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work even in this solitude, as in Cromwell's case. I remember, too, a line of Goethe's, in which he says :
Talent forms itself in solitude, Character in the storms of life.
But I believe both your positions are true. The soul collects its mightiest forces by being thrown in upon itself, and coerced solitude often matures the mental and moral character marvel- lously, as in Luther's confinement in the Wartburg. Or, to take a loftier example, Paul during his three years in Arabia ; or, grander still, His solitude in the desert : the Baptist's too. But, on the other hand, solitude unbroken from earliest infancy, or with nothing to sharpen the mind, either by collison with other minds, or the expectation of some new sphere of action shortly, would, I suppose, rust the mental energies. Still there is the spirit to be disciplined, humbled, and strengthened, and it may gain in pro- portion as the mind is losing its sharpening education.1
Tf Trench, in his poem " The Monk and Bird," shows that the very blessedness of the consecrated life may become a temptation.
Even thus he lived, with little joy or pain
Drawn through the channels by which men receive —
Most men receive the things which for the main Make them rejoice or grieve.
But for delight, on spiritual gladness fed, And obvious to temptations of like kind;
One such, from out his very gladness bred, It was his lot to find.
When first it came, he lightly put it by,
But it returned again to him ere long, And ever having got some new ally,
And every time more strong —
A little worm that gnawed the life away
Of a tall plant, the canker of its root, Or like as when from some small speck decay
Spreads o'er a beauteous fruit.
For still the doubt came back, — Can God provide For the large heart of man what shall not pall,
Nor through eternal ages' endless tide On tired spirits fall ?
1 F. W. Robertson, in Lift and Letters, 222.
i CORINTHIANS x. 13 295
Here but one look tow'rd heaven will oft repress The crushing weight of undelightful care;
But what were there beyond, if weariness Should ever enter there?
Yet do not sweetest things here soonest cloy?
Satiety the life of joy would kill, If sweet with bitter, pleasure with annoy
Were not attempered still.
This mood endured, till every act of love,
Vigils of praise and prayer, and midnight choir,
All shadows of the service done above, And which, while his desire,
And while his hope was heavenward, he had loved, As helps to disengage him from the chain
That fastens unto earth — all these now proved Most burdensome and vain.1
3. The severity and the variety of man's temptations, together with the persistently lofty and urgent appeals addressed to him, are a supreme tribute to the grandeur of his moral nature. In a race the severity of the handicap is an indication of the capacity of the runner. A great deal is expected from a man who can give another a hundred yards' start. The runners are not all of equal calibre, and they are not handicapped above that they are able. Can we not see here what God is doing ? Can we not see how He is dealing with us, according to this Pauline statement ? So far from making things too difficult, He is trying to make them easier ; He is tempering the strife to each man's strength ; He does not want us to lose, but to win ; not to fail, but to over- come. That is not harshness, it is kindness ; that is not undue severity, it is magnanimity, it is compassion, it is fair-play. Let us not allow ourselves to curse our circumstances, or to arraign God and His plans and His world, as if they were all in special conspiracy against us. The fact is that most of us are in con- spiracy against ourselves — perhaps without knowing it. We have groaned about our difficulties, instead of accepting them and using them as stepping-stones to success. We have kicked against our limitations, instead of allowing them to develop our resources. We have resented our hardships and our handicaps, 1 Trench, Poems, 13.
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instead of making them contribute to our manhood. We have sat and gloomed at our temptations and roundly cursed our fate, but we have never considered the ways of escape. Thus we have been at once unfair to God and have courted failure for ourselves.
If You all know the story about the Black Prince at the battle of Crecy, how his father refused to send help to him when he was hard pressed. It would have been easy for the king to keep the prince out of reach of danger; but no, the father said to those who came appealing for help, " Let the boy win his spurs, and let the day be his." x
III.
The Escape from Temptation.
1. God will "with the temptation make also the way of escape." Sometimes we want to see the way of escape before the temptation, but the way of escape comes with the temptation, not before it.
It may have happened to us, in some of our visits to the grandest scenes of nature, to be wending our way along a lake or river where mountains are before us, so close and so encom- passing that they appear not only to bar our own progress, but to leave not the smallest outlet for our little boat. But, as we neared these vast barriers which edged us in, we gradually descried an opening between the hills which, as we went on, grew clearer and clearer, and wider and wider, till, safely and smoothly, our little bark floated on by a channel just made for us from within apparently impenetrable masses, to other regions which now range before us in their loveliness. So when the hindrances are the thickest, and the difficulties the most insur- mountable, we feel that our faithful God, who made these fast- nesses for this very end, will Himself provide the issue, and with the temptation make also the way of escape, that we may be able to endure it.