Our next page tells the story of the temptation of the young man Joseph by a woman. She was the wife of Putiphar and her husband had taken Joseph into his house and put him in charge of all his affairs. Frequently this woman tried to induce Joseph to commit sin, "for he was of a beautiful countenance and comely to behold." When he resisted all her efforts, she accused him to her husband of the very crime, and Putiphar, believing her lies, threw Joseph into prison. But God never abandoned His faithful servant. The rest of his story you will find in the thirtyninth chapter of Genesis.
The one point to be stressed here is that Joseph had a will like a bar of steel in face of this fierce and persistent temptation. And what steadied him and kept him immovable in his resolution? He recognized sin for what it is, and he remembered that God is witness of every evil deed, no matter how carefully it be concealed from the eyes of men. "How can I do this wicked thing," he said, "and sin against my God?"
Most normal boys and young men have plenty of red blood in their veins. A boy's most precious possession is the purity of his soul. It is easily sullied, like other valuable things, for the world we live in, and the very air we breathe, is charged with the stench of the opposite vice. Here is where manliness is called for. A manly boy or young man knows well, like Joseph, that there can be no tampering with impurity. Cads, whose opinion is not worth a moment's consideration, may jeer at him and consider he has not grown up. It is desperately easy to have one's sense of sin knocked out of focus in such a world. A manly boy will preserve it all the more assiduously.
The instinct that begins to assert its presence is Godgiven and is intended by Him to be used by those called to the vocation to marriage, to help Him to fill heaven with immortal souls. What decent boy or young man would presume to sully this sacred possession? And if the fight is hard, as it often will be hard, he is glad to have a chance to prove to God and to Our Lady that he loves them. And love shows itself not by mere empty protestations of love; it is tested on the anvil when it does the deeds of love.
Joseph steadied himself and refused to dash wildly and unreflectingly to do what all that was natural in him craved for. What gave him this splendid selfcontrol? He remembered the presence of God. Wherever I am, at home or abroad, God's eye is upon me. If I lie in bed at night, if I go to a show or a party, if I take a holiday, there never is a split second, there never can be, when He is not thinking of me, watching me not like a policeman whose job it is to discover crime, but like a loving Father full of concern about me. More, He is always ready with the remedy. I can be certain that He will never permit a situation to arise in which I shall not have sufficient grace to resist serious temptation _ unless, of course, I misuse my free will to play Him false, and walk openeyed into danger.
"I write to you, young men," says St. John, "because you have overcome the wicked one ... I write unto you, young men, because you are strong and the Word of God abideth in you . . " There is terrific strength exercised sometimes in this struggle, the strength given by God to our frailty. The immense joy that fills the heart of the young man who comes forth from the fight unscathed and victorious must be experienced to be understood.
Jesus, keep alive in my young heart a deep sense of the heinousness of this sin, so Common, so readily condoned by the world I live in. Help me, when urged to this sin, to any sin, to be mindful of Your presence, Your sanctity, to deter me from sullying the delicate virtue You have entrusted to my frail keeping.