d the curtains,
and waited. Presently the little one came into the room, and going
straight up to some peaches that were on the table, she took one of them
away with her! Oh, the agony in that mother heart! She did not speak to
her child, but standing where she was, she spoke to God her Father, and
asked _Him_ so fervently to speak to her child. God heard that cry, and
in a little while the sound of the pattering feet was heard on the stair
again. The child came into the room, not knowing her mother was there,
and going on tip-toe over to the table she put the peach in the place
from which she had taken it. As she turned away with a radiant face,
rubbing her hands with delight, her mother heard her say, "Sold again,
Satan! Sold again, Satan!" That's victory! Yes, the cleansing means that
and more than that. "We are _more than_ conquerors," for when Jesus
cleanses the heart, He cleanses the springs of action and being, so that
our very desires are purified; the desire to sin, the "want to," is taken
clean away. This is coming off "more than conquerors through Him that
loved us" (Rom. viii. 37). Glory to His name! The man now "wants to" do
the will of God. He "likes" what God likes. "I thought you could do what
you liked," was the taunt hurled by a young man at a friend of his who
enjoyed full salvation on his refusing to go to the theater. "I thought
you told me you could do what you liked?" "So I can." "Why, then, won't
you come with me as I asked you?" "Because I don't like," was the
rejoinder. The only men on earth who enjoy perfect freedom are the men
who have clean hearts, for they not only know that they _ought_ to do the
will of God, but they _want_ to do it and they _like_ to do it and
moreover they have a power that _enables_ them to do it. On the other
hand, in our jails and hospitals you will find people who thought that
they could do as they liked, but they have discovered that they were
mistaken.

_Cleansing: a Crisis_

But how am I to get this clean heart? Peter answers, "Cleansing their
hearts _by faith_" (Acts xv. 9). Cleansing is God's work, and the
condition on which God will do His work is "faith" on our part. There is
only one way of getting anything from God, and that is by faith. One
obtained forgiveness and the new birth by faith, and one obtains
cleansing of the heart by faith too. You may, you will, get "cleansing"
the moment you definitely _trust_ Christ for it. "We aye get what we gang
in f