h her that it could be done: and then how together
they _carried it out_. Thought, speech, action: how often are these
the successive links by which a man is led on from one degree of sin to
another? The lesson is surely to resist at the very outset: so much
depends upon the first step. We must not give place to even the first
thought of evil: nor listen to the tempter's whisper, whisper he ever
so softly. How many, as they look back upon a downward career, can
trace its beginning to some idle or vain thought, or to some hasty or
careless word!

III.

We learn that a divided service is not possible.

"_No man_!" said our Lord Himself, "_can serve two masters: ye cannot
serve God and mammon_." Not that we are not tempted sometimes to try
it. What commoner sin is there amongst professing Christians than the
attempt to make the best of both worlds--to lay hold of this world with
the one hand, while we give it up with the other--to seem other than we
are?

But surely with this old story from the Book of Acts to warn us, we
must see how vain all such divided efforts are. We may deceive
ourselves or others for a while; but the deception cannot last, and in
some hour of searching or of trial our true characters will be laid
bare. Let us see to it, then, that we may take this awful example home
as a very real and practical warning to ourselves--that we not only
"_hate and abhor lying_," but put away from us whatsoever "_maketh a
lie_"! and that the prayer continually on our lips and in our hearts
is, "From the crafts and assaults of the devil . . . from pride,
vain-glory, and hypocrisy, good Lord, deliver us."

[1]Dr Oswald Dykes.

DEMAS

BY REV. PRINCIPAL DAVID ROWLANDS, B.A.

Many a man who figures in history, is only known in connection with
some stupendous fault--some mistake, some folly, or some sin--that has
given him an unenviable immortality. Mention his name, and the huge
blot by which his memory is besmirched starts up before the mind in all
its hideousness. Take Cain, for example. He occupies the foremost
rank as regards fame; his name is one of the first that children learn
to lisp; and yet what do we know about him? Very little indeed; our
knowledge, in fact, is limited to a single act--an act which is the
most horrible of human crimes. His name is suggestive only of
violence, murder, the shedding of innocent blood--the foulest deeds
that man can possibly commit. Or take Judas