these are secondary and auxiliary to the true end of kindling the fire of love in his alienated heart.  The great object which every Christian man is bound to have in view is to win over the enemy and melt away misconceptions and hostility.  It is not from any selfish regard to one’s own personal ease that we are so to act, but because of the sacred regard which Christ has taught us to cherish for the blessing of peace amongst men, and in order that we may deliver a brother from the snare, and make him share in the joys of fellowship with God.  The only way to burn up the evil in his heart is by heaping coals of kindness and beneficence on his head.  And for such an end it becomes us to watch for opportunities.  We have to mark the right moment, and make sure that we time our offer for food when he is hungry and of drink when he thirsts; for often mal-a-propos offers of kindness make things worse.  Such is God’s way.  His thunderbolts we cannot grasp, His love we can copy.  Of the two weapons mercy and judgment which He holds in His hand, the latter is emphatically His own; the former should be ours too.

III.  In all life meet and conquer evil with good.

This last precept, ’Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good,’ is cast into a form which covers not only relations to enemies, but all contact with evil of every kind.  It involves many great thoughts which can here be only touched.  It implies that in all our lives we have to fight evil, and that it conquers, and we are beaten when we are led to do it.  It is only conquered by being transformed into good.  We overcome our foes when we win them to be lovers.  We overcome our temptations to doing wrong when we make them occasions for developing virtues; we overcome the evil of sorrow when we use it to bring us nearer to God; we overcome the men around us when we are not seduced by their example to evil, but attract them to goodness by ours.

Evil is only thus transformed by the positive exercise of goodness on our part.  We have seen this in regard to enemies in the preceding remarks.  In regard to other forms of evil, it is often better not to fight them directly, but to occupy the mind and heart with positive truth and goodness, and the will and hands with active service.  A rusty knife shall not be cleaned so effectually by much scouring as by strenuous use.  Our lives are to be moulded after the great example of Him, who at almost the last moment of His earthly course said, ’Be of good cheer:  I have overcome the world.’  Jesus seeks to conquer evil in us all, and counts that He has conquered it when He has changed it into love.

LOVE AND THE DAY