ne of the prevalent perils of our time.
Some of the old courtesies are being discarded as though they belonged to
a younger day. Some of the old tokens of respect have been banished to the
limbo of rejected ritual. Dignitaries are jostled in the common crowd.
"One man is as good as another!" And so there is a tendency to strip life
of all its reverences, and venerable fanes become stables for unclean
things.

My soul, come thou not into this shame! Move in the ways of life with
softened tread, and pay thy respect at every shrine where dwells the grace
and power of God.

NOVEMBER The Twenty-eighth

_HOW TO FIGHT EVIL_

"_Overcome evil with good._"
--ROMANS xii. 9-21.

For how else can we cast out evil? Satan cannot cast out Satan. No one can
clean a room with a filthy duster. The surgeon cannot cut out the disease
if his instruments are defiled. While he removed one ill-growth he would
sow the seed of another. It must be health which fights disease. It will
demand a good temper to overcome the bad temper in my brother.

And therefore I must cultivate a virtue if I would eradicate a vice. That
applies to the state of my own soul. If there be some immoral habit in my
life, the best way to destroy it is by cultivating a good one. Take the
mind away from the evil one. Deprive it of thought-food. Give the thought
to the nobler mood, and the ignoble mood will die. And this also applies
to the faults and vices of my brother. I must fight them with their
opposites. If he is harsh and cruel, I must be considerate and gentle. If
he is grasping, I must be generous. If he is loud and presumptuous, I must
be soft-mannered and self-restrained. If he is devilish, I must be a
Christian. This is the warfare which tells upon the empire of sin. I can
overcome evil with good.

NOVEMBER The Twenty-ninth

_TRANSFORMING OUR FOES_

MATTHEW v. 38-48.

"Love your enemies."

It must be the aim of a Christian to make his enemy lovely. It is not my
supreme business to secure my safety, but to remove his ugliness. He may
only annoy me, but he is destroying himself. He may injure my reputation;
but far worse, he is blighting his own character. Therefore must I seek to
remove the greater thing, the corrosive malady in his own soul. I must
make it my purpose to recover his loveliness, and restore the lost
likeness of the Lord.

And only love can make things lovely. Revenge can never do it. Even duty
will fail in the grac