Article July 16, 1910 Issue

GOD LEADETH

LAURA GERAHTY.

Some years ago, the manager of a business firm was about to engage an office boy. There was little time to find out particulars as to the lad's character and habits, so the following plan was decided upon. A sixpence was to be placed, as though accidentally dropped, upon the floor of the office the night immediately preceding the morning on which the lad was to commence his duties. If he brought the coin to his employer, all well and good; if not, he was to be classified as a dishonest boy and promptly dismissed.

When that poor lad rose in the morning, he probably asked God to give him his daily bread, to forgive him his sins, and not to lead him into temptation; not to lead him or place him within range of any traps and snares that might be lying in wait for him during that day, which was fraught with so many hopes and fears and upon which, as we know, hung the issues of his immediate future, whether for failure or success. Oh, strange incongruity, that God, who is Love, should be feared and pleaded with as the tempter! Now, we, who have the key which unlocks all these treasures for our freedom, we know that God leads us, not into temptation, but delivers us from all evil, and that just in the proportion that we lean upon His untiring and unerring arm for guidance and support, shall we move, without fear of a false step. Knowing that God is leading, we simultaneously know that "God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man," as the apostle James tells us; that God is good, the strength and substance of all that is pure and just and holy, neither actively nor passively connected with evil in any degree or form; that HE is leading, and leading necessarily to good only.

The actual facts which followed the incident cited above, were not precisely known to the writer, though at the time the conclusion was reached and freely voiced that, owing to the cruel temptation put in his way by his employer, the lad had fallen an easy prey and his early business career was blighted. Public sympathy, however, ran very high in favor of the boy, and his employer was looked upon by most people as the one who had sinned. Now, with the spiritual interpretation of that clause in the Lord's Prayer under consideration to help us, we are rendered less liable to such defeats. "And God leadeth us not into temptation, but delivereth us from sin, disease, and death" (Science and Health, p. 17). We learn that God leads us into the path of deliverance from temptation; and in the proportion that our prayer is one of assured affirmation in contradistinction to that of supplication, do we find our strength and support in all such difficulties.

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