will be only to find, as with our Lord, when he bore Him up to the pinnacle of the temple, that this place of his own choosing will prove the scene of his own utter defeat. [1] St. Matt. xviii, 3. [2] "A temptation can never be divorced from a course of life. It is woven into the very texture of life's continuity. It is a temptation because of what we are _at the time_. It is the conditions of the crisis which make a moment, a decision, critical.... It is thus the whole setting of a life which brings temptation. So temptation is never clean detached from the past, or the future, of the tempted; for there is no such thing as a human experience which has not its roots in the past, and its fruit in the sequel."--H. J. C. Knight, _The Temptation of our Lord_, p. 55. [3] Walter Hilton, _The Scale of Perfection_, Bk. I, Pt. II, chap. i. [4] Acts x, 38. [5] _Imitation_, I, xiii. [6] Rodriguez, _The Practice of Religious and Christian Perfection_, Vol. I, p. 86. Pere Grou teaches "that nothing is small or great in God's sight; whatever He wills becomes great to us, however seemingly trifling, and if once the voice of conscience tells us that He requires anything of us, we have no right to measure its importance.... There is no standard of things great and small to a Christian, save God's will."--_The Hidden Life of the Soul_, p. 206. ("Half-a-Crown" Ed.) [7] "Be still, then, and know that I am God."--Ps. xlvi, 10. "In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength."--Isa. xxx, 15. [8] Ps. xxvii, 16. [9] Rom. viii, 28. [10] _Imitation_, I, xvi. [11] "You are vexed at the vexation, and then you are vexed at having been vexed. I have seen people in the same way get into a passion, and then be angry because they had lost their temper!"--St. Francis de Sales, _Spiritual Letters_, xxvii. [12] S. T. Coleridge, _Aids to Reflection_, p. 186. (Bohn Ed.) Bishop Andrewes in his second sermon on the Temptation of Christ, speaking of it being impossible for Him to have sinned since there was no fire of concupiscence in Him, quaintly says: "To us the devil needs bring but a pair of bellows, for he shall find fire within us."--Andrewes, _Sermons_, Vol. V, p. 508. [13] _Imitation_, I, xiii.