^ W. W. Gill, From Darkness to Light in Polynesia^ 234.
2 -vv. M. Ramsay, The Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia, 386.
REVELATION xxii. 14 385
the great truth which he was trying to proclaim, that the red blood whitened the black robe, and that in its full tide there was a limpid river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the cross of Christ.
^ In one of the letters written by Dr. Dale during the first year of his ministry at Carr's Lane, he says : " If all the truths which have been realized and made precious eras of our religious progress, all the facts which at different times have assumed to our spiritual consciousness the hardness and grimness of a rock, all the wisdom which has come from the lips of others, or has been painfully learnt from doubt and difficulty and sin and folly, could be kept visibly and consciously before the mind, how different our life would be. Why, even that blessed text, ' The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin,' which sometimes comes down on the heart like a whole heaven of peace and joy and glory, will at other times be as meaningless as the darkest sayings of the prophets, or as powerless as the vainest utterances of human folly. And then just as one is bemoaning its darkness, it will suddenly blaze out in astonishing brightness, and almost startle the heart by its revelations of safety and strength." ^
3. But it is not a past washing only that is spoken of here. It is also a daily washing of the robes of the redeemed even now. It is not, " Blessed are they that have washed." The Greek is the perpetual present — " Blessed are they that keep washing." Having once washed the whole body in the fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness, they have need constantly to wash the feet, soiled afterwards, and again and again, by contact with the dust and the miry clay of this world. " Blessed are they that evermore wash their robes," by an ever-repeated application of the " blood of sprink- ling " alike to the accusing conscience and to the sin-stained life.
It is a most dangerous thing to fall into the habit of letting any committed sin pass suh silentio (as it were) between man and his soul. Scripture indeed counsels no morbid self-scrutiny. Harm may be done by it. A man may walk timidly and slavishly before God by reason of it. We are not taught that many express words, or perhaps any express words, need pass about particular wrong thoughts, acts, or words, in direct converse on the subject between God and the soul. But if so, it must be because the intercourse is so thorough that it need not be microscopic. The
1 A. W. W. Dale, The Life of R. W. Dale of Birmingham, 79. REV. — 25
386 THE PRIVILEGES OF THE BLESSED
man does not wash each separate spot and stain, because he washes the whole robe, and them with it. One way or another, the tablets of memory and the tablets of conscience and the tablets of life must be sponged clean every evening — and in only one way, by what Scripture calls " the blood of the Lamb " — that is, the atone- ment made once for all for all sin, applied in earnest faith to the individual man's heart and soul in the sight of God.
^ I have been told, says the Eev. D. M. Henry of Whithorn, Wigtownshire, that in this district in days gone by, those who were communicants of the Church might be known by the " wash- ings " on the ropes in their greens, or, if they had no greens, on the dykes and hedges near their houses on the week before the communion Sabbath. And on one communion Sabbath morning, as I had occasion to go over the dewy fields very early, I met a working man near a rock in the middle of a field well away from the town, to whom I said, when I came up to him, " Dear me, James, you are early about." To which he replied, " Ay, I always come out at sunrise on the communion Sunday to prepare " ; and then something told me quite plainly that he had been at prayer at the rock-side before I had appeared.
4. The washing of their robes is done by the blessed them- selves. " Blessed are they that wash their robes." On the one hand is all the fulness of cleansing ; on the other is the heap of dirty rags that will not be cleansed by our sitting there and looking at them. The two must be brought into contact. How ? ^ By the magic band that unites strength and weakness, purity and foulness, the Saviour and the penitent ; the magic band of simple affiance, and trust, and submission to the cleansing power of His death and of His life.
^ A long list of uncouth, monosyllabic names at the end of Dr. Gordon's church directory attests the patient interest which the Clarendon Street Church has taken in the Chinese of the city. A school was organized many years ago for these strangers. Its proportions grew rapidly. More than one hundred laundrymen from all parts of Boston and from adjacent towns meet each Sabbath. . . . That conversion is much the same experience among all peoples can be clearly seen from the following : —