“If life is always a warfare
Between the right and the wrong,
And good is fighting with evil
For ages and eons long, –
“Fighting with eager cohorts,
With banners pierced and torn,
Shining with sudden splendour,
Wet with the dew of morn, –
“If all the forces of heaven
And all the forces of sin
Are met in the infinite struggle,
The souls of the world to win, –
“If God’s is the awful battle
Where the darkling legions ride–
Hasten to sword and to saddle!
Lord, let me fight on thy side.”
The petition in our Lord’s Prayer regarding temptation perplexes some good people. It reads in the Revised Version, “Bring us not into temptation.” Does God then ever bring us into temptation? Does he want us to be tempted? We think of temptation as incitement or persuasion to sin. We know that God never tempts us in this way. “Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God.” But the word temptation means also trial, testing. So we have this in St. James, “Blessed is the man that endureth temptation; for when he hath been approved, he shall receive the crown of life.” In the same epistle we have also this: “Count it all joy, my brethren, when ye fall into manifold temptations; knowing that the proving of your faith worketh patience.” The reference here is to trials, disciplines, sufferings, rather than to incitements to sin. We are to be glad when we have such experiences, because in them we shall grow strong. It is a real misfortune never to have anything to put our character to the test or to bring out its undeveloped qualities.
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