74 MORAL CONDITION OF THE CHILD 



out of spiritual enlightenment and the workings 

 of the already inwrought Divine Spirit. It is not 

 a turning away from sin to holiness; it is only 

 an essential step in holiness, and the life of God 's 

 children are full of such normal crises. 



Our answer to the whole question, then, is 

 somewhat a paradox. In the working of both flesh 

 and spirit there is a pull, an impulse that leads 

 toward sin, but stops short of it when the higher 

 nature recognizes the boundaries where virtue 

 ends and sin begins, draws the line and says that 

 the movement must end at that line. It is a strug- 

 gle with an impulse that, uncontrolled and unlim- 

 ited, would end in sin, and thus it is not very 

 far wrong to call it a struggle against sin. But 

 it ought ever to be remembered that it is not a 

 sinful struggle. 



If one would look for a living illustration of 

 what we have said, he may find it in the tempta- 

 tions of Jesus.* If struggle were sinful, Jesus, 

 as a pure Being, could never have known the pull 

 of temptation. That He did feel it in proportion 

 to the wealth of His nature, the exaltation of His 

 mission, and the power of His passion to accom- 

 plish that mission, we are ready to believe. The 

 point of that temptation seems to be the demon- 

 stration of the truth of that testimony, which had 

 just been given Him from heaven, that He was the 



* Of Jesus it is said: "The only temptation with real power to Him was a temp- 

 tation to good to inferior forms of good. It was not the temptation to forsake the 

 righteousness of God, but to seek it by other paths, less moral and less patient paths, 

 than God's highway of the holy cross." (Forsyth: "Person and Place of Jesus Christ." 

 803.) 



