ident in the Christian life; it is the
abiding condition of it. While there are some temptations that we have to
slay, there are others we have to outgrow. They are overcome, not by any
one supreme assertion of the will, but by the patient cultivation of all
the loftiest and most wholesome and delicate and intensely spiritual modes
of feeling and of being.

Again, let me suggest that iniquity at our heels is sometimes an old sin in
a new form. You remember the difficulty that Hiawatha had in hunting down
Pau-puk Keewis. That mischievous magician assumed the form of a beaver,
then that of a bird, then that of a serpent; and though each in turn was
slain, the magician escaped and mocked his pursuer. Surely a parable of our
strife with sin. We smite it in one form and it comes to life in another.
One day a man is angry--clenched fingers and hot words. He conquers his
anger; but the next day there is a spirit of bitterness rankling in his
heart, and maybe a tinge of regret that he did not say and do more when his
heart was hot within him and fire was on his lips. The sin he faced and
fought yesterday has become iniquity at his heels. Having failed to knock
him down, it tries to trip him up. Maybe many waste their energies trying
to deal with the _forms_ of sin, and never grapple with the _fact_ of sin.
Hence the evil things that compass men's souls about with their dread
ministries of suggestion, and flutter on unhallowed wings in the wake of
life. The sin that confronts us reveals to us our need of strength, but the
sin that dogs our steps has, maybe, a deeper lesson to teach us--even our
need of heart-deep holiness. Good resolution will do much to clear the path
ahead, but only purity of character can rid us of the persistent haunting
peril of the sin that plucks at the skirt of life. The deliverance God
offers to the struggling soul covers not only the hour of actual grappling
with the foe, but all the hours when it is the stealth and not the strength
of evil that we most have cause to fear.

_Iniquity at my heels._ These words remind us that sin is not done with
after it is committed. God forgives sin, but He does not obliterate all its
consequences, either in our own lives or in the lives of others. A man may
have the light of the City of God flashing in his face, and a whole host of
shameful memories and bitter regrets crowding at his heels. We do not know
what sin is till we turn our backs on it. Then we find its tena