wer usually given, simply that we are "cold," will not explain
all the facts. There is something more serious than coldness of heart,
something that may be back of that coldness and be the cause of its
existence. What is it? What but the presence of _a veil in our hearts_?
a veil not taken away as the first veil was, but which remains there
still shutting out the light and hiding the face of God from us. It is
the veil of our fleshly fallen nature living on, unjudged within us,
uncrucified and unrepudiated. It is the close-woven veil of the
self-life which we have never truly acknowledged, of which we have been
secretly ashamed, and which for these reasons we have never brought to
the judgment of the cross. It is not too mysterious, this opaque veil,
nor is it hard to identify. We have but to look in our own hearts and we
shall see it there, sewn and patched and repaired it may be, but there
nevertheless, an enemy to our lives and an effective block to our
spiritual progress.

This veil is not a beautiful thing and it is not a thing about which we
commonly care to talk, but I am addressing the thirsting souls who are
determined to follow God, and I know they will not turn back because the
way leads temporarily through the blackened hills. The urge of God
within them will assure their continuing the pursuit. They will face the
facts however unpleasant and endure the cross for the joy set before
them. So I am bold to name the threads out of which this inner veil is
woven.

It is woven of the fine threads of the self-life, the hyphenated sins of
the human spirit. They are not something we do, they are something we
_are_, and therein lies both their subtlety and their power.

To be specific, the self-sins are these: self-righteousness, self-pity,
self-confidence, self-sufficiency, self-admiration, self-love and a host
of others like them. They dwell too deep within us and are too much a
part of our natures to come to our attention till the light of God is
focused upon them. The grosser manifestations of these sins, egotism,
exhibitionism, self-promotion, are strangely tolerated in Christian
leaders even in circles of impeccable orthodoxy. They are so much in
evidence as actually, for many people, to become identified with the
gospel. I trust it is not a cynical observation to say that they appear
these days to be a requisite for popularity in some sections of the
Church visible. Promoting self under the guise of promoting