chance of ever being conquered at all. You
never heard of a man being cured of his love of intoxicating drink,
for instance, by a gradual process. The serpent's life is not crushed
out of it by gradual pressure, but by one vigorous stamp of a nervous
heel.

But if my experience as a Christian man does not enable me to set to
my seal that this text is true, the text itself will tell me why. It
is 'the God of peace' that is going to 'bruise Satan.' Do you keep
yourself in touch with Him, dear friend? And do you let His powers
come uninterruptedly and continuously into your spirit and life? It
is sheer folly and self-delusion to wonder that the medicine does not
work as quickly as was promised, if you do not take the medicine. The
slow process by which, at the best, many Christian people 'bruise
Satan under their feet,' during which he hurts their heels more than
they hurt his head, is mainly due to their breaking the closeness and
the continuity of their communion with God in Jesus Christ.

But, after all, it is Heaven's chronology that we have to do with
here. 'Shortly,' and it will be 'shortly,' if we reckon by heavenly
scales of duration. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in
the morning. 'The Lord will help her, and that right early.' 'The
Lord is at hand.' When we get yonder, ah! how all the long years of
fighting will have dwindled down, and we shall say 'the Lord did help
me, and that right early,' and though there may have been more than
threescore years and ten of fighting, that, while we were in the
thick of it, did not seem to come to much, we shall then look back
and say: 'Yes, Lord, it was but for a moment, and it has brought me
to the undying day of Eternal Peace.'

TERTIUS

'I, Tertius, who write the epistle, salute you in the
Lord.'--ROMANS xvi. 22 (R.V.).

One sometimes sees in old religious pictures, in some obscure corner,
a tiny kneeling figure, the portrait of the artist. So Tertius here
gets leave to hold the pen for a moment on his own account, and from
Corinth sends his greeting to his unknown brethren in Rome.
Apparently he was a stranger to them, and needed to introduce
himself. He is never heard of before or since. For one brief moment
he is visible, like a star of a low magnitude, shining out for a
moment between two banks of darkness and then swallowed up. Judging
by his name, he was probably a Roman, and possibly had some
connection with Italy, but clearly was