(2) Another function of pardon, and perhaps the most important of all in the reformation of character, is that it removes, or rather is itself, as its name implies, the removal of sin. The scarlet shall become as snow, the crimson as wool. The figure is suggestive, being the colour of blood, and blood the emblem of crime, while wool and snow are the emblems of purity. To divest the language of its figures, it seems to mean that pardon will convert the criminal into a saint : this is its function. The pagan world knew nothing of this, and yet it is the only power to convert mankind. Where wisdom, justice, and law failed, pardon succeeds. " What the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh."
When sin itself is removed in forgiveness, all its consequences, too, will soon vanish ; and lightened of our burden, we shall feel free and ready to undertake the duties of the new life. How could we command the energy to do them while we were
From scalp to sole one slough and crust of sin, Unfit for earth, unfit for heaven ? Scarce meet For troops of devils, mad with blasphemy.
But now we are delivered from the law, having died unto that wherein we were held, so that we should serve in newness of spirit and not in the oldness of the letter. Being delivered from
^ J. Guinness Rogers.
ISAIAH 49
Those lead-like tons of sin that crushed The spirit flat before Thee,
our hearts begin to beat new life, our drooping souls revive ; we will undertake now cheerfully to master the grand lesson — " Cease to do evil; learn to do well."^
IT There is no tree in the world so thorny or so gnarled or so knotty that men cannot smooth it and polish it and trim it and make it fair to see ; and even so, there is not a man in this world so wicked or so great a sinner that God cannot convert him and adorn him with singular graces and with manifold gifts of virtue.^
Whiter than snow her infant lay
In Mary's arms that happy day :
Fairer than all the flowers that blow, Brighter than all the stars that glow,
Sky blossoms in the milky way.
Thus I present Him, when I pray, As in the arms of faith, and say, " Father, there is one Life below, Whiter than snow."
That whiteness pleads my cause, I know, And wins for me the grace to show Some reflex rays while here I stray — Pledge I shall wear the pure array In which the heavenly armies go Whiter than snow.
iR. E. Morris, in The Welsh Pulpit of To-day, p. 309.
* Little Flowers of St. Francis.— Tem-ple Edition, p. 272.
The Transformation op the Sword.
Literature.
Alford (H.), Truth and Trust, 57.
Caird (E.), Lay Sermons and Addresses, 232.
Holland (H. S.), Pleas and Claims, 276.
Jowett (J, H.), Meditations for Quiet Moments, 94.
M'Fadyen (J. E.), The City with Foundations, 127.
Watkinson (W. L.), Ashes of Roses, 230.
Christian World Pulpit, xxii. 18 (Walters) ; xxvii. 177 (Jowett) ; lii. 389
(Sinclair) ; Ixi. 376 (Parker) ; 378 (Clifford) ; Ixvii. 6 (Horton);
Ixxii. 358 (Govett). Church of England Pulpit, xlii. 40 (Jenkins) ; xlv. 73 (Sinclair) ; Ixiii. 8
(Govett). Expository Times, iii. 272 (Huddle); 321 (Currie) ; v. 392 (Davidson);
vi. 129. Homiletic Review, xliv. 134 (Parker) ; 1. 305 (Metcalf). Jewish Quarterly Review, vi. 583. Treasury (New York), ix. 202.
The Transformation of the Sword.
And he shall judge between the nations, and shall reprove many peoples ; and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruninghooks : nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. — ii. 4.
It is a great vision that the prophet sees — of a world trans- formed by religion and common sense. The nations which are now ready to fly at each other's throats will one day, he sees, be willing to take their cases to Zion for arbitration ; as we should say to-day, they will submit them to Jesus, to have them decided by the principles of justice and humanity, which are identified with Him more than with any other force in the world. And then, so reasonable and satisfactory will the decision be, that they will transform their weapons of war into instruments of peace, and men will be brothers the world over.
I.
Why should the Nations learn War no more ?
1. Because it is so costly.
The cost of war is simply appalling. We cannot possibly have any adequate idea of what all the wars of the world have cost. The late Henry Eichard, Secretary of the Peace Society, said, " Give me the money which has been spent in war, and I will purchase every foot of land on the globe. I will clothe every man, woman, and child in an attire of which kings and queens would be proud ; I will build a schoolhouse on every hillside and in every valley over the whole earth ; I will build an academy in every town and endow it, a college in every State, and will fill it with able professors ; I will crown every hill with