stances as will present to us just the needful temptations and no more. Beyond this, it is dangerous to go. No parent is warranted in exposing his child—no man has a right to expose himself—to unnecessary temptations, under the idea of his becoming thus hardened against the trials of life: you may thereby fall, or cause your child to fall, into the very evils you sought to guard against. The prayer is, "Bring us not into temptation;" which means, "Permit us not, O Lord, to be brought into temptation beyond our strength to bear."
But when, in the regular course of our duty, temptations are presented to us, inviting us to sin,—"Now," we should say to ourselves, "now is the opportunity for self-conquest,—now is the opportunity for moral and spiritual advancement,—now can we, by an effort, take a leap towards the kingdom of heaven." For, by a battle and a conquest in temptation, one makes a far more rapid advance in regeneration, than merely by the slow course of ordinary quiet improvement. The enemy assembles his forces: you meet and conquer him in a great battle, and the whole kingdom of heaven then lies open before you, and you have lasting peace; whereas, when you move on in only the ordinary course of duties, and are not brought face to face with any strong temptations, you are yet continually harassed by petty evils hanging about your path, and you make but little spiritual progress. This, now, is the case with the merely natural man: he is not strong enough to bear much temptation, and hence he makes but little spiritual advancement: while the spiritnal man,
