ole inner being does not spontaneously turn to
such holy exercises. So far as the human aspect of it is concerned, it
is a mere matter of psychology. The mind acts thus, because it has
been trained to it. The repeated act has formed the habit, and the
habit in its turn repeats the act; but through and in it all is divine
grace, the very life of God, operating in the infinite activity of His
love.

Especially must we exercise this diligence when we perceive the
tempter's approach. When we become conscious of the slightest
suggestion that seems to point to sin, let the will rally all our {108}
faculties to expel it, and to fill the mind so full that it can have no
chance of returning. But here as everywhere else must we be on our
guard against Satan's subtilty and power. Often in response to such an
attitude on our part, he presents some attractive thought, pure and
good, perhaps; then another and another, leading the soul that is not
watchful by a long train of associated ideas up to the goal he has
prepared, to some one thought that is either itself sin if consented
to, or the ready vehicle of sin.

Accustom the mind with unwearied diligence to such thoughts as we can
readily, conceive finding place in the mind of Christ, rejecting all
others. "Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest,
whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever
things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be
any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things."[15]

Let the mind be thus employed, and Satan may indeed be able to lead us
along some line of thought up to the place of temptation, but it will
be only to find, as with our Lord, when he bore Him up to the pinnacle
of the temple, that this place of his own choosing will prove the scene
of his own utter defeat.

[1] St. Matt. xviii, 3.

[2] "A temptation can never be divorced from a course of life. It is
woven into the very texture of life's continuity. It is a temptation
because of what we are _at the time_. It is the conditions of the
crisis which make a moment, a decision, critical.... It is thus the
whole setting of a life which brings temptation. So temptation is
never clean detached from the past, or the future, of the tempted; for
there is no such thing as a human experience which has not its roots in
the past, and its fruit in the sequel."--H. J. C. Knight, _The
Temptation of our Lord_, p. 55.