(_a_) It is noticeable that neither by precept nor example are we encouraged to pray for the removal of temptation. Once, it is true, Jesus expressed it as His desire that a cup of pain might pass from Him, but He conditioned His prayer--"not My will, but Thine, be done." God did not remove the cup, but what was better still He gave Him strength to drink it. A prayer of S. Paul's was treated in like manner. The thorn in the flesh was not withdrawn, but it was transformed into a means of imparting spiritual vigour--"My grace is sufficient for thee." It is said of Pascal, whose last years were full of agony, that his malady became a new quality of his genius and helped to perfect it. Christian character as well as great genius "has the power of elevating, transmuting, serving itself by the accidental conditions about it, however unpromising."[11] This being so, even Gethsemane is an encouragement to the man who is sore tried, to pray for power to transcend his trial rather than that it may be swept out of his life by the hand of God. _'Tis life whereof our nerves are scant, More life and fuller that I want,_ and not exemption from trial. The lingering on in life of a temptation, which, if not born of past sin, at any rate has been intensified by self-indulgence, affords us our only chance of expressing penitence to God for failure in loyalty to Him in this respect or that. How can the man, in whom the fires of passion are dead, express before God his sorrow for sins against purity in days that are gone? It is easy to conceive of such a person entreating God to give him back his temptation, that, by a reversal of former decisions, he may prove the reality of his penitence. So far as we can see, the one chance a man has of regaining a lost virtue, is through the very temptation by means of which he was robbed of it. Excessive resistance wins back, slowly but surely, what was lost by excessive indulgence. What is needed is not freedom _from_ but freedom _in_ temptation. This latter is possible for every Christian. (_b_) Freedom in the life of temptation is achieved by meeting every enticement to sin with an upward rise toward virtue. It is quite inadequate to beat off temptation. We must spoil the strong man and possess ourselves of his goods. One sad feature of life is that we always undershoot the mark, and for the most part perfection in purpose results in nothing better than mediocrity in achievement. It is the sure fate of the man that is contented to view temptation merely as an invitation to hell which must be declined, that he will yield at least occasionally to the sin to which he is tempted. Only he who flings himself upward when the pull comes to drag him down, can hope to break the force of temptation. Temptation may be an invitation to hell, but much more is it an opportunity to reach heaven. At the moment of temptation sin and righteousness are both very near the Christian; but of the two the latter is the nearer.