"_Obsta principiis_" may indeed be said to be a warning specially needed
by us in regard to every kind of temptation. But we may go further than
this. Our safety from particular sins depends very often and very
largely, at a critical moment, upon our general attitude and feeling
towards sin in every shape.

It must be acknowledged, I think, that most sins which lay their hold
upon us and master us, or struggle long and hard for the mastery, make
their first entrance into the soul so easily, because they find it swept
and garnished for their reception, and its doors wide open. With
reference to this you have only to reflect on some chapter of your own
experience. Has it never happened that, when some wrong or sinful act or
thought or speech was first presented to you, it stirred a feeling of
shrinking, or strong dislike, or fear, or uneasiness, or, it may be,
disgust; but instead of listening to that warning voice, and spurning the
temptation utterly, as your feeling bade you do, you were attracted
somehow to turn and gaze upon it. You knew it to be sin, but you felt no
repulsion. Your soul was not garrisoned and defended by any strong sense
of the hatefulness and deadly influence of all sin as such; so if you
fled from it it was with a backward look; and then you allowed yourself
to think of it in others, or you lived on friendly and familiar terms
with those who were stained by it; possibly you even jested about it; you
let your thoughts feed upon it; you expressed no stern disapproval of it;
you allowed the atmosphere of your life to be tainted by it; and at last
your adversary the devil, having rejoiced to see his wiles thus gathering
round you, saw you slip or plunge into the sin, and go one great step
nearer to becoming his bondslave--just as some foolish bird, fluttering
this way and that instead of spreading its wings for a heavenward flight
into the pure and safe upper air, might plunge into the snares of the
fowler. And yet all the while, although you were living this weak and