Text of the meditation
The good in a person is never tempted. Goodness destroys temptation. It is the evil in a person that is aroused and tempted. The measure of a person's temptations is the exact register of their own unholiness. As a person purifies their heart, temptation ceases, for when a certain unlawful desire has been taken out of the heart, the object that formerly appealed to it can no longer do so, but becomes dead and powerless, for there is nothing left in the heart that can respond to it.
The honest person cannot be tempted to steal, let the occasion be ever so opportune; the person of purified appetites cannot be tempted to gluttony and drunkenness; the one whose mind is calm in the strength of inward virtue can never be tempted to anger; and the wiles and charms of the wanton fall upon the purified heart as empty, meaningless shadows.
Temptation shows a person just where they are.
James Allen (1864–1912), Book of Meditations for Every Day in the Year (1913) – public-domain text, gently modernised.
The original 1913 text is in the public domain.