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overmuch trial, trial under which our weakness may sink. Christ does not mean that we are to pray never to be tempted, but only that we may be shielded from temptations too great for our strength ; and that we may be delivered from the sin of yielding to the temptation.^
3. We are kept ly the vision of pure things. — In ascending the lofty peaks of the Jungfrau and Monte Eosa, the guides are said to resort not infrequently to the artifice of endeavouring to interest the traveller in the beauty of the lovely flowers growing there, with a view to distract his attention from the fearful abysses which the giddy path overhangs. By a similar device of wisdom and love are the saints preserved as they pursue their perilous way. God establishes their steps by charming their eye with things of beauty, interest, and delectableness, and by filling their heart with the love of them. Home, sweet home, with its pleasantness and pathos ; the charm of literature, the miracles of science, the spell of music, the visions of art; the daily round, with its ever fresh solicitudes and satisfactions; the calls of patriotism, the demands of duty, the glow of love, the pleasures of friendship, social service, the abandon of pastimes — these, and many other similar things pertaining to the natural life, when accepted, exercised, and enjoyed in the sunshine of the Lord, constitute our strength and guarantee our peace, despite all the visions of sin, all tlie allurements of world, flesh, and devil. We are not saved by some unknown magic, but God draws our heart to Himself through the sanctified gifts, situations, and activities which go to the making up of human life.
4. We are heidt ly God's strengthening grace in our hearts. — Not abstraction from the world, but protection from the evil ! The deliverance is to be effected, not by the removal of the body, but by the reinforcement of the spirit. Our redemption is to be accomplished, not by changing our locality, but by changing the condition of the heart. The purpose of our Saviour is to perfect us in holiness, not by withdrawing us from all infection, but by making us proof against all disease in the endowment of invincible health. The ideal of aspiring discipleship is to be found not in innocence, with an environment destitute of temptation, but in
1 T. Cooper, Plain Pulpit Talk, 205.
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holiness, despite the menacing advances of infection and disease. " In the world ye shall have tribulation : but be of good cheer ; I have overcome the world." " I pray not that thou shouldest take them from the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil one."
^ As the diver in his bell sits dry at the bottom of the sea, and draws a pure air from the free heavens far above him, and is parted from that murderous waste of green death that clings so closely round the translucent crystal walls, which keep him safe, so we, enclosed in God, shall repel from ourselves all that would overflow to destroy us and our work, and may by His grace lay deeper than the waters some courses in the great building that shall one day rise stately and many-mansioned from out of the conquered waves.
^ A writer tells of going with a party into a coal mine. On one side of the gangway grew a plant which was perfectly white. The visitors were astonished that there, where the coal dust was continually flying, this little plant should remain so pure and white. A miner took a handful of black coal dust and threw it upon the plant but none adhered. The visitors repeated the experiment, but the coal dust would not cling. There was a wonderful enamel on the folds of the white plant to which the finest perceptible speck would not adhere. Living there, amid clouds of black dust, nothing could stain its snowy whiteness.
5. We must co-operate with God. — Indeed the Apostle Jude says, " Keep yourselves in the love of God." God's love to us — that is the element within which the keeping of ourselves becomes real keeping, safe keeping, happy keeping. That is the overarch- ing firmament, with its height and breadth of bright infinitude, within which our keeping is kept. We ourselves are to abide within our own poor keeping : yes, and our own poor keeping is to abide within God's tender might of love. The flower is to be environed by the frail globe of glass: the frail globe is to be environed and to be penetrated by the sweet warm sunlight, that comes across the tracks of worlds to illumine our dark atmosphere with safety and life.
^ If I feel that I am enclosed by the strong ramparts of a fortress-home, there is animating reason why I should guard myself from the lesser hazards that may still encompass me within that home; my keeping of myself is not at an end, but \s
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only reduced to manageable dimensions. If I be on board a steam-liner, which holds her head before the wildest weather with undaunted majesty, and only fills the air above her bows with the smoke of billows she is shattering in the strong tremor of her power, I have still to care how I mount the companion-way, and pace the deck, and stow my valuables in my cabin. Indeed, it is only when I am secure from wreck or foundering, that all this minor care is of much account.^