There is a scene in an opera which is often played in London, where evil spirits come on the stage, and the warriors who would drive them off are told to make the sign of the cross, and immediately these evil spirits disappear. The sign of the cross is the sign of the Christian; and those who would ward off the attacks of Satan must do so simply and solely by the power of Jesus Christ. They must not depend upon themselves; they must not depend upon any outward forms or ceremonies-valuable, useful, as they are-but they must interpose between themselves and Satan, whenever he comes and however he comes, nothing more nor less than the shadow of the mighty Master, Who encamps round about all them that fear Him. Oh, my friends, if we could only believe this, if we could only act upon it, if we would only call down from above the power which is ready to be given, ready to be shed abroad over all who need it, Satan would be constantly vanquished instead of gaining his end.

During these few weeks of Lent let us try and think of this. Oh, let us try and see how we can devote our time to the best uses. If only we will put our trust in the Captain of our salvation, and flee to Him, pray to Him, entreat Him, in every hour of need, He will help us.

The great poet Dante tells us how a warrior Count who had lived a wicked life was converted by the words of a holy man just before he breathed

his last. The Devil had tried to have this man, but was foiled at the end; the man was wrested from his grasp, and when he died they placed his hands in the form of a cross upon his breast, as a token that he was not Satan's but was Christ's. And then the poet pictures how the evil spirits came down upon his grave in a torrent, and how in very wrath at having lost their prey they washed the body up and unclasped the hands. But, my friends, they were too late; they could not undo that which had been done; and if we will only go to Christ and be true and firm to Him; if our repentance, when it comes, is only real and is kept up constantly till our death; then the very devils may come and try to unclasp the hands that we have placed around the Cross, but they will be powerless for any evil to us. We have only one thing to do when temptation comes-we have only to pray. It seems a very little thing. If we will only pray-take God at His word-believe that He means what He said, 'Ask and it shall be given, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you'—if we will only take Him at His word, then He that is for us is greater than he which is against us, and, as the old hymn says,—

'Satan trembles when he sees

The weakest saint upon his knees.'

We may be weak and trembling; we may feel that we can do very little, but God will take us as we

are, 'just as we are, without one plea,' save that our Saviour shed His blood and died for us, to redeem us and bring us to heaven.

Does that all sound very unreal? Do you find it very hard to believe that Satan wants to have you? Our Lord said he did, and he does. And when you and I come to die, then it will be seen whether he has succeeded or whether he has failed. But, oh, do remember this, that his success or his failure depends upon you yourself—that God has given you a free will and the power of choice, and that what you are and what you will be depends, humanly speaking, entirely upon yourself. And therefore, when we stand before the judgment throne, and when these Sundays that we have spent together come to be reckoned up, and God takes account of the good they have done us, then remember what I told you, and remember that I put plainly to you this great and solemn truth, that to your own master, God, you must stand or fall ; that His you are, that His you may be for ever, if you will; and that all the powers of darkness leagued together can never wrest you from Him unless you put out your hands to them and let go your hold on God.

May He grant to all of us grace to resist the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil, and with pure hearts and minds to follow Him the only God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

XVI.

'And He said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go except thou bless me.'

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Gen. xxxii. 26.

BELIEVE that one of the great hindrances to

the progress of religion in this day in which we live is that men do not read their Bibles half enough. In the old-fashioned times, when folks perhaps went to church less, I seem to think that they read their Bibles more. In the lives of the good men of the last century, and of the century that preceded it, we find from their diaries and from the other records of the way in which they spent their days and nights, that they were very much in the habit of going straight to God's Word, and seeing for themselves there what God had to teach them concerning Himself and concerning their souls. This, it is often said, is a reading age, but I fear that the reading is more concerned with the daily newspaper and with the magazine than with the books which might do us far more good; and, above all, is far less concerned than it ought to be with that which is the Book of books-God's own written and revealed Word. And if the Bible itself is not read so much as it should be, surely of

the whole Bible the Old Testament is the most neglected-more neglected even than the New. There is a sort of current superstition (for Protestants are sometimes more superstitious than Roman Catholics) that the Old Testament is a book which only concerns the Jews, and which is, as it were, an interesting record, a monument of what happened in the past, but has very little to do with the present, and less with the future.

Now, my friends, there never was a greater mistake; for if you will only read the Old Testament in the light of the New you will find that it contains much to instruct, much to encourage, much to help, much upon which you can lay the foundations not only of a religious life for yourself but for your families and for the nation in which you live. We may, in fact, go so far as to say, that while the New Testament is full to overflowing with spiritual truths for the individual soul, in its teachings as to family life and national life it certainly does not excel the beautiful truths which are contained in those older books. And as we look at that Old Testament, surely we do feel that it is a description of real humanity. It is a description of men who seem to be nearer to us sometimes than those saints who lived with Christ and after Christ. As we call back to our minds the patriarchs of old, with their falls and their risings again, with their many temptations, with their cowardice, and then with their glorious strength, we see before us men

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