XV. THE CONFLICT WITH EVIL.

"And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil."--ST.
MATTHEW vi. 13.

It is good for us sometimes to stand still for a moment and consider our
use of very familiar words. And this petition may appropriately
illustrate our need of such an exercise.

It is on your lips every day. Every Sunday you offer it you hardly know
how many times, in private and in public prayer: "Lead us not into
temptation, but deliver us from evil." And the moment you stop to think
about it you feel--who does not?--that it is a very solemn and moving
petition if you offer it before God in sincerity, and with an honest
desire to be kept out of the way of sin; but it becomes a fearful mockery
if it is offered with unclean lips, or by one who is living in any sort
of sinful practice, either secret or open.

And yet, as we all know, it is possible to do this, making the prayer
mere lip service, under the influence of daily custom. This, then, is
the question it suggests to us whenever we stop to think about it: How
far are we endeavouring to keep our lives in accordance with the spirit
of such a petition? "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from
evil." Most of you, I can well believe, would not voluntarily or
deliberately step out of your way to meet a temptation, or to seek any
evil course of life. You would not do it of your own free choice, or in
cold blood, as we say. This, at any rate, is your own feeling about sin,
whether the feeling is consistent with your life or not. As you
contemplate any low form of life in another, you recognise its ugliness
and its degrading character, and you call it very likely by the name it
deserves. If, then, you find yourself involved in any sin, in spite of
these feelings, and although you take this daily prayer upon your lips,
how comes it to be so? How comes it that you remain in this pitiable
condition?

Your answer is, perhaps, that temptation comes upon you unawares, and
that it takes you by surprise; or it seems to watch for some moment of
forgetfulness or weakness; or you fight against a temptation, but still
it clings to you as if it had a life of its own and were independent of
you; or you are drawn into sin you scarcely know how; or you are driven
into it by some one whom you fear although you despise him; or it seems
to you to be in the very air you breathe. And although such answers
explanatory of a life of sin or wast