Cæsarius of Heisterboch relates that Philip, a great necromancer, once took a company of Swabian and Bavarian youths to a lonely place and entertained them, at their request, with his incantations. He drew a circle around them with his sword, and warned them not to leave it on any account.

By his first incantation he surrounded them with armed men, who dared them to conflict, but none were lured forth. By his second enchantment he surrounded them with a company of beautiful dancing damsels, who tried every power of attraction upon them. A nymph, whose beauty exceeded all others, advanced to one of the young men and wrought with such effect upon him that he forgot the restriction and stretched forth his finger beyond the circle to receive the ring which she proffered. She at once seized him and drew him after her. It was not till after much trouble that the necromancer was able to recover him.

Someone well remarks, "This circle is the rule of right and virtue. The armed men are pride, ambition and passion. The charmers are intemperance, voluptuousness and sensuality. The only safety is within the circle. The first finger over the line and the whole body will follow to shame and ruin." Yes, if we yield to temptation even a little there is no telling where it will end. "When ruin starts it rushes"; our only safety is in keeping well within the line of right. I. Consider, first, three facts about temptation.

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1. Temptation itself is not sin. Christ was "tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin."

2. Temptation itself is not defeat. To see an enemy is not to be beaten by him.

3. Temptation is opportunity. It is opportunity to exercise the divine prerogative of choice. It is opportunity to exercise and develop the soul. Every time we win a battle with evil we are made stronger to win another, and so

on.

You are not be told that again, and as

II. Yet temptation is such a dangerous thing that we are to be very careful to avoid all presumption toward it. We know a drinking man who professed conversion. He said to some friends that he proposed to prove the genuineness of his change of heart by going to the city and walking right past the saloons where before he had fallen so many times. the least surprised to when he went he fell deeply into sin as ever. He needed to pray, "Lord keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins." He needed to learn what James meant, when he said, "Count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations." But it was "fall into," he said, not "run into." If a temptation can honorably be avoided it is far better to avoid it, and so doing is likely to save some lifetime scars from the moral nature.

III. So dangerous a thing is temptation that we should carefully avoid all compromises with it. Of two evils do not choose the least. Choose neither. Even very little sins

are most unsuitable to satisfy. "The fashion of this world passeth away."

3. They are unnecessary to our happiness. People do not feel happy according to what they possess. Happiness "cannot be gotten for gold, neither shall silver be weighed for the price thereof."

4. They are fleeting and uncon

stant.

5. The more you strive for them the less comfort you will have in them (Psa. cvi. 5).

6. They will divert your thoughts from heaven and so divert you from duty.

7. You have better things to mind (Matt. vi. 33; Col. iii. 1).

II. Secondly, how our affections are to be set. "Set your affection on things above."

1. This we should do, first, because they are suitable things for our affections to rest upon (Psa. xvii. 15). Your affections were made on purpose for these things.

2. Secondly, because it will keep

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us from doting on lower things, and becoming insnared by them. "Birds," says Manton, "are seldom taken in their flight; the more we are on the wing of heavenly thoughts the more we escape snares." We need to be much taken up with Divine things, rising in thought above mere temporal matters, or else the world will soon entangle us and we shall become like birds encompassed in a net.

3. Thirdly, because it will enable us not to grieve too much about present losses.

4. Fourthly, because it will make us more active in duty (Acts xx. 24). If our affections are set on things above we will try the harder to get there. "Where your treasure is there will your heart be also."

5. Fifthly, because it is the way to, and preparation for, the enjoyment of the blessings of the world to come. It will help us to be willing to die, ready for death, and prepared for what comes after death.

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to him the mere fact of your pain; but Christ is one who is touched with the feeling of our infirmities. He enters in with us into our sorrows and into our troubles.

II. But the sympathy of Christ is as wide as it is intense. He whose exquisitely sensitive soul was thrilled by the beauty of a lily, or moved by the fall of a sparrow is keenly touched by whatever can concern a human heart, whether high or low, good or bad, a friend or an enemy. No one can be beyond the reach of His allcomprehending sympathy. The reason is because no one can be beyond the embrace of His all-comprehending love.

III. And His sympathy is as deep and tender as it is intense and comprehensive. One reason is that He

has been tempted in all points like as we are. He can sympathize with the poor because He has been poor. He can sympathize with the weary and heavy laden because He Himself has been tired and worn. He can sympathize with the lonely, the misrepresented and the persecuted because He Himself has been in their position.

IV. Let us not forget, either, that His is a practical sympathy, a helprendering sympathy. We might have earthly friends who could sympathize with us, but, lacking in wisdom or ability, could not render us definite help; but Christ is both willing and able to help. His sympathy for the hungry multitude led Him to spread a table for them in the wilderness. His sympathy for the widow weeping beside the bier, led Him to restore to her arms her only son. His sympathy for Mary and Martha led Him to weep at the grave and also to call the brother they mourned to come forth. It is the knowledge that now as then He is as ready and able to help us that impels us to come with all assurance to the throne of grace, and confide to Him our every trouble.

V. Some of the directions in which His sympathy for us is called out.

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"In all points like as we are." Every testing process to which we are subjected, He went through. He is touched with our physical infirmities. How plainly this is shown by all His ministries to the sick and suffering while in the world. He is touched with the infirmities of our prayers. We know not what we should pray for as we ought but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. He is touched with the infirmity of our temper. He knows our frame, He remembers that we are dust. He does not expect impossible things of us, and when we fail in what He has a right to expect, He forgives. He sympathizes with us in our poor efforts at doing good. He knows that when we would do good evil is present with us. He takes the wish for the deed, and says, "It was good that it was in thine heart to do it." Let us find comfort in this thought of the sympathy of Christ, His tenderness toward us all. "The bruised reed will he not break, and the smoking flax will he not quench." He knows He loves us. He sympathizes with us. He is ever ready to help us.

us.

Paul was reminding the Ephesian Christians of their exalted privileges. He then exhorts them to particular Christian duties, to avoid lying, anger, theft, corrupt and corrupting conversation, grieving the Holy Spirit, bitterness, evil-speaking, and malice, and entreats them to manifest in their intercourse with each other a spirit of kindness and forgiveness. He then reminds them of how much he had done and borne for them, and of how deeply he loves them, and pleads with them as their spiritual father to walk worthy of their

elevated privileges. "I therefore the prisoner of the Lord beseech you." He felt that he was then a prisoner or in confinement in the cause of the Lord. He regarded himself as having been made a prisoner because the Lord had so permitted or willed it. He did not feel particularly that he was the prisoner of Nero. It was because the Lord had willed it, and because he was in God's service. "I beseech you that ye walk worthy," that is in a manner becoming those who have been called into the kingdom of God.

I. What is the nature of this call

ing? Men have different callings in the world, their business, their profession, their temporal office. Though our place in life may be truly appointed us by God, this is not the meaning of the word "vocation" as here used. It means God's call or invitation by which we become inheritors of the kingdom of heaven. It is a "work of God's Spirit, whereby convincing us of our sin and misery, enlightening our minds in the knowledge of Christ and renewing our wills He doth persuade and enable us to embrace Jesus Christ as He is so freely offered to us in the Gospel."

1. It is a high calling (Phil. iii. 14).

2. It is a holy calling (II. Tim. i. 9).

3. It is a heavenly calling (Heb. iii. 1).

This call may come to us in different ways, (a) through preaching; (b) through the events of God's providence; (c) through conversation; (d) through reading; (e) through the immediate action of the Holy Spirit.

II. To what are we called?

1. To the knowledge of God (I. Pet. ii. 9).

2. To the faith of Christ (I. Cor. i. 9; Gal. ii. 6).

3. To holiness of life (I. Thess. iv. 7).

5. Called to be saints (Rom. i. 7). 6. Called to fellowship (I. Cor. i. 9).

7. Called to liberty (Gal. v. 13). 8. Called to eternal life (I. Tim. vi. 12).

III. What is it to walk worthy of our calling? Generally, to carry ourselves as becometh Christians. There is a seemliness appertaining to each calling. So here. We must walk nobly, as becometh heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. A writer on Christian consistency says: "His

tory records that in the days of Tiberius it was thought a crime to carry a ring stamped with the image of Augustus into any mean or sordid place, where it might be poluted! How much may those who profess to be a holy people learn even from a heathen!" Luther counsels us to answer all temptations of Satan with the words, "I am a Christian." They were wont to say of cowards in Rome, "There is nothing Roman in them." Of too many professed Christians it might be said, "There is nothing Christian in them." Every believer is higher than the kings of the earth. He should therefore act in a kingly fashion.

IV. Why should we walk worthy of our calling?

1. Because otherwise we shame our profession. If we do not live out in our lives what we profess, people will say our religion is hypocrisy, that it is all a sham, and so will despise us and dishonor God. On the other hand there is no argument so strong as a consistent life. "I tried to be an infidel when I was a young man," said Cecil, "but my mother's life was too much for me." A good life is an argument for Christianity sixty years long, one never misunderstood, and always effective.

2. Because otherwise we lose our comfort. To live a half and half life is not a happy life. There is such a thing as being too religious to enjoy sin and too sinful to enjoy religion. Out and out, heart enlisted Christians are the happy Christians. We cannot be happy when disgracing our calling.

3. Because otherwise we are in danger of losing its end. "Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord." If we do not at least try to walk worthy of the vocation wherewith we are called as Christians there can be no hope of our reaching the Christian's goal.