e, than if you knew Him not. "What think ye of Christ?"
That is not enough. "How live ye as Christians?" is needed as well.

LVI.

_EVIL THOUGHTS._

19th Sunday after Trinity.

S. Matt. ix. 4.

"Wherefore think ye evil in your hearts?"

INTRODUCTION.--Thoughts are only thoughts! who is to beheld accountable
for them? They are clouds blown about by fancy, taking various shapes.
God is not so hard as to judge us for our thoughts; He will try us by
what we have done, not by what we have dreamed. No garden is without
weeds; there are tares in every cornfield. Who speak thus? Is it
those who are conscientious and scrupulous to drive away evil thoughts?
Or those who allow their heads and hearts to be hives in which they
dwell? I allow that evil thoughts must enter the mind, and I add that
they do no harm so long as they are not admitted into the heart. I
allow that it is impossible to keep the mind so closed against evil
that no bad thoughts find admission. There is no sin in the bad
thoughts coming, but the sin begins when they are allowed to settle,
and to fly-blow the heart.

SUBJECT.--I am not going to speak to-day anything that will distress
those good souls who struggle with, and drive away, evil thoughts when
they torment them; God has seen fit to try them with these, as He
suffered the Israelites to lie tried by the remnants of the heathen
nations which remained in the land,--but I am going to speak to those
who indulge in evil thoughts of all kinds, and make no effort to banish
them. I tell them that this is a dangerous thing. If they rely on
being safe so long as they keep their bodies from evil, and allow their
minds and hearts to revel in evil thoughts, they are guilty of sin;
they may not be staining their bodies, but they are corrupting their
souls.

I have lived for some weeks on the side of the Rhine where a bridge
connected the German side of the river with the town on the other side,
which is in Switzerland. When the market-women came over the bridge,
the Custom-House officers made them open their baskets, and they looked
in to see whether they brought over anything taxable. I would have you
examine all the thoughts that come drifting through your head, and if
they are bad, and not allowable, turn them back.

I. "Wherefore think ye evil in your hearts?" Our Lord tells us that
sin commences in the heart, and is as truly in the thought as in the
act. "Ye have heard that it w