Separation from the world is an inward process; it takes place in the heart, and cannot therefore be perceived by a man’s most intimate friends.  But the forsaking of God’s cause is the outward expression of this process, the manner whereby it becomes known to all the world.  If it is asked why we assert that Demas had forsaken God, the answer is evident; it is because he forsook Paul, who was the representative of God’s cause.

This is never the work of a day, though it may sometimes appear such.  A professedly religious man commits a flagrant act of sin—­or perhaps a punishable crime—­which places him at once among the open enemies of religion.  We wonder at it; we say in our minds, “What a sudden change! yesterday a saint, to-day an unmitigated villain!” But are we right in saying so?  Certainly not.  That rash act was simply the culmination of a process that had been going on through a long period.  The man had been sailing towards the rapids for months, or perhaps years, only the fact was unobserved; it was not until he was hurled headlong over the precipice into the foaming gulf, that the attention of the world was attracted to it.