all evil which might injure the spirit. Our Father, "from seeming evil still educing good," knows when that which in itself is real evil can be turned into merely seeming evil, by changing its harmful into helpful tendencies; and therefore we offer this petition with reservation; we ask our Father to deliver us from trials not needed for our spiritual welfare, which might endanger our soul's health, which might make us evil by leading us into sin.

Mankind have universally sought deliverance from evils, but this has been the commencement and burden of their prayer. Christians are taught to begin with God, not with self. We first look up to Him as " our Father." We contemplate His holiness, wisdom, goodness. Reverencing His perfections and seeking His glory, desiring His will to be everywhere done, we may confidently because filially pray, "Deliver us from evil." This gives us hope, that we have not to expect deliverance by mere human efforts, which have been so often frustrated, but by the agency of the Almighty Father. "We have not to work our way upwards by stairs winding, broken, endless, to an indefinite shadowy point, which we are afraid to reach, lest it should prove to be nothing. We begin from the summit; we find there the substance of all the hope men have drawn from the promising but changeable aspects of the cloudland below; we see that all the darkness of earth, all its manifold forms of evil, have come from the rays being intercepted which would have scattered it, and

shall scatter it altogether. Therefore we pray boldly, 'Deliver us from evil,' knowing assuredly that we are praying to be set free from that to which the will of the Creator is opposed" (Maurice).

This deliverance is effected in various ways. The evil dreaded may be altogether removed, the threatening cloud disperse, the stormy waves subside, the angry foe retreat; or we may be sheltered amid the storm, securely guarded in the fierce assault, and while sorely distressed be so strengthened as to sustain no injury. We may not only be enabled to endure but to rejoice, so that the season of greatest trial may become one of greatest privilege, and the evils most dreaded promote our our eternal good. "The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of trials." Let us leave the method with Him, and then with fullest assurance pray, "Deliver us from evil.”

This petition, like the rest, has its practical and fraternal lessons. We are taught to say, not "deliver me," but "deliver us." We come to the throne of grace in company with our brethren, all exposed to similar evils. If we truly ask deliverance for them, we should endeavour to promote it. How can I pray God to save those whom I am too indolent or selfish to succour? Sincerely to offer this prayer will stimulate our zeal in every branch of philanthropy ; succouring the poor and the sick, teaching the ignorant, lifting up the fallen, comforting the sad, reclaiming the drunkard, promoting peace at home and abroad, reforming abuses, encouraging righteous

legislation, and in every way according to our opportunity being "fellow-workers with God" in delivering the world from the evil against which we pray.

III. "THE EVIL" IN OURSELVES.

We have been viewing the streams, we come now to the source; those may be termed "evils," this is emphatically "the evil;" those surround us, this is within us. "Out of the heart proceedeth" the sin that produces the evils, the heart which is "deceitful above all things and desperately wicked." Whatever may be said of evolution from lower to higher forms of physical organization, the word of God declares the fact of moral degeneracy. in any specific form of vicious generic root of ungodliness.

This does not consist indulgence, but in the The evangelical doctrine

does not assert that all men are depraved in the sense of outward wickedness, but of disregard to the Divine will. The depravity of vice is happily far from being universal, but the depravity of setting up self-pleasing as the rule of life is, alas! characteristic of the race. This leads men into different paths, according to the inclinations of each; but it is pleasure and not duty which is the guide; and though the path chosen may for a time happen to concur with the Divine will, as soon as this opposes the human will the latter prevails, with all its attendant evils. St. Paul, describing his spiritual condition prior to faith in Christ, says: "I find then the law, that to me, who

would do good, evil is present . . . bringing me into captivity under the law of sin which is in my members."

"The evil" is not ourselves, originally, naturally, necessarily, by any Divine appointment. It is not resident in the body, as some have taught, else how hopeless would be our condition, ever dragging about with us a corrupting corpse from which death alone could free us! No, it is not in the body, but in the evil use of it. It is not in sorrow, which, though the result of sin, may be overruled for our eternal good, but in our impatience and distrust. It is not in our joys; as if the beauties with which the Creator has thickly strewn our path, the pleasure linked with the healthy exercise of every faculty, the delights of knowledge, social intercourse, endearing relationships, had in them a secret poison, and must be regarded with suspicion and fear in proportion to their sweetness; no, but in our abuse of these blessings. It is not in the world itself; for we must live and work in it; must not dare to quit it till the Master calls; cannot if we would, should not if we could, come out of it by selfish isolation and indolent seclusion: but in being worldly in spirit, being of it as well as in it, living as though the present world was supreme. Christ was in the world, sharing its joys, sorrows and companionships, yet in Him was no evil. The evil is sin, and the root of all sin self- will. Outward temptation

would be harmless but for this. Self-will is "the

evil" of all evils.

While this remains unchecked there can be no

Z

true peace. Apart from evils caused by it, this condition of the soul is one of degradation and disquiet. "The wicked are like the troubled sea when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt; there is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked." The soul is made for God, and can never be at peace until centred in Himself. Diderot, the infidel Cyclopædist, makes a character in one of his plays say: "To do wrong is to condemn ourselves to live and find our pleasure with wrong-doers; to pass an uncertain and troubled life in one long and neverending lie; to have to praise with a blush the virtue we fling behind us; to seek a little calm in sophistical systems, that the breath of a single good man scatters to the winds; to shut ourselves for ever out from the spring of true joys, the only joys that are virtuous and sublime; and to give ourselves up, simply as an escape from ourselves, to the weariness of mere frivolous diversions, in which the day flows away in half-oblivion, and life glides slowly from us, and loses itself in waste." Another votary of pleasure, who, to silence remorse, encouraged himself in unbelief, has left this sad testimony to the bitterness of "the evil: "

"And dost thou ask what secret woe

I bear, corroding joy and youth?
And wilt thou vainly seek to know
A pang e'en thou must fail to soothe?

It is that settled, ceaseless gloom

The fabled Hebrew wanderer bore,
That will not look beyond the tomb,

But cannot hope for rest before.