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us. To the eye and to the ear of the Maker all these worlds have been open from the beginning. They are just coming into our horizon with the development of science. And in the same way there must be the growth within us of a fine moral science, that will bring home to our apprehension the most obscure of our secret faults.^
^ A lady missionary in Algiers heard this prayer from a little Arab girl one day, " 0 God, take away all the ugly weeds from my heart, and plant lovely flowers there, that it may be always a garden green and beautiful for Jesus." This is just what we all want — the weeds of evil uprooted, and the flowers of good adorning the soul.^
4. We must practise vigilance. — " What I say unto you, I say unto all. Watch." Let us guard well the ingoings and outgoings of life. Let us " keep our hearts with all diligence," and double- sentry the " door of our lips." Let us turn our fear into a prayer, and our prayer into a purpose. " Search me, 0 God, and know my heart, try me and know my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." Let us indite our 19th Psalm, that we may never have to write our 51st. That we may avoid error, let us learn to discriminate error; and that we may discriminate error — for to discern our faults is half the battle in correcting them — let us cultivate conscience and set before us the most perfect ideals ; ever considering Him who, bearing our nature, yet " did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth." ^
Great were his fate who on the earth should linger,
Sleep for an age and stir himself again, Watching thy terrible and fiery finger
Shrivel the falsehood from the souls of men.
Oh that thy steps among the stars would quicken!
Oh that thine ears would hear when we are dumb ! Many the hearts from which the hope shall sicken,
Many shall faint before thy kingdom come.
Lo for the dawn, (and wherefore wouldst thou screen it?)
Lo with what eyes, how eager and alone. Seers for the sight have spent themselves, nor seen it.
Kings for the knowledge, and they have not known.
^ T. G. Selby, The Imperfect Angel, 141. ^ J. Ossian Davies.
» J. Halsey, The Spirit of Truth, 290.
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Times of that ignorance with eyes that slumbered Seeing he saw not, till the days that are,
Now, many multitudes whom none had numbered, Seek him and find him, for he is not far.^
^ Slight Ailments is the title of a work by a distinguished physician. Its design is to describe the symptoms of incipient maladies, to show how serious ailments arise out of slight ones, and to direct the treatment that these ominous signs demand. It is unnecessary to say that this work is popular ; that it has gone through many editions. If we have the slightest reason to suspect ourselves of being unsound, if we discover any tendency in our constitution toward one or another malady, we at once take the matter in hand, whatever may be the cost or incon- venience. " Despise no new accident to your body, but take opinion of it," writes Lord Bacon. How readily we accept his advice ! We do not delay until the disturbing symptoms give place to decided maladies like cancer or consumption. We are admonislied by the novel weakness, the unusual pain, the nebulous sign, and satisfy ourselves as to what the " accident " signifies, and how it may best be dealt with. Did we not act thus, we should before long bitterly reflect upon ourselves. Ought we not to follow the same course touching the appearance of sinister signs in our spiritual and moral life ? to note any new accident of the soul, and ask opinion of it ? ^
5. We must ask God to cleanse us. — " Clear thou me from secret faults." And there is present in that word, if not ex- clusively, at least predominantly, the idea of a judicial acquittal, so that the thought of the first clause of this verse seems rather to be that of pronouncing guiltless, or forgiving, than that of delivering from the power of. But both, no doubt, are included in the idea, as both, in fact, come from the same source and in response to the same cry. And so we may be sure that, though our eye does not go down into the dark depths, God's eye goes, and that where He looks He looks to pardon, if we come to Him through Jesus Christ our Lord.
The Psalmist's sense of the fact that there could be no in- discriminate salvation through Church or human organization or external and vicarious service was just as clear as that of St. Paul
» F. W. H. Myers, Saint Paul.
» W. L. Watkinaon, The Fatal Barter, 131.
36o HIDDEN FAULTS
himself. He felt that he could not be effectually cleansed by his relation to the theocracy, or the national sacrifices, or the visible system and service of religion, in connexion with which he was perhaps already a leading figure. The ceremonial offering did not necessarily bring the purification of the spirit. He must be cleansed by a virtue coming down from God and through God's unknown sacrifice, and not by a power going up from himself and through his own trespass-offering. The law, with its frequent and curiously graded sacrifices, had been but a remembrancer of certain selected sins, and had led him to see that all corruption, in its wider ravage and more insidious penetration, must be purged by a Divine process.