vilest sin.  This is a delusion of the devil.  My only safety is to know, feel, and confess my helplessness, that I may hang upon the arm of Omnipotence ...  I daily wish that sin had been rooted out of my heart.  I say, ’Why did God leave the root of lasciviousness, pride, anger, etc., in my bosom?  He hates sin, and I hate it; why did He not take it clean away?’ I know many answers to this which completely satisfy my judgment, but still I do not feel satisfied.  This is wrong.  It is right to be weary of the being of sin, but not right to quarrel with my present ‘good fight of faith.’ ...  The falls of professors into sin make me tremble.  I have been driven away from prayer, and burdened in a fearful manner by hearing or seeing their sin.  This is wrong.  It is right to tremble, and to make every sin of every professor a lesson of my own helplessness; but it should lead me the more to Christ ...  If I were more deeply convinced of my utter helplessness, I think I would not be so alarmed when I hear of the falls of other men ...  I should study those sins in which I am most helpless, in which passion becomes like a whirlwind and I like a straw.  No figure of speech can represent my utter want of power to resist the torrent of sin ...  I ought to study Christ’s omnipotence more:  Heb. 7:25, I Thess. 5:23, Rom. 6:14, Rom. 5:9, 10, and such scriptures, should be ever before me ...  Paul’s thorn, II Cor. 12, is the experience of the greater part of my life.  It should be ever before me ...  There are many subsidiary methods of seeking deliverance from sins, which must not be neglected,—­thus, marriage, I Cor. 7:2; fleeing, I Tim. 6:11, I Cor. 6:18; watch and pray, Matt. 26:41; the word, ‘It is written, It is written.’  So Christ defended himself; Matt. 4. ...  But the main defence is casting myself into the arms of Christ like a helpless child, and beseeching Him to fill me with the Holy Spirit.  ’This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith,’ I John 5:4, 5,—­a wonderful passage.

“I ought to study Christ as a living Saviour more,—­as a Shepherd, carrying the sheep He finds,—­as a King, reigning in and over the souls He has redeemed,—­as a Captain, fighting with those who fight with me, Ps. 35.,—­as one who has engaged to bring me through all temptations and trials, however impossible to flesh and blood.

“I am often tempted to say, How can this Man save us?  How can Christ in heaven deliver me from lusts which I feel raging in me, and nets I feel enclosing me?  This is the father of lies again!  ‘He is able to save unto the uttermost.’

“I ought to study Christ as an Intercessor.  He prayed most for Peter, who was to be most tempted.  I am on his breastplate.  If I could hear Christ praying for me in the next room, I would not fear a million of enemies.  Yet the distance makes no difference; He is praying for me.

“I ought to study the Comforter