o which we have fallen. Two reasons for this
haste suggest themselves.

(1) First of all, the soul that desires to love will make all speed in
order that God's Name may {189} be relieved of the dishonour that
befalls it when one of His family, one called by His name, signed and
sealed as His soldier, renounces Him and gives in his allegiance to the
Devil. We can brook no delay in such a matter. How keenly sensitive
is human honour in like affairs! Let us not think that the divine
honour is a duller thing than that indefinable possession men guard as
the most sacred of all their moral treasures.

(2) Again, for our own sakes, no time is to be lost in returning to
God. Sin is a poison. Every moment the poison remains in the system
makes it more difficult to expel. It is absorbed and carried to every
part of the body, working wherever it touches with deadly effect. If
we should take a poisonous draught by mistake, how instant we should be
that we might be rid of it. How much more insistent should we be that
the poison whose effects are eternal should not be given time for its
deadly work.

It is at this point that Satan's temptation comes in. "What is the
use?" he whispers, "you will sin again." So does he try to discourage
us, and the soul who thinks only of self is apt to stop and listen.
Not so with him whose penitence has its root in love; not so with him
who feels keenly that his act has dishonoured a loving, tender Father
and Friend. He will not brood over his {190} fall, for he knows that
every hour of such weak repining is an hour of added sin. He will
sweep the temptation aside, and cry with strong resolution, "I will
arise and go to my Father!" For he knows that if he waits, the numbing
influence of the poison will creep into heart and will, and that after
a time he may have neither desire nor power to repent.

We must not leave this subject, however, without finding a reply to
Satan's suggestion,--"It is of no use; you will sin again." Many a
soul has been entrapped by it. Many a one, through fear of future
failure, has been held back from righting the present wrong. But to
yield to such a fear is to commit a special offence against the Holy
Ghost. No promise is more constant in Holy Scripture than that if we
rise in the strength He will give us, go forward again, and set no
special task for ourselves beyond just doing the best we can, He will
keep and sustain us. "He shall give His angels