out like giants and conquer the world
if everything is right within.

Paul says that we are to be sound in faith, in patience, and in love.
If a man is unsound in his faith, the clergy take the ecclesiastical
sword and cut him off at once. But he may be ever so unsound in
charity, in patience, and nothing is said about that. We must be sound
in faith, in love, and in patience if we are to be true to God.

How delightful it is to meet a man who can control his temper! It is
said of Wilberforce that a friend once found him in the greatest
agitation, looking for a dispatch he had mislaid, for which one of the
royal family was waiting. Just then, as if to make it still more
trying, a disturbance was heard in the nursery.

"Now," thought the friend, "surely his temper will give way."

The thought had hardly passed through his mind when Wilberforce turned
to him and said:

"What a blessing it is to hear those dear children! Only think what a
relief, among other hurries, to hear their voices and know they are
well."

Covetousness.

Take the sin of _covetousness_. There is more said in the Bible
against it than against drunkenness. I must get it out of me--destroy
it, root and branch--and not let it have dominion over me. We think
that a man who gets drunk is a horrid monster, but a covetous man will
often be received into the church, and put into office, who is as vile
and black in the sight of God as any drunkard.

The most dangerous thing about this sin is that it is not generally
regarded as very heinous. Of course we all have a contempt for misers,
but all covetous men are not misers. Another thing to be noted about
it is that it fastens upon the old rather than upon the young.

Let us see what the Bible says about covetousness:--

"Mortify therefore your members . . . covetousness, which is
idolatry."

"No covetous man hath any inheritance in the Kingdom of God."

"They that will be (that is, desire to be) rich fall into temptation
and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men
in destruction and perdition.

For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some
coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves
through with many sorrows."

"The wicked blesseth the covetous, whom the Lord abhorreth."

Covetousness enticed Lot into Sodom. It caused the destruction of
Achan and all his house. It was the iniquity of Balaam. It was the sin
of Samuel's son