than the temptations to whoredom or wine—­that accompany a life of controversy.  The three scoundrels that fell upon Valiant at the mouth of the lane were Wildhead, Inconsiderate, and Pragmatic.  In other words, the besetting temptations of many men who are set as defenders of the truth in religion, as well as in other matters, is to be wild-headed, inconsiderate, self-conceited, and intolerably arrogant.  The bloody battle that Valiant fought, you must know, was not fought at the mouth of any dark lane in the midnight city, nor on the side of any lonely road in the moonless country.  This terrible fight was fought in Valiant’s own heart.  For Valiant was none of your calculating and cold-blooded friends of the truth.  He did not wait till he saw the truth walking in silver slippers.  Let any man lay a finger on the truth, or wag a tongue against the truth, and he will have to settle it with Valiant.  His love for the truth was a passion.  There was a fierceness in his love for the truth that frightened ordinary men even when they were on his own side.  Valiant would have died for the truth without a murmur.  But, with all that, Valiant had to learn a hard and a cruel lesson.  He had to learn that he, the best friend of truth as he thought he was, was at the same time, as a matter of fact, the greatest enemy that the truth had.  He had to take home the terrible discovery that no man had hurt the truth so much as he had done.  Save me from my friend! the truth was heard to say, as often as she saw him taking up his weapons in her behalf.  We see all that every day.  We see Wildhead at his disservice of the truth every day.  Sometimes above his own name, and sometimes with grace enough to be ashamed to give his name, in the newspapers.  Sometimes on the platform; sometimes in the pulpit; and sometimes at the dinner-table.  But always to the detriment of the truth.  In blind fury he rushes at the character and the good name of men who were servants of the truth before he was born, and whose shield he is not worthy to bear.  How shall Wildhead be got to see that he and the like of him are really the worst friends the truth can possibly have?  Will he never learn that in his wild-bull gorings at men and at movements, he is both hurting himself and hurting the truth as no sworn enemy of his and of the truth can do?  Will he never see what an insolent fool he is to go on imputing bad motives to other men, when he ought to be prostrate before God on account of his own?  More than one wild-headed student of William Law has told me what a blessing they have got from that great man’s teaching on the subject of controversy.  Will the Wildheads here to-night take a line or two out of that peace-making author and lay them to heart?  “My dear L-, take notice of this, that no truths, however solid and well-grounded, will help you to any divine life, but only so far as they are taught, nourished, and strengthened by an unction from above; and that nothing more dries and extinguishes