ch. It is at such a time as this that the
soul sees the entire fabric of its vain confidences and hopes crumbling
like a cloud-palace, and turns from it all--as Mary from the sepulchre,
where her hopes lay entombed, to find Jesus standing with the
resurrection glory on his face and radiant love in his eyes.

For purposes of clear thinking it is well to discriminate in our use of
the words Repentance and Penitence, using the former of the first act
of the will, when, energized and quickened by the Spirit of God, it
turns from dead works to serve the living and true God; and the latter,
of the emotions which are powerfully wrought upon, as the years pass,
by the Spirit's presentation of all the pain and grief which our sin
has caused, and is causing, to our blessed Lord. We repent once, but
are penitents always. We repent in the will; we are penitent in the
heart. We repent, and believe the Gospel; we believe the Gospel of the
Son of Man, and as we look on Him, whom our sins have pierced, we
mourn. We repent when we obey his call to come unto Him and live; we
are penitent as we stand behind Him weeping, and begin to wash his feet
with our tears, and to wipe them with the hair of our head.

If John the Baptist has never wrought his work in you, be sure to open
your heart to his piercing voice. Let him fulfil his ministry. See
that you do not reject the counsel of God, as it proceeds from his
lips; but expose your soul to its searching scrutiny, and allow it to
have free and uninterrupted course. He comes to prepare the way of the
Lord, and to make through the desert of our nature a highway for our
God. Of course, if, from the earliest you have been under the nurture
of pious parents, and your young heart turned to God in the early dawn
of consciousness, you will not pass through these experiences as those
must who have spent years in the service of Satan. For these there is
but one word--Repent! They must, in a moment of time, take up an
entirely different attitude to God and holiness, to Christ and his
salvation.

II. THE SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS OF REPENTANCE.--(1) _Confession_. "They
were baptized of him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins." What
this precisely means it is not possible to say in detail; but it is not
improbable that beneath the strong pressure of inward remorse and
bitterness of spirit, men of notoriously bad life, as well as those who
had never abandoned themselves to the mad currents