salvation. Day and night God's hand
is heavy upon the soul; the fear and sense of the Divine displeasure is
passing through the conscience, like electric currents. The moisture,
the sweet dew of health and happiness, is turned into the drought of
summer, by this preparatory process. Then the soul acknowledges its sin,
and its iniquity it hides no longer. It confesses its transgressions unto
the Lord,--it justifies and approves of this wrath which it has
felt,--and He forgives the iniquity of its sin.

It is not a vain thing, therefore, to fear the Lord. The emotion of which
we have been discoursing, painful though it be, is remunerative. There is
something in the very experience of moral pain which brings us nigh to
God. When, for instance, in the hour of temptation, I discern God's calm
and holy eye bent upon me, and I wither beneath it, and resist the
enticement because I fear to disobey, I am brought by this chapter in my
experience into very close contact with my Maker. There has been a vivid
and personal transaction between us. I have heard him say: "If thou doest
that wicked thing thou shalt surely die; refrain from doing it, and I
will love thee and bless thee." This is the secret of the great and swift
reaction which often takes place, in the sinner's soul. He moodily and
obstinately fights against the Divine displeasure. In this state of
things, there is nothing but fear and torment. Suddenly he gives way,
acknowledges that it is a good and a just anger, no longer seeks to beat
it back from his guilty soul, but lets the billows roll over while he
casts himself upon the Divine pity. In this act and instant,--which
involves the destiny of the soul, and has millenniums in it,--when he
recognizes the justice and trusts in the mercy of God, there is a great
rebound, and through his tears he sees the depth, the amazing depth, of
the Divine compassion. For, paradoxical as it appears, God's love is best
seen in the light of God's displeasure. When the soul is penetrated by
this latter feeling, and is thoroughly sensible of its own
worthlessness,--when, man knows himself to be vile, and filthy, and fit
only to be burned up by the Divine immaculateness,--then, to have the
Great God take him to His heart, and pour out upon him the infinite
wealth of His mercy and compassion, is overwhelming. Here, the Divine
indignation becomes a foil to set off the Divine love. Read the sixteenth
chapter of Ezekiel, with an eye "purged w