at you will carry consternation into the ranks of
hell. "He will flee from you," and the word used by the inspired
writer means not merely that he will withdraw and leave you, but that
he will make a precipitate flight, as one in a panic flees from
impending danger.[14]

Let us remember when suggestion of fear comes that this is in itself a
special temptation from Satan, and nowhere in his temptations is he
guilty of more deliberate lying. As a matter of fact there is no
danger, even in the fiercest of his assaults, to the soul that
cherishes the {69} presence of Christ within. For if He be in my
heart, then the conflict is between Him and the tempter, and so long as
my heart is His, and I do not, by wilful sin, drive Him forth, it is as
impossible for Satan to conquer as it was for him to have triumphed
over our Lord in the great conflict in the wilderness.

In short, at such times all our Lord asks is that we maintain our
hearts for Him that He may use them as battle-fields upon which to join
issue once more with the adversary that He may administer to him
another crushing defeat. True, He uses our faculties with which to
fight, but the battle is His, and if we stand not in the way His will
be the victory. There can be no real danger to the faithful soul when
the struggle is conducted under these conditions.

(2) Speak not of your anxieties to everyone. We may rightly take
counsel with some wise spiritual guide who may be able to interpret
them for us; but experience shows us that many times much speaking of
these matters gives body and reality to troubles which have no adequate
ground, and which might easily have been driven away, had we only
sought to divert the mind from them, and so to forget them, instead of
impressing them still more on the consciousness by dwelling upon them
in thought and conversation.

{70}

Above all things let not our conversation concerning our anxieties take
the form of complaint, for in every case the complaint is against God.
He is directing the detail of the warfare, and each complaint is an
open questioning of His justice and wisdom and love. When Satan sees
that our spirits are thus inclined, how quick he is to take advantage
of it. How thick and fast do suggestions come that lead us swiftly on
to that state of self-pity at the supposed hardness of our lot, that
means a speedy extinction of divine grace within. Remember that
complaint means disloyalty, and disloyalty i