PRESERVED, NOT PREVENTED.
A FEW friends sat in familiar talk. The subject drifted from one point to another until they came to speak of temptation and its power over a life. One remarked, “I often pray God to keep me from certain temptations, since I know I never can resist them.” “Oh! no,” replied another; “You should not pray God to take away temptation, but rather to give you strength to resist.” “Yes, I do ask,” insisted the first, “not only that I may be preserved from yielding to temptation, but that temptation may be prevented.” “Is not that weak and cowardly?” “I am weak, as I have found to my sorrow; so weak that I am glad to run away from the occasion of sinning, and from myself, too. I have no confidence in myself. If temptation comes, I am almost sure to have a downfall, and dishonor God.” “You dishonor God by such praying. I would say, Let the trial come, and grow strong in resisting.” “I shall have trial enough if I not only resist what actually comes, but run away from what I see in the distance. What do you think of a drinker, who, while trying to reform, is careless about getting the odor of brandy? Wouldn’t he be more foolhardy than brave in risking the power of his thirst?” “Of course I wouldn’t have him rush into a saloon; but he needn’t take another street for fear he shall catch sight of the sign. But the case of the drunkard is different from yours. Drunkenness is very much a physical disease: it is often induced, where the appetite exists, by the odor as well as the taste.” “And sin is moral disease. The temptation to some kinds is as subtle, as powerful, as irresistible, as the thirst for stimulants is to a drunkard. The most refined sin has the grasp of a tyrant on its victim. This being willing to encounter temptation seems to me to savor as much of arrogance and unsafe self-confidence as my timidity does of weakness.” “But it is only by meeting temptation, and grappling with it, that we ever get morally strong. The drunkard never knows that he is safe, and never is secure, until he has met his enemy, and said firmly, ‘Get thee behind me.’ No; I should be ashamed to pray, ‘Keep temptation from me.’ ‘Preserve me from the power of temptation,’ is sufficient.” The majority of the speakers in that little group of friends favored the sentiment of the second speaker, viz., that we should pray only for strength to overcome in the hour of temptation, and not to be saved from the trial of strength which the test involves. Which party was the nearer right?—Advocate and Guardian.