II

In what has been said thus far I have dwelt, for the most part, on the

sterner and darker aspects of Christ's teaching about sin. And, as every

student of contemporary literature knows, there are voices all around us

to-day ready to take up and emphasize every word of His concerning the

mischief wrought by moral evil. Take, _e.g._, a passage like this from

Thomas Hardy's powerful but sombre story, _Tess_:--

"Did you say the stars were worlds, Tess?"

"Yes."

"All like ours?"

"I don't know; but I think so. They sometimes seem to me like

the apples on our stubbard-tree. Most of them splendid and

sound--a few blighted."

"Which do we live on--a splendid one, or a blighted one?"

"A blighted one."

Or, turn to the works of George Eliot. No prophet of righteousness ever

bound sin and its consequences more firmly together, or proclaimed with

more solemn emphasis the certainty of the evil-doer's doom. "Our deeds

are like children that are born to us," she says; "nay, children may be

strangled, but deeds never"--this is the note one hears through all her

books. If we have done wrong, it is in vain we cry for mercy. We are

taken by the throat and delivered over to the tormentors until we have

paid the uttermost farthing.

"The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,

Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit

Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,

Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it."

And this is all that writers such as these have to say to us.

Retribution they know, but not Redemption. "There are no arresting

angels in the path"--only the Angel of Justice with the drawn sword.

But this is not the teaching of Jesus concerning sin. He is not blind,

and if we give ear to Him He will not suffer us to be blind, either to

its character or its consequences; but He says that sin can be forgiven,

and its iron bondage broken. Jesus believed in the recoverability of man

at his worst. It is a fact significant of much that the first mention of

sin in the New Testament is in a prophecy of its destruction: "Thou

shalt call His name Jesus; for it is He that shall save His people from

their sins." And throughout the first three Gospels sin is named almost

exclusively in connection with its forgiveness.[36] What Christ hath

joined together let no man put asunder. Herein is the very gospel of

God, that Christ came not to condemn the world, but that the world,

through Him, might be saved. "Do you know what Christ would say to you,

my girl?" said a missionary to a poor girl dying. "He would say, 'Thy

sins are forgiven thee.'" "Would He, though, would He?" she cried,

starting up; "take me to Him, take me to Him." Yes, thank God, we know

what to do with our sin; we know what we must do to be saved.

Let us go back again for a moment over the ground we have already

travelled. We are in debt, with nothing to pay; but Christ has taken the

long account, and has crossed it through and through. We are in bondage,

with no power to set ourselves free; but Christ has come to rend the

iron chain and proclaim deliverance to the captives. We are wrong, wrong

within, wrong at the core; but again He is equal to our need, for

concerning Him it is written that He shall take away not only the "sins"

but the "sin" of the world. Is anything too hard for Him? Just as a

lover of pictures will sometimes discover a portrait, the work of an old

master, marred and disfigured by the dirt and neglect of years, and will

patiently cleanse and retouch it, till the lips seem to speak again, and

the old light shines in the eyes, and all its hidden glory is revealed

once more, so does Christ bring out the Divine image, hidden but never

lost, in the sinful souls of men. And all this He can do for all men;

for Christ knows no hopeless ones.

One of the saddest sights in a great city is its hospital for

incurables. Who can think but with a pang of pity and of pain of

these--old men and little children joined in one sad fellowship--for

whom the physician's skill has done its best and failed, for whom now

nothing remains save to suffer and to die? But in the world's great

hospital of ailing souls, where every day the Good Physician walks,

there is no incurable ward. He lays His hands on the sick, and they are

healed; He touches the eyes of the blind, and they see; unto the leper

as white as snow his flesh comes again as the flesh of a little child;

even souls that are dead through their trespasses and sins He restores

to life. But never, never does He turn away from any, saying, "Thou art

too far gone; there is nothing that I can do for thee." "I spake to Thy

disciples," cried the father of the child which had a dumb spirit, "I

spake to Thy disciples that they should cast it out; and they were not

able." "Bring him unto Me," said Jesus. Then He rebuked the unclean

spirit, saying unto him, "Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I command thee,

come out of him and enter no more into him." Verily, with authority He

commandeth even the unclean spirits and they obey Him.

Therefore let us despair of no man; therefore let no man despair of

himself. If we will, we can; we can, because Christ will. "I was

before," says St. Paul, "a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious;

howbeit I obtained mercy." "I am a wretched captive of sin," cries

Samuel Rutherford, "yet my Lord can hew heaven out of worse timber."

There is no unpardonable sin--none, at least, save the sin of refusing

the pardon which avails for all sin. "'Mine iniquity is greater than can

be forgiven.'[37] No, Cain, thou errest; God's mercy is far greater,

couldst thou ask mercy. Men cannot be more sinful than God is merciful

if, with penitent hearts, they will call upon Him."

We have all read of the passing of William MacLure in Ian Maclaren's

touching idyll. "A'm gettin' drowsy," said the doctor to Drumsheugh,

"read a bit tae me." Then Drumsheugh put on his spectacles, and searched

for some comfortable Scripture. Presently he began to read: "In My

Father's house are many mansions;" but MacLure stopped him. "It's a

bonnie word," he said, "but it's no' for the like o' me. It's ower guid;

a' daurna tak' it." Then he bid Drumsheugh shut the book and let it open

of itself, and he would find the place where he had been reading every

night for the last month. Drumsheugh did as he was bidden, and the book

opened at the parable wherein the Master tells what God thinks of a

Pharisee and a penitent sinner. And when he came to the words, "And the

publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes to

heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a

sinner," once more the dying man stopped him: "That micht hae been

written for me, Paitrick, or ony ither auld sinner that hes feenished

his life, an' hes naething tae say for himsel."

Nothing to say for ourselves--that is what it comes to, when we know the

truth about ourselves. And when at last our mouth is stopped, when our

last poor plea is silenced, when with penitent and obedient hearts we

seek the mercy to which from the first we have been utterly shut up,

then indeed we

"have found the ground wherein

Sure our soul's anchor may remain."

"Not by works done in righteousness, which we did ourselves, but

according to His mercy He saved us."

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