A lad of seventeen was telling an older friend, recently, of
an experience he had had that day. As the apprentice of a
carpenter, he had been sent to a saloon to take the measures for
a new counter. It was very cold weather, and he arrived with his
teeth fairly chattering in his head, for his coat was thin. The
saloon-keeper immediately mixt a hot drink and pushed it over
the counter to him. “It’ll cost you nothing,” he said; “drink it
down, and you’ll soon stop shivering, my boy.”
“He meant it kindly, too, and didn’t think any harm,” said the
apprentice, as he told the story. “That’s what made it harder to
push it back, and I didn’t want it.”
“It must have been a big temptation,” said the friend. “That
saloon-keeper might have started you on the road to ruin.”
“Well,” replied the lad frankly, “I’d rather have had it than
some other kinds. You see, it takes two to make a temptation.
There’s no saloon-keeper and no cold weather can make me drink
when I don’t want to. The temptation I’m afraid of is the one
that I’m ready for before it comes, by hankering after it. I
don’t take much credit to myself for refusing that drink; and,
if I had taken it, why, I wouldn’t have put all the blame on the
saloon-keeper, as some folks do. It takes two, every time, to
make a successful temptation.”
It was an honest way to look at the question. Temptation is
not all a matter of outward happening, but also of inner
readiness. No outsider can be responsible for our sins as we
are responsible. “He tempted me” only explains one side of the
temptation. The other side--the personal side--we must answer
for, and no excuse will save us. “It takes two,” and one of the
two is always our own responsible self.--_Michigan Christian
Advocate._
(3194)
=Temptations=--See CURVES OF TEMPTATION.