was beautiful and glad; then some dreadful tragedy occurred, the primal unity was broken up, the earth and the sky were torn asunder as we see them now, and the dewdrops of the morning are the tears that nature sheds over the sad divorce.  This wild fable is a metaphor of the truth; the beginning of all evil lies in the alienation of the spirit of man from God, in the divorce of earth from heaven; here is the final reason why the face of humanity is wet with tears.  How vividly Christ taught that all our fear and we arise out of this false relation of our spirit to the living God!  Above and beyond all, Christ recognizes the sackcloth that He may take it away.  In the anguish of his soul Job cried, “I have sinned; what shall I do unto thee, O thou Preserver of men?” Christianity is God’s full and final answer to that appeal.  In Christ we have the revelation of God’s ceaseless, immeasurable, eternal love.  In Him we have the satisfaction of God’s sovereign justice.  Our own awakened conscience feels the difficulty of absolution; it demands that sin shall not be lightly passed over; it wearies itself to find an availing sacrifice and atonement.  “Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world!” In Him, too, we have that grace which brings us into accord with the mind and government of God.  Christ reveals to us the divine ideal life; He awakens in us a passion for that life; He leads us into the power and privilege, the liberty and gladness, of that life.  He fills our imagination with the vision of His own divine loveliness; He refreshes our will from founts of unfathomable power; He fills us with courage and hope; He crowns us with victory.  “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them.”  Sin is ungodliness; Christ makes us to see light in God’s light, fills us with His love, attunes our spirit to the infinite music of His perfection.  Instead of shutting out the signs of wo, Christ followed an infinitely deeper philosophy; He arrayed Himself in the sackcloth, becoming sin for us who knew no sin, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.  We have redemption in His blood, even the forgiveness of sins; he established us in a true relation to the holy God; He restores in us the image of God; He fills us with the peace of God that passeth understanding.

Not in the spirit of a barren cynicism does Christ lay bare the ghastly wound of our nature, but as a noble physician who can purge the mortal virus which destroys us.  He has done this for thousands; He is doing it now; in these very moments He can give sweet release to all who are burdened and beaten by the dire confusion of nature.  Sin is a reality; absolution, sanctification, peace, are not less realities.  Christ’s gate is not shut to the penitent, neither does He send him empty away.  We go to Him in sackcloth, but we leave His presence in purity’s robe of snow, in honor’s stainless purple, in the heavenly blue of the holiness of truth.  The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Him, that He may give to the mourners in Zion beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.