46 EXPosrroRT thoughts.
passed over " judgment and the love of God," is not yet extinct.
Let us watch and pray that we may observe a scriptural proportion in our religion. Let us beware of putting the second things out of their place, and so by degrees losing sight of the first entirely. Whatever importance we attach to the ceremonial part of Christianity, let us never forget its great practical duties. The religious teaching which inclines us to pass them over, has something about it which is radically defective.
Let us notice, lastly, the faUeneas and hollotcness which characterize the hypocrite in religion. We read that our Lord compared the Pharisees to " graves which appear not, and the men that walk over them are not aware of them." Even so these boasting teachers of the Jews were inwardly full of corruption and uncleanness, to an extent of which their deluded hearers had no conception.
The picture here drawn is painful and disgusting. Tet the accuracy and truthfulness of it hav^ often been proved by the conduct of hypocrites in every age of the church. What shall we say of the lives of Monks and Nuns, which were exposed at the time of the Reforma- tion P Thousands of so called " holy " men and women were found to be sunk in every kind of wickedness. What shall we say of the lives of some of the leaders of sects and heresies who have professed a peculiarly pure standard of doctrine ? Not unfrequently the very men who have promised to others liberty have turned out to be themselves "servants of corruption." The morbid anatomy of human nature is a loathsome study. Hypocrisy and unclean living have often been found side by side.