e! "Me," the human soul, the
subject of religion, the field where the work of religion is to be
wrought out! "Sin," the obstacle to religion, the source of all our
moral failure, the cause of our alienation from God! And "mercy," the
agent of religion, the form of energy which accomplishes our recovery!
God be merciful to me, a sinner.

This young man of good fortune stood up in the temple in the presence
of his fellows making his open confession of moral need. "Woe is me
for I am undone. I am a man of unclean lips."

In that very hour when this honest confession came from his lips his
life was cleansed by the direct action of the divine spirit. He saw
one of the winged seraphs flying towards him through the open spaces of
Heaven. The angel took a live coal from the altar and laid it upon the
lips of this young man. He cried out as he did it, saying, "Thine
iniquity is taken away. Thy sin is purged." Isaiah was no more a man
of unclean lips--he could now speak with that Lord whose name is Holy
as friend speaks with friend.

We have this profound moral experience dressed up in those grand,
Oriental robes which were dear to the people of that region. But when
you strip away the silk, the lace, and the feathers of Eastern imagery,
and get down to the bare, warm truth, this is what you find--a man
whose sense of moral lack had prompted that open confession, cleansed
in that high hour by the direct action of the divine spirit upon his
soul.

Here is that which is basic and fundamental in all religious life! I
wonder if we have not been tempted in recent years to obscure this
vital experience. We have held those two big words, "Heredity" and
"Environment," so close to our eyes as to blind us, oftentimes, to the
larger vision of that which is superhuman in earthly experience.

It is possible for the inner life of a man to be so wrought upon by the
action of the spirit of God that the corrupt nature is cleansed, the
weak nature is made strong, the selfish disposition is transformed into
benign love.

It matters little how you go about it, if you go with sincere faith.
You may seek for that renewal through the regenerating influence of the
Sacraments dear to the heart of the Romanist and the High Churchman.
If you find it there, it will be because Christ is within the
Sacrament. You may seek for it in those profound emotional reactions
which come at the Methodist mourners' bench. If you find it there, it
w