men know the right, the right they can do, if they will.

We can readily imagine how this Apostle would handle one of the modern
and enlightened critics, who appear to think they have but to refuse a
name in order to get rid of the thing which the name is held to
represent. "You tell us," he says to a man of this order, "that there
is no devil; that to think or talk of him in any personal sense, say in
the sense that Milton incarnates him in _Paradise Lost_, is mischievous
and absurd. That sounds formidable, but to what does it amount? The
word, or name, 'devil,' you, tell us, simply connotes a principle.
Very well, take the initial letter from the word, and what have you
left? You have 'evil,' and that is the only thing about which you and
I need concern ourselves. In what degree have you advanced 'liberal
thought,' as you choose to call it, by telling us there is no devil,
while yet there is so much that is devil-like in yourself and in us
all?"

The Apostle leaves a legion of questions unanswered, and, as compared
with St. Paul's treatment of this complex problem of moral evil, he
moves on the surface. But he is himself; and, in his plain and terse
fashion, he forces upon our attention one truth which, on the principle
that an inch of fact is worth a yard of theory, is, if well in the
mind, more useful than acres of metaphysics which leave us very much
where we were. His broad affirmation is, that temptation does not, and
cannot, put sin into a man's mind or heart. Temptation does not make,
it only finds. "The prince of this world cometh," said our Lord, "and
hath, or findeth, nothing in Me." And His Apostle takes his stand on
the position, that temptation does no more than reveal the latent evil
within us, waiting its opportunity to come out. I mind me of a remark
I once read, and which has suggested whatever of worth there is in this
address. "As to the notion," says the writer, "that our adversary the
devil puts evil thoughts in our mind, I contend that neither God nor
devil does it. God would not, the devil cannot. The most that the
enemy of our souls can do, is to stir and use the possibilities already
there." [1]

This, if I rightly apprehend his meaning, is essentially the contention
of the Apostle James. The temptation is to the latent evil what the
spark is to the inflammable material. If the material were not there
the spark would be as harmless as though it dropped into ice-water. "I
c