rised and hurt. He had served his
father these many years--his brother had wasted his substance in
riotous living. But in this passage God makes no distinction. He
places the humble consistent follower and the broken-hearted sinner on
a level. He dwells with both, with Him that is contrite, _and_ with
him that is humble. He sheds around them both the grandeur of His own
presence, and the annals of Church history are full of
exemplifications of this marvel of God's grace. By the transforming
grace of Christ men, who have done the very work of Satan, have become
as conspicuous in the service of heaven, as they were once conspicuous
in the career of guilt.

So indisputably has this been so, that men have drawn from such
instances the perverted conclusion, that if a man is ever to be a
great saint, he must first be a great sinner. God forbid brethren,
that we should ever make such an inference. But this we infer for our
own encouragement, that past sin does not necessarily preclude from
high attainments. We must "forget the things that are behind." We
must not mourn over past years of folly as if they made saintliness
impossible. Deep as we may have been once in earthliness, so deep we
may also be in penitence, and so high we may become in spirituality.

We have so many years the fewer to do our work in. Well brethren, let
us try to do it so much the faster. Christ can crowd the work of years
into hours. He did it with the dying thief. If the man who has set out
early may take his time, it certainly cannot be so with _us_ who have
lost our time. If we have lost God's bright and happy presence by our
wilfulness, what then? Unrelieved sadness? Nay, brethren, calmness,
purity, may have gone from our heart; but _all_ is not gone yet. Just
as sweetness comes from the bark of the cinnamon when it is bruised,
so can the spirit of the Cross of Christ bring beauty and holiness and
peace out of the bruised and broken heart. God dwells with the
contrite as much as with the humble.

And now brethren, to conclude, the first inference we collect from
this subject, is the danger of coming into collision with such a God
as our God. Day by day we commit sins of thought and word of which the
dull eye of man takes no cognisance. He whose name is Holy cannot pass
them by. We may elude the vigilance of a human enemy and place
ourselves beyond his reach. God fills all space--there is not a spot
in which Hi