To be near unto God - pagina 412

fessed ''childship"

from

is

not "stolen goods". But apart that the most faithful chil-

this, it is certain,

dren of God are continually engaged in bitter combat, because there is still so much impurity in their hearts, which every time again is a stain upon their lives. Even this is not all. It must be confessed that not infrequently two men or two women stand side by side in life, one of whom zealously works for Christ while the other rejects him, and that, when the test is applied of purity of heart

and behavior, the confessor

of Jesus

is

put to shame by the denier of Christ. This is grievous for the faith; and is to be mourned with tears. It must not, however, be ignored. David did not do so, neither did St. Paul. "The good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do" (Rom. 7:19). And in all ages this sore battle has been waged in the church of Christ. Hypocrites, false brethren, stand outside of this. They are not reckoned with here. Among true confessors, age on age, the same complaint has been current. It is even worked out sometimes into a sinful system of the old and the new Adam, even as Maeterlinck is doing now from his viewpoint of unbelief. But however it may be experienced, interpreted or explained, the phenomenon shows itself every time: there is true, sincere confession, there is faith of the right sort, and with it there is a hopeless struggle with the impurity of the heart. To be pure in heart moreover is mostly misunderstood, as though it referred exclusively to purity from sensual sin. The voluptuary is then called unclean, the man who drinks to excess, the epicure, the miser, the effeminate. And cer408

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