After she saw, she “desired.” This would seem to imply that the real source of all sin is in the spirit of our own desires. The last of the Ten Commandments strikes down to the very tap-root of all evil, “Thou shalt not covet.” All sin commences with the kindling of desire. The apostle James gives us the pedigree, “Every man is tempted when he is turned away of his own lust and enticed; then, when lust and desire hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin, and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.” The secret of victory, therefore, is not to allow the mind and heart to dwell for a moment upon any forbidden thing. The whole modern life is terribly fitted to stimulate unholy desire. The little child is taught from infancy to covet the vain and glittering attractions of the world--dress, equipage, pleasure, praise, fashion, display and a thousand worldly allurements. The city bill boards are covered with nude harlots. There are no less than 200,000 houses for these social outcasts in our fair land. These open gateways to immorality, where the virtue of the nation is ground out, are not only guarded by police force, but young girls by the 100,000 a year are stolen from country homes by the paid agents, and sold into these open dens of vice and crime, where these poor girls die in a short time, the average length of this life of sin being only five years. And still the people have not a word to say for the suppression of these crime-breeding dens of vice, but legalize and protect them by law to the ruin of our homes. These are the things that are eating out the spiritual life of the nation, and for that reason many do not want to retain the thought of God in their hearts. Hence the responsibilities of life are pressing upon us. As you have seen the child trundling its little hoop by touching it on both sides alternately to keep it from either extreme, so God teaches us both with warning and with promise, as our spiritual condition requires. Sometimes it is warning we need, and He shouts in our ear the solemn admonition, as a mother would cry to her babe in wild alarm if in danger of falling over the precipice. But, again, when we are in danger of being too much depressed, He speaks to us with notes of encouragement and promise, and tells us there is no real danger of our failing utterly, and that He will never suffer us to be tempted above what we are able. And so we hear Him saying on one hand, “Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall;” but immediately after adding on the other side, “God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able, but will, with the temptation, make a way of escape that ye may be able to bear it.” “Fear not! When temptations try thee Trust the Saviour’s loving care; No temptation will come nigh thee More than thou has strength to bear.