If Many men are distressing themselves, when they think of their trials, by imagining that they must have done something wrong, or God never could have sent such afflictions to them personally or to their household. That is a mistake. There are trials that are simply tests, not punishments ; trials of faith and patience, not rods sent to scourge men because they have been doing some particular evil thing. God's people are tried. " Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth." The honour is not in the trial it is in the spirit in which the trial is borne.1
1 J. Parker. I COR. — 19
29o TRUST IN GOD AND DO THE RIGHT
4. It is an awful thought, this unremitting faithfulness of God, for it means, if we resist Him, stem, unrelenting work upon us. It is in vain that we say to Him, " Let us alone, torment us not." He never takes offence; He has none of the jealousy of vanity ; He is never unkind, though His strokes are hard ; never wanting in swift reciprocation of the faintest utterance of love, the faintest cry for forgiveness; always ready to listen with tenderness, though wise enough not always to grant our prayer ; always reasonable, always just, so that He can make excuse, can weigh the force of trial on our character, can understand the force of the circumstances which betrayed us into guilt. He knows all, and there is infinite comfort in that.
If You may assure your soul, when you are marching forward into the darkness of some valley of the shadow of death, that God would never have sent you to face that trial unless He had known that you could master it. Life is often difficult : it is never impossible for the man that has to live it. If the trial be very sore, if it shake your strength and strain your patience almost to the breaking-point, if the agony of conflict surprise you, then that only shows that you are stronger than you took your- self to be. Had you been unfit for it, this post of danger would never have been assigned to you. Your God has gauged your powers of resistance with exact knowledge, and the duty He shall set you will always be well within the limits of these powers.1
5. In the face of such faithfulness, we dare not do less than our best. It is a shame to sink wilfully below that which we know we ought to be. There are those who talk of their weakness, their yielding nature, as if it were something beautiful to be feeble ; as if there were some poetical quality in giving way to that which they choose to call Fate ; as if ideals were given them in order that they might sigh sentimentally over their unattainability, and not in order that they may pursue them with a resolute will. This is the infidelity of life — far worse than all else, when it is worst — turned into the ghost of an artistic dream and made the ground of vanity. Feebleness is never beautiful, and to choose feebleness as the rule of life is disgraceful in man or woman, however we may deck it with fine fancies. The real beauty of life is in health of mind, strength of will, vigour of purpose.
* J. Kelman, Honour towards God, 53.
i CORINTHIANS x. 13 291
The real poetry of life is in the noble effort which does not rest till it has accomplished its end ; in the undying pursuit of that which we know to be best; in the battle for right; in the resolution and the power to live above the standard of the world ; in the ravishment which is born of seeing truth, love, justice, purity, as they are seen by God ; and in unresting, yet unhasting endeavour to become at one with them.
TJ Led by God's Spirit to the battle-ground, there is no assault in which any man is doomed to be defeated, and there is no temptation which it is impossible for a man to overcome. The conditions of life that tempt us are but the challenges that incite a man to assert his mastery. The lusts of the body, the pride of life, the meaner parts of human nature that offer a morbid pleasantness, — all that they can do at their worst is to give him the choice whether he shall respect himself or bow his neck. Let him remember that God has trusted him for this conflict also, trusted him to assert his best manhood, and to show its mastery. Let him remember that he is upon his honour, and that God counts on him to keep his honour bright as his sword.1
Was the trial sore? Temptation sharp ? Thank God a second time ! Why comes temptation but for man to meet And master and make crouch beneath his foot, And so be pedestaled in triumph ? Pray "Lead us into.no such temptations, Lord!" Yea, but, 0 Thou whose servants are the bold, Lead such temptations by the head and hair, Eeluctant dragons, up to who dares fight, That so he may do battle and have praise.2
II.
The Adjustment of Temptation.
We are to believe that whatever our trial or temptation may be, — however heavy, however formidable, — it will, at least, never come in a light, random way to us. It is all measured before, and it is in strict order and proportion to something. He who made our body and our mind, and who knows exactly our every sensitive fibre, and the capacity of each — what each can and cannot endure — has fitted everything accurately to our