be all washed and have never been right
in heart towards Him.

These present stains, then, Christ seeks to remove, that our fellowship
with Him may be unembarrassed; and that our heart, restored to humility
and tenderness, may be in a state to receive the blessing He would
bestow. It is not enough to be once forgiven, to begin the day "clean
every whit." No sooner do we take a step in the life of the day than our
footfall raises a little puff of dust which does not settle without
sullying us. Our temper is ruffled, and words fall from our lips that
injure and exasperate. In one way or other stain attaches to our
conscience, and we are moved away from cordial and open fellowship with
Christ. All this happens to those who are at heart as truly Christ's
friends as those first disciples. But we must have these stains washed
away even as they had. Humbly we must own them, and humbly accept their
forgiveness and rejoice in their removal. As these men had with shame to
lay their feet in Christ's hands, so must we. As His hands had to come
in contact with the soiled feet of the disciples, so has His moral
nature to come in contact with the sins from which He cleanses us. His
heart is purer than were His hands, and He shrinks more from contact
with moral than with physical pollution; and yet without ceasing we
bring Him into contact with such pollution. When we consider what those
stains actually are from which we must ask Christ to wash us, we feel
tempted to exclaim with Peter, "Lord, Thou shalt never wash my feet!" As
these men must have shivered with shame through all their nature, so do
we when we see Christ stoop before us to wash away once again the
defilement we have contracted; when we lay our feet soiled with the miry
and dusty ways of life in His sacred hands; when we see the
uncomplaining, unreproachful grace with which He performs for us this
lowly and painful office. But only thus are we prepared for communion
with Him and with one another. Only by admitting that we need cleansing,
and by humbly allowing Him to cleanse us, are we brought into true
fellowship with Him. With the humble and contrite spirit which has
thrown down all barriers of pride and freely admits His love and
rejoices in His holiness does He abide. Whoso sits down at Christ's
table must sit down clean; he may not have come clean, even as those
first guests were not clean, but he must allow Christ to cleanse him,
must honestly suffer Christ to rem