talk about any sort of temptation is to say that God can and will help
a man in those straits where his own will is too weak, and that through
prayer there is a way of escape for us all. I believe all that
absolutely. With great gratitude I may say that I know it. Indeed I
cannot understand how any man who has been saved from overthrow can
fail to see as he looks back on his life that it was just the goodness
of God that upheld him. But I have learnt to beware how I tell men and
women that by prayer they can get through, though all other means fail.
Men who were having to face a severe strain of temptation have come
back to me and told me that they had tried the way of prayer and that
it had not availed them. The fact is that something far greater than
a mere attempt to use prayer as a special device for this special need
is required.

We are so made that religion is a divine possibility for all of us.
Indeed it is more than a possibility: it is a necessity if life is ever
to seem complete. Without it all other things fail in the end to hold
off attacks of disappointment and ennui. Because we were made with the
capacity for it, we cannot be content without it. It may take many
years for a man to discover that without religion life is going to be a
failure; and it is that discovery that constitutes for many the tragedy
of middle life. In early days the varied interests of life carry many
through in some sort of satisfaction. And yet even with the young the
life that is without religion is of necessity an unbalanced life.
Parts of the man or woman concerned are inactive, and the other parts
occupy too much of the stage. Till an interest in God--that greatest of
all interests--has entered a man's life attention is too much concerned
with other things. Till the spirit is awake the body obtrudes itself
too much on consciousness. And thus a man fights the battle of purity
on wrong terms. There is no interest so cleansing as an interest in