'For Thy name's sake, O Lord, pardon mine iniquity; for it is
great.'--PSALM xxv. 11.
The context shows us that this is the prayer of a man who had long loved
and served God. He says that 'on God' he 'waits all the day,' that his
'eyes are ever toward the Lord,' that he has 'integrity and uprightness'
which will 'preserve him, for he waits upon God,' and yet side by side
with this consciousness of devotion and service there lie the profound
sense of sin and of the need of pardon. The better a man is, the more
clearly he sees, and the more deeply he feels, his own badness. If a
shoe is all covered with mud, a splash or two more or less will make no
difference, but if it be polished and clean, one speck shows. A black
feather on a swan's breast is conspicuous. And so the less sin a man has
the more obvious it is, and the more he has the less he generally knows
it. But whilst this consciousness of transgression and cry for pardon
are inseparable and permanent accompaniments of a devout life all along
its course, they are the roots and beginning of all true godliness. And
as a rule, the first step which a man takes to knit himself consciously
to God is through the gate of recognised and repeated and confessed sin
and imploring the divine mercy.