1. Salvation is first a certain deliverance from the depression and dismay which spring from our knowledge and fear of the evil we have done ; it is a certain relief from the shame which paralyses hopeful endeavour, and from the ignorant and guilty dread which makes the thought of God a burden and not an inspiration. The suffering of an awakened conscience is of all burdens the hardest to be borne. This was the Nemesis that the ancients pictured as ever pursuing the ever-flying and never- escaping criminal. This was the torment that drove Lady Macbeth mad — who, with all her ablutions, could not wash out the bloodstains from her hand. And it is the sorrow not only of those who have committed great crimes against humanity, but of every man who is haunted by lost opportunities, of every man who has fled from duties that demanded faithfulness unto death, of every man who has given his soul away in exchange for some worldly prize, of every man who has not lived up to his light, and has not been obedient to the heavenly vision when obedience was inconvenient and hard ; of every man awakened to the sense of the irrevocable past and to the thought of what he might have been and might have done.
Tf Every one reprobates the custom of throwing children into the Ganges. But does every one stop to consider why the Hindu mother commits such cruelty ? She is a mother. Motherhood must have borne into her own heart somewhat of the strongest affection of earth. Because the child is hers, it must be horror to watch it die. Under other circumstances she would give her own life to save the child's. Who knows the smothered agonies beside the Ganges — Eachels lamenting their children "because they are not," mothers tearing their babes from their bosoms and turning homeward with aching hearts ? Of the terrible paradox there is just one explanation ; in the awful crime there is just one exalting truth: Those Hindu mothers are trying to answer for themselves a question which lay in their souls before their children were born : " What must I do to be saved ? " 2
2. Salvation means, then, in the second place, a certain deliverance from the depression and fear of sin ; it means a sense of the forgiving mercy and help of God ; it means the victory of
1 R. Winterbotham. 2 G. 0. Peck.
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faith and hope ; but all this is only clearing the ground for the great salvation of Jesus Christ. The removal of tormenting shame, of our ignorant and guilty dread of God and fate, is only the first step in the way of the Christian salvation. There is evil in the heart and life, and from its presence and dominion we require to be delivered. We are not in real contact with the Divine order of the world until we feel that it is not penalty here or hereafter God wants to save us from — but sin. We bear and must bear the punishment of our sins. The remission of sin is not the remission of punishment. We reap what we sow. It is by this severity of discipline that God makes us see the exceeding sinfulness of sin. Justice and mercy are eternally one. Justice is beneficent and the retributive forces are redemptive. The cry to escape from the natural penalty of sin is the cry, not of the higher but of the lower nature; the cry of a man who cares more for his own personal safety and comfort than he cares for the order and will of God. The man truly awakened and enlightened wants to be delivered from the power of evil affections and evil habits, to be saved from his infirmities and sins, even though it be by fire ; to be made right with God, right with men who are the children of God, and right with the whole order of things which is of God. Tf What must I do to be saved ? What must I do, that I may be delivered from this my sin ? What must I do, that I may cleanse myself from this impurity which sullies my soul ? What must I do, that I may rid me of this untruthfulness, this dis- honesty, this insincerity, which mars my life ? What must I do, that I may expel this avarice which cramps my heart ? What must I do, that I may shake off this lethargy which numbs my spirit ? What must I do, that I may cast out this demon of worldliness, of self which shuts out Thee and Thy presence, O God ? For Thou, Lord, and Thou only, art salvation, Thou only art heaven, Thou only art eternal life.1
3. But, thirdly, while it is much to be delivered from perverted and corrupt affection and to have the power of evil habit broken, yet much more remains to be done to have the fulness of the blessing which the gospel of Jesus Christ calls " salvation." Salvation is not only deliverance from sin ; it is growth in all trueness and goodness of life. Christian character is not an incident, a result, a test of salvation — it is salvation.