d,
Breathe upon my lonelihood:
Let the shining silence be
Filled with Thee, my God, with Thee.

IX.

HAUNTED HOURS

Wherefore should I fear in the days of evil,
when iniquity at my heels compasseth me about?

Ps. xlix. 5.

Iniquity _at my heels_. Temptation is very often indirect. It is compact of
wiles and subtleties and stratagems. It is adept at taking cover. It does
not make a frontal attack unless the obvious state of the soul's defences
justifies such a method of attempting a conquest. The stronger a man is,
the more subtle and difficult are the ways of sin, as it seeks to enter and
to master his life. There are many temptations that never face us, and
never give us a chance of facing them. They follow us. We can hear their
light footfall and their soft whisperings, but the moment we turn round
upon them they vanish. If they disappeared for good, they would be the
easiest to deal with of all the ill things that beset our lives. But they
do not. The moment we relax our bold, stern search for the face of the
enemy, there the evil thing is again--the light footfall and the soft
voice. It is terrible work fighting a suggestion. There are the thoughts
that a man will not cherish and cannot slay. They may never enter the
programme of his life, but there they are, haunting him, waiting, so to
speak, at the back of his brain, till he gets used to them. When he seeks
to grapple with these enemies his hands close on emptiness. One straight
blow, one decisive denial, one stern rebuke, one defiant confession of
faith will not suffice for these things. They compass a man's heels. He
cannot trample them down. The fashion of the evils that compass us
determines the form of the fight we wage with them. Preparations that might
amply suffice the city in the day when an army with banners comes against
it are no good at all if a plague has to be fought. So there is a way we
have to take with 'the iniquity at our heels.' It calls for much patience
and much prayer. If we cannot prevent sin from following us, we can at
least prevent ourselves from turning and following it. A man can always
choose his path if he cannot at every moment determine his company. And as
a man goes onward and upward steadfastly toward the City of Light, the evil
things fall off and drop behind, and God shall bring him where no evil
thing dare follow, and where no ravenous beast shall stalk its prey.

The battle with sin is not an inc