" Rom. xi. 10.]

[Footnote 6: DANTE: Purgatory x. 126-128.]

THE SIN OF OMISSION.

Matthew xix. 20.--"The young man saith unto him, All these things have I
kept from my youth up: what lack I yet?"

The narrative from which the text is taken is familiar to all readers of
the Bible. A wealthy young man, of unblemished morals and amiable
disposition, came to our Lord, to inquire His opinion respecting his own
good estate. He asked what good thing he should do, in order to inherit
eternal life. The fact that he applied to Christ at all, shows that he
was not entirely at rest in his own mind. He could truly say that he had
kept the ten commandments from his youth up, in an outward manner; and
yet he was ill at ease. He was afraid that when the earthly life was
over, he might not be able to endure the judgment of God, and might fail
to enter into that happy paradise of which the Old Testament Scriptures
so often speak, and of which he had so often read, in them. This young
man, though a moralist, was not a self-satisfied or a self-conceited
one. For, had he been like the Pharisee a thoroughly blinded and
self-righteous person, like him he never would have approached Jesus of
Nazareth, to obtain His opinion respecting his own religious character
and prospects. Like him, he would have scorned to ask our Lord's judgment
upon any matters of religion. Like the Pharisees, he would have said, "We
see,"[1] and the state of his heart and his future prospects would have
given him no anxiety. But he was not a conceited and presumptuous
Pharisee. He was a serious and thoughtful person, though not a pious and
holy one. For, he did not love God more than he loved his worldly
possessions. He had not obeyed that first and great command, upon which
hang all the law and the prophets, conformity to which, alone,
constitutes righteousness: "Thou shalt _love_ the Lord thy God with all
thy heart, and all thy soul, and all thy mind, and all thy strength." He
was not right at heart, and was therefore unprepared for death and
judgment. This he seems to have had some dim apprehension of. For why, if
he had felt that his external morality was a solid rock for his feet to
stand upon, why should he have betaken himself to Jesus of Nazareth, to
ask: "What lack I yet?"

It was not what he had done, but what he had left undone, that wakened
fears and forebodings in this young ruler's mind. The outward observance
of the ten commandments was ri