had been better we had sat all our days solitary
unless all our children are to be right with Thee. Let the day perish,
and the night wherein it was said, There is a man-child conceived. Let
that day be darkness; let not God regard it from above; neither let the
light shine upon it, unless all our house is yet to be right with God. O
my son Absalom! My son, my son Absalom! Would God I had died for thee,
O Absalom, my son, my son! But thou, O God, art Thyself a Father, and
thus hast in Thyself a Father's heart. Hear us, then, for our children,
O our Father, for such of our children as are not yet right with Thee! In
season and out of season; we shall not go up into our bed; we shall not
give sleep to our eyes nor slumber to our eyelids till we and all our
seed are right with Thee. And then how we and all our saved seed beside
us shall praise Thee and bless Thee above all the families on earth or in
heaven, and shall say: Unto Him who loved us and washed us from our sins
in His own blood, and hath bestowed upon us a free, full, and everlasting
forgiveness, and hath made us partakers of His Divine Nature, to Him be
our love and praise and service to all eternity. Amen and Amen!

CHAPTER XXVIII--EMMANUEL'S LAST CHARGE TO MANSOUL: CONCERNING THE
REMAINDERS OF SIN IN THE REGENERATE

'Hold fast till I come.'--_Our Lord_.

There are many fine things in Emmanuel's last charge to Mansoul, but by
far the best thing is the answer that He Himself there supplies to this
deep and difficult question,--to this question, namely, Why original sin
is still left to rage in the truly regenerate? Why does our Lord not
wholly extirpate sin in our regeneration? What can His reason be for
leaving their original sin to dwell in His best saints till the day of
their death? For, to use His own sad words about sin in His last charge,
nothing hurts us but sin. Nothing defiles and debases us but sin. Why,
then, does He not take our sin clean out of us at once? He could speak
the word of complete deliverance if He only would. Why, then, does He
not speak that word? That has been a mystery and a grief to all God's
saints ever since sanctification began to be. And the great interest and
the great value of Emmanuel's last charge to Mansoul stands in this, that
He here tells us, if not all, then at least some of His reasons for the
policy He pursues with us in our sanctification. Dost thou know, He
asks, as He stands on His