nd there, as he passes along, he is
justified in inferring that a vast central fire is burning beneath the
whole region. In like manner, when man discovers, as he watches the
phenomena of his conscience, that guilt every now and then emerges like a
flash of flame into consciousness, filling him with fear and
distress,--when he finds that he has no security against this invasion,
but that in an hour when he thinks not, and commonly when he is weakest
and faintest, in his moments of danger or death, it stings him and wounds
him, he is justified in inferring, and he must infer, that the deep places
of his spirit, the whole _potentiality_ of his soul is full of crime.

Now, in no condition of the soul is there greater need of the agency of
the Comforter (O well named the Comforter), than when all this latency is
suddenly manifested to a man. When this deluge of discovery comes in, all
the billows of doubt, fear, terror, and despair roll over the soul, and
it sinks in the deep waters. The sense of guilt,--that awful guilt, which
the man has carried about with him for many long years, and which he has
trifled with,--now proves too great for him to control. It seizes him
like a strong-armed man. If he could only believe that the blood of the
Lamb of God expiates all this crime which is so appalling to his mind, he
would be at peace instantaneously. But he is unable to believe this. His
sin, which heretofore looked too small to be noticed, now appears too
great to be forgiven. Other men may be pardoned, but not he. He
_despairs_ of mercy; and if he should be left to the natural workings of
his own mind; if he should not be taught and assisted by the Holy Ghost,
in this critical moment, to behold the Lamb of God; he would despair
forever. For this sense of ill-desert, this fearful looking-for of
judgment and fiery indignation, with which he is wrestling, is organic to
the conscience, and the human will has no more power over it than it has
over the sympathetic nerve. Only as he is taught by the Divine Spirit, is
he able with perfect calmness to look up from this brink of despair, and
say: "There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. The
blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin. Therefore, being justified
by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. I know
whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which
I have committed unto him against that day."

In view of the trut