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weakens; always the ferment is touching a fresh layer; always the festering eruption breaks out in a new place. And, wherever it goes, there is this same effervescence, this inflation, this over- stepping of old bounds, this swelling exuberance, this irresistible turmoil. Stronger and more violent grows the heat of the motion ; it rushes forward over the whole material ; nothing can, at last, hold out against its devouring extravagance. It eats into the whole body as doth a canker. Like a poison in the blood, it permeates every nook and corner. And all from so tiny a beginning ! Yes ; like a little leaven " it leaveneth the whole lump." So men thought of leaven. They might use it, indeed, for the homeliest affairs ; but still it became for them a type of the movement of evil. Its working seemed to embody the dreadful character of the mystery of iniquity. It had, therefore, proverbially a sinister significance. And in the Bible itself it is generally used, as a symbol, under this comparison.
3. The leaven is called "the old leaven of malice and wickedness."
(1) Malice, that is, ill-nature, envy, grudging, is a subtle thing, mingling itself with many parts of men's conduct, where they little suspect it themselves. For example : you hear a neighbour praised for something on which you are apt to value yourself. Ask your own conscience fairly : do you feel no sort of pang, no jealousy or envy, at this ? Is it not too plain, that we are most of us inclined to repine at our neighbour's getting things which we think we might as well have had ourselves ? Now, whatever you may judge of it, this is the leaven of malice, and must be purged out.
U It is said of the famous English clergyman, Venn, that in his declining years he was removed to the obscurity of a country parish, and a stirring young curate was employed to help him in his work. Nobody wanted to hear the old man preach, while the curate attracted surprising congregations. Naturally the rector's family grew jealous. They could not bear the advancement of a junior above their honoured father. But the arrows were quenched in a boundless ocean of charity, for with true Christ- likeness the old man said, " Carry me to hear him preach. God honours him, and I will honour him. No man can receive anything except it be given him from heaven." 1
(2) So in respect of that vnckedness of which the great Apostle
1 G. C. Peck, Old Sins in New Clothes, 284.
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warns us — fraud, falsehood, cunning, insincerity. It is what people generally can least endure to be charged with : to call a man a liar is the bitterest of all affronts ; and those who would confess many faults will search far and wide, and invent all sorts of excuses, rather than plead guilty to this. And many seem to think that if they affirm no direct falsehood, they are sufficiently purged from this sin. But surely they judge too hastily. There is a leaven of cunning as well as of malice, which is apt to mingle with all our conduct, and poison and infect it and make it un- worthy of God, to a degree far beyond what we can imagine, till we have really watched and tried ourselves. We get into mean, pitiful habits, of setting traps for our own praise ; of contriving to take the best of everything for ourselves ; of getting off in all business with less than our share of expense, or trouble, or ill- will. This is the leaven of selfish cunning, so worked into the daily behaviour of most men that they are not themselves at all aware of it : they never, of course, dream of repenting of it.
If It is important to bear in mind that, in speaking of sin and sinners, we are apt to take as our type of sin one particular class of sin, the sins of the " publican and the harlot." It is natural that, revolting, ruinous, flagrant as they are, they should represent sin to our mind. Yet there are sins more malignant, and more difficult to conceive cured. I can conceive many of these poor creatures, whom the world speaks of as "lost," blindly "seeking after God." It is difficult to me to conceive this of those who, with full knowledge and all advantages, prey on human happiness in one way or another — the selfish seekers of their own interest and pleasure.1
As are those apples, pleasant to the eye,
But full of smoke within, which use to grow
Near that strange lake, where God pour'd from the sky
Huge showers of flames, worse flames to overthrow;
Such are their works that with a glaring show Of humble holiness, in virtue's dye Would colour mischief, while within they glow With coals of sin, though none the smoke descry.
Ill is that angel which erst fell from heaven, But not more ill than he, nor in worse case, Who hides a traitorous mind with smiling face, And with a dove's white feather masks a raven.
1 Dean Church, Life and Letters, 265.
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Each sin some colour hath it to adorn; Hypocrisy, almighty God doth scorn.1