ave
prayed, and I have resolved, but the will finds its way back into the
old channels, and is keeping alive the past before I know it."

Look at our parable. If you picked off one of the dead leaves and
examined the leaf-stalk through a microscope, you would find that the
old channel is silted up by a barrier invisible to the naked eye. The
plant has shut the door on the last year's leaf, condemning it to
decay, and soon without further effort the stalk loosens, the winds
of God play around it, and it falls away.

But where is the barrier that we can place between ourselves and the
old nature? Where is the sentence of death that we can pass upon it?

Back to the Cross again! It is there, within our reach. "Our old man
is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that
henceforth we should not serve sin; for he that is dead is freed from
sin."

Death to Sin is the Way Out into a Life of Holiness.

The Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ shuts off the life of sin; like
the silted-up channel, it stands a blessed invisible barrier between
us and sinning, as we "reckon" it there: that is, hold it there by
faith and will. And His open grave is the open way into a life,
wherein our rising powers can develop into all their spring vigour.

The sap--the will--the "ego"--is withdrawn from the former existence,
its aims and desires, and is sent into the new. It is given over to
the other side: we hold to it that this is now our life, the only one
that has the right to be. We reckon ourselves dead to the old; we
reckon ourselves alive to the new; "putting off" the former, "putting
on" the latter.

Take a practical instance. An old habit of doubting and fearing
asserts itself in your soul, alive and strong. You have two things to
do. Close the door upon the doubt: shut your eyes to it: reckon
yourself dead to it.

And then reckon into life the new-born growth of faith in your soul,
and put all your force into believing: lift up your eyes to the God
in Whom you believe: believe in the teeth of everything, as if the
cause for doubt were not there. Then the sap, ceasing from feeding
the old shoot, will flow into the new.

But is it an act, or a gradual process, this "putting off the old
man?" It is both. It is a resolve taken once for all, but carried out
in detail day by day. The first hour that the sap begins to withdraw,
and the leaf-stalk begins to silt up, the leaf's fate is sealed:
there is never a mo