nt my banquet, too; let it be served up on one of
these golden chargers." The imperious demand of the girl showed how
keenly she had entered into her mother's scheme.

It is thus that suggestions come to us; and, so far as I can
understand, we may expect them to come so long as we are in this world.
There seems to be a precise analogy between temptation and the microbes
of disease. These are always in the air; but when we are in good
health they are absolutely innocuous, our nature offers no hold or
resting place for them. The grouse disease only makes headway when
there has been a wet season, and the young birds are too weakened by
the damp to resist its attack. The potato blight is always lying in
wait, till the potato plants are deteriorated by a long spell of rain
and damp; it is only then that it can effect its fell purpose. The
microbes of consumption and cancer are probably never far away from us,
but are powerless to hurt us, till our system has become weakened by
other causes. So temptation would have no power over us, if we were in
full vigour of soul. It is only when the vitality of the inward man is
impaired, that we are unable to withstand the fiery darts of the wicked
one.

This shows how greatly we need to be filled with the life of the Son of
God. In his life and death, our Lord, in our human nature, met and
vanquished the power of sin and death; He bore that nature into the
heavenly places, whence He waits to impart it, by the Holy Spirit, to
those who are united with Him by a living faith. Is not this what the
apostle John meant, when he said that his converts--his little
children--could overcome, because greater was He that was in them than
he that was in the world? He who has the greatest and strongest nature
within him must overcome an inferior nature; and if you have the
victorious nature of the living Christ in you, you must be stronger
than the nature which He bruised beneath his feet.

III. THE CONSENT OF THE WILL.--"The king was exceeding sorry." The
girl's request sobered him. His face turned pale, and he clutched
convulsively at the cushion on which he reclined. On the one hand, his
conscience revolted from the deed, and he was more than fearful of the
consequences; on the other, he said to himself, "I am bound by my oath.
I have sworn; and my words were spoken in the audience of so many of my
chief men, I dare not go back, lest they lose faith in me." "And
straightway the