t go on there, and at the flashing of the sudden light of
God who marks, into the midst of the idolatry, 'Hast thou seen what the
ancients of the children of Israel do in the dark, each man in the
chambers of his imagery?'

I. Think of the dark and painted chamber which we all of us carry in our
hearts.

Every man is a mystery to himself as to his fellows. With reverence, we
may say of each other as we say of God--'Clouds and darkness are round
about Him.' After all the manifestations of a life, we remain enigmas to
one another and mysteries to ourselves. For every man is no fixed
somewhat, but a growing personality, with dormant possibilities of good
and evil lying in him, which up to the very last moment of his life may
flame up into altogether unexpected and astonishing developments.
Therefore we have all to feel that after all self-examination there lie
awful depths within us which we have not fathomed; and after all our
knowledge of one another we yet do see but the surface, and each soul
dwells alone.

There is in every heart a dark chamber. Oh, brethren! there are very,
very few of us that dare tell all our thoughts and show our inmost
selves to our dearest ones. The most silvery lake that lies sleeping
amidst beauty, itself the very fairest spot of all, when drained off
shows ugly ooze and filthy mud, and all manner of creeping abominations
in the slime. I wonder what we should see if our hearts were, so to
speak, drained off, and the very bottom layer of every thing brought
into the light. Do you think you could stand it? Well, then, go to God
and ask Him to keep you from unconscious sins. Go to Him and ask Him to
root out of you the mischiefs that you do not know are there, and live
humbly and self-distrustfuliy, and feel that your only strength is:
'Hold Thou me up, and I shall be saved.' 'Hast thou seen what they do in
the _dark_?'

Still further, we may take another part of this description with
possibly permissible violence as a symbol of another characteristic of
our inward nature. The walls of that chamber were all painted with
animal forms, to which these men were bowing down. By our memory, and by
that marvellous faculty that people call the imagination, and by our
desires, we are for ever painting the walls of the inmost chambers of
our hearts with such pictures. That is an awful power which we possess,
and, alas! too often use for foul idolatries.

I do not dwell upon that, but I wish to drop o