the reception of the religion of Redemption. In relation to the Redeemer,
the sinful soul should be a vacuum, a hollow void, destitute of
everything holy and good, conscious that it is, and aching to be filled
with the fulness of His peace and purity.

And with reference to God, the Being whose function it is to pardon, we
see the same necessity for this child-like spirit in the transgressor.
How can God administer forgiveness, unless there is a correlated temper
to receive it? His particular declarative act in blotting out sin depends
upon the existence of penitence for sin. Where there is absolute hardness
of heart, there can be no pardon, from the very nature of the case, and
the very terms of the statement. Can God say to the hardened Judas:
Son be of good cheer, thy sin is forgiven thee? Can He speak to the
traitor as He speaks to the Magdalen? The difficulty is not upon the side
of God. The Divine pity never lags behind any genuine human sorrow. No
man was ever more eager to be forgiven than his Redeemer is to forgive
him. No contrition for sin, upon the part of man, ever yet outran the
readiness and delight of God to recognize it, and meet it with a free
pardon. For, that very contrition itself is always the product of Divine
grace, and proves that God is in advance of the soul. The father in the
parable saw the son while he was a great way off, _before_ the son saw
him, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. But while this is so,
and is an encouragement to the penitent, it must ever be remembered that
unless there is some genuine sorrow in the human soul, there can be no
manifestation of the Divine forgiveness within it. Man cannot beat the
air, and God cannot forgive impenitency.

II. In the second place, the New Testament religion proposes _to create
within man a clean heart, and to renew within him a right spirit_.
Christianity not only pardons but sanctifies the human soul. And in
accomplishing this latter work, it requires the same humble and docile
temper that was demanded in the former instance.

Holiness, even in an unfallen angel, is not an absolutely self-originated
thing. If it were, the angel would be worthy of adoration and worship. He
who is inwardly and totally excellent, and can also say: I am what I am
by my own ultimate authorship, can claim for himself the _glory_ that is
due to righteousness. Any self-originated and self-subsistent virtue is
entitled to the hallelujahs. But, no created