"The night is past, and the day is at hand; let us therefore
cast off the works of darkness and put on the armour of
light."
(From the "Epistle" for the First Sunday of Advent).
_1st. Prelude._ The Foot of the Cross where my sins have all been laid.
_2nd. Prelude._ The grace of contrition and firm resolution.
It is clear from the words which she has chosen for her "Epistle" for
the First Sunday of Advent that the Church intends us during this solemn
season to think about sin,--the darkness of the past night and the light
of the day that is coming and our duty with regard to both. It is not
sin in the abstract, but our own personal sins that we are to consider.
"Let _us_ cast off the works of darkness." If the Apostle Paul included
himself in that "_us_," we need not fear to do the same. It is meet,
when we are thinking on the one hand of Him Who is coming to save us
from our sins and on the other of His coming to judge us "according to
our works," that we should give some thought to those sins. Nothing will
better help us to understand the mercy of the Saviour and the justice of
the Judge than a meditation upon our own sins. God _forgets_ the sins He
has forgiven, but it is better for us, more wholesome and more
humiliating, to remember them sometimes. David says: "My sin is always
before me" (Ps. L. 5). The object of this meditation, then, is not to
cause trouble in the soul--trouble about sins that are _forgiven_ can
only come from the devil--but to excite in us a deeper contrition, more
gratitude and a greater watchfulness.