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Benton's mind flashed back to a Sunday School class of his childhood and his infantile horror for the tale of a tempter on a high mountain offering the possession of all the world if only if only He took a step forward. Speech seemed to choke him. "In God's name!" he cried, "you have not forgotten?" The Spaniard slowly shook his head and smiled.
Seeing the Truth, He could see the folly and illusion of all that the world had to offer, and He could put forth His mighty Will bidding the Tempter retire from the scene and from His mind. It was in this full knowledge of His Spirit His Real Self that He was able to rebuke the Tempter, saying, "Thou shalt not tempt the Lord, thy God!"
"Well, Tempter, what more do you want with me?" said d'Artagnan. "You want me to throw again, do you not?" "No, I would wish you to reflect." "On what?" "You mean to take your horse?" "Without doubt." "You are wrong, then. I would take the hundred pistoles. You know you have staked the harnesses against the horse or a hundred pistoles, at your choice." "Yes." "Well, then, I repeat, you are wrong.
Now I began to conceive peace in my soul, in methought I saw as if the tempter did leer and steal away from me, as being ashamed of what he had done. At the same time also I had my sin, and the blood of Christ thus represented to me, that my sin, when compared to the blood of Christ, was no more to it, then this little clot or stone before me, is to this vast and wide field that here I see.
Whether it be calm, or tossed with any violent passion; whether he be ready to follow the right way when it shall be shewn to him, or whether he wanders from it of set purpose; whether it be the tempter, or the bias of his own inclination, which seduces him to evil; whether he be docile, and disposed to hear good counsel, or of that untractable humour on which no hold is to be fastened, it will behove you to vary your discourse according to these several dispositions: But though more circumspection is to be taken with hardened souls, and difficult of access, you are never to flatter the disease, nor say any thing to him which may weaken the virtue of the remedy, and hinder its effect.
She had seen that he was secretly laughing at the simple preacher, and that was a source of sympathy between them. She was very much in the habit of doing the same thing. He, on the other hand, was very well satisfied that the daughter of such a mother must be perverse and vain; and he was moralist enough to know that there is no heart so accessible to the tempter as the proud and wilful heart.
"No!" replied Mistress Nutter, firmly. "I now perceive I am not utterly lost, since you try to regain me. I have renounced thy master, and will make no new bargain with him. Get hence, tempter!" "Think not to escape us," cried the familiar; "no penitence no absolution can save thee. Thy name is written on the judgment scroll, and cannot be effaced.
If man could sin, when just leaving the hands of God, his nature was then not perfect! Why did God permit him to sin, and his nature to become corrupt? Why did God allow him to be seduced, knowing well that he would be too weak to resist the tempter? Why did God create a Satan, a malicious spirit, a tempter?
How incomprehensibly strange it is, that good men and women who profess Christianity, and acknowledge the obligations of its commandments, should give ear to this tempter, instead of saying, "Get behind me, Satan," and, "Thou art a liar and a cheat from the beginning."
For a moment he stood there irresolute; and then again the hand that had dropped to his side was stretched forth. As it touched the desk lid a thrill shot through his heart; and again he hesitated and drew back. It was really a tremendous struggle, and one upon which great issues hung, so far as that boy, alone in that room with the tempter, was concerned.
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