T| In passing through the " Inferno," Dante's spiritual guide would not allow him to stand still for a moment.
TI " What ! " a wayward youth might perhaps answer, incredu- lously ; " no one ever gets wiser by doing wrong ? Shall I not know the world best by trying the wrong of it, and repenting ?
1 Ruskin, Time and Tide ( Works, xvii. 365).
i CORINTHIANS x. 13 299
Have I not, even as it is, learned much by many of my errors ? " Indeed, the effort by which partially you recovered yourself was precious ; that part of your thought by wkich you discerned the error was precious. What wisdom and strength you kept, and rightly used, are rewarded ; and in the pain and the repentance, and in the acquaintance with the aspects of folly and sin, you have learned something) how much less than you would have learned in right paths can never be told, but that it is less is certain. Your liberty of choice has simply destroyed for you so much life and strength, never regainable. It is true you now know the habits of swine, and the taste of husks : do you think your father could not have taught you to know better habits and pleasanter tastes, if you had stayed in his house ; and that the knowledge you have lost would not have been more, as well as sweeter, than that you have gained ? *
(2) The way of escape may be very near the entrance gate. It often is. And the victory may be won by watchfulness over the thoughts. As is the fountain, so will be the stream. Quench the spark, and you are safe from the conflagration. Crush the serpent's egg, and you need not dread the cockatrice. Conquer evil thoughts, and you will have little danger of evil words and evil ways. The victory over every temptation is easiest, is safest, is most blessed there.
T[ Wasps' nests are destroyed when the wasps are only grubs like caterpillars, and before they have learned to fly. You get a squib, like those they fire off on the fifth of November, and light the end and put it into the hole in the ground where the nest is, and cover it over with a turf. And then all the grubs in the nest are suffocated by the smoke. If you wait till the grubs have wings and have learned to fly, then a ton of dynamite will be of little use ; for the wasps will be buzzing all round your ears, and stinging you, and then flying away.2
(3) Sometimes prayer is the only way of escape. Sometimes the doors are all shut upon human sympathy and understanding, but there is always a way of escape towards God. " I have been driven many times to my knees," said Abraham Lincoln, " by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go."
Tf There is a picture by one of our great artists of a young knight on the verge of a dark wood through which he has to pass. That wood contains all manner of lurking perils and stealthy 1 Ruskin, Queen of the Air ( Works, xix. 409). ' W. V. Bobinson.
300 TRUST IN GOD AND DO THE RIGHT
enemies, and before entering it the young knight has taken off his helmet, and is pouring out his soul in prayer. And the legend at the foot of the picture is this : " Into thy hands, 0 Lord." We too stand, like that young knight, face to face with all manner of dangers and perils ; fierce and deadly temptations of many a kind will assail us as we make our way through the mystic wood. What better can we do than commit ourselves into the keeping of the same gracious and mighty God ? " Into thy hands we commit ourselves." x
T[ I was in the Puzzle Garden one day at Hampton Court (there they call it a maze), and after getting to the centre, I had the greatest difficulty in getting out. But in the centre of that garden there is, not a summer house, but a raised platform. And a man stands on it, and he can see every one in the maze. Soon I heard him calling to me : " Turn to the left, sir," " To the left again," " Now to the right," until I got out. Life is like a puzzle garden sometimes. We do not know which way to turn, whether to go forward, or to turn to this side or to that ; but if we look up to God in prayer, He will show us the way, and bring our souls out of trouble. We shall hear a voice behind us saying, " This is the way, walk ye in it." 2
U A young lieutenant who had seen one campaign — alone, and without any of the means and appliances of such war as I had been apprenticed to — I was about to take command, in the midst of a battle, not only of one force whose courage I had never tried, but of another which I had never seen ; and to engage a third, of which the numbers were uncertain, with the knowledge that defeat would immeasurably extend the rebellion which I had undertaken to suppress, and embarrass the Government which I had volunteered to serve. Yet, in that great extreme, I doubted only for a moment — one of those long moments to which some angel seems to hold a microscope and show millions of things within it. It came and went between the stirrup and the saddle. It brought with it difficulties, dangers, responsibilities, and possible consequences terrible to face; but it left none behind. I knew that I was fighting for the right. I asked God to help me to do my duty, and I rode on, certain that He would do it.3