A most excellent method, which can often, though not always, be
applied, is that of ignoring the tempter. It is a helpful thing in the
Christian warfare to remember always that Satan is the embodiment of
pride. Nothing cuts the proud soul so deeply as being ignored. It can
endure opposition, even defeat, but the thing that is intolerable is to
be taken no account of. So when Satan attacks, in not a few instances,
the resistance that to him will be the most cruel will be to go calmly
on one's way, ignoring him. As St. Francis de Sales says: "You should
not answer, or seem even to hear, what the enemy says. Let him hammer
as he will at the door; do not you even say so much as, Who is
there?... Beware that you never open the door, either to peep out and
see what it is, or to drive away the clamour."[24]

An illustration similar to the one employed in our discussion of
resisting by doing the thing contrary to the temptation will help us
here. Imagine yourself having occasion frequently to apply to a
certain person for a service. Imagine such a person deliberately
ignoring you whenever you spoke, pretending not to hear you, {143}
gazing with feigned absent-mindedness out of the window. Do you think
you would long continue your application to such an one? Indeed you
would not. Pride, even right-minded self-respect, would forbid it; and
you can be sure Satan, acting on the same principle, will soon cease to
annoy you when he finds himself the object of so studied a contempt.

Since the human mind, however, always demands something upon which to
be engaged, we can much more successfully ignore Satan's addresses if
we divert the mind by an act of the will into some totally different
channel. "Temptations," says Walter Hilton, "vex the soul indeed, but
do not harm it, if so be a man despise them and set them at naught; for
it is not good to strive with them, as if thou wouldst cast them out by
mastery and violence, for the more they strive with them, the more they
cleave to them. And therefore they shall do well to divert their
thoughts from them as much as they can, and set them upon some
business."[25]

This diversion of the mind will be all the more effective if it is in
the direction of those holy things which Satan abhors. Therefore "let
us turn our hearts to converse with God, which is better than to
reflect upon our temptations and {144} troubles. Let us be so
attentive to Him, that we have neither leav