(3193)
TEMPTATION TWO-SIDED
A lad of seventeen was telling an older friend, recently, of an experience he had had that day. As the apprentice of a carpenter, he had been sent to a saloon to take the measures for a new counter. It was very cold weather, and he arrived with his teeth fairly chattering in his head, for his coat was thin. The saloon-keeper immediately mixt a hot drink and pushed it over the counter to him. “It’ll cost you nothing,” he said; “drink it down, and you’ll soon stop shivering, my boy.”
“He meant it kindly, too, and didn’t think any harm,” said the apprentice, as he told the story. “That’s what made it harder to push it back, and I didn’t want it.”
“It must have been a big temptation,” said the friend. “That saloon-keeper might have started you on the road to ruin.”
“Well,” replied the lad frankly, “I’d rather have had it than some other kinds. You see, it takes two to make a temptation. There’s no saloon-keeper and no cold weather can make me drink when I don’t want to. The temptation I’m afraid of is the one that I’m ready for before it comes, by hankering after it. I don’t take much credit to myself for refusing that drink; and, if I had taken it, why, I wouldn’t have put all the blame on the saloon-keeper, as some folks do. It takes two, every time, to make a successful temptation.”
It was an honest way to look at the question. Temptation is not all a matter of outward happening, but also of inner readiness. No outsider can be responsible for our sins as we are responsible. “He tempted me” only explains one side of the temptation. The other side—the personal side—we must answer for, and no excuse will save us. “It takes two,” and one of the two is always our own responsible self.—Michigan Christian Advocate.
(3194)
Temptations—See [Curves of Temptation].
TENACITY