July 27

"The children of Israel did secretly those things that were not right against the Lord their God."—2 Kings 17:9.

THE secret sin of Israel had its issue in open punishment. Lord, cleanse Thou me from secret faults.

I do not improve my opportunities of instruction, and therefore many of my errors are hidden from me. If only I hearkened always to conscience, and to the Book in which God's will is written out for me, and to His own Spirit who is ready to illuminate all my being, there would be no point of darkness anywhere. But I am negligent. I live in the disuse of my privileges.

Then, too, I measure myself by inadequate rules of righteousness. I ask for nothing loftier and nothing more penetrating than the maxims of thought and conduct which are current round about me. I copy the pattern set by those with whom I associate, and seldom rise above their level. And so my shortcomings and transgressions are in large measure concealed from me.

And I am biassed in my own favour, and have many palliations for sin in myself. And there is a large part of my life which is mechanical, done without attention being paid to it. And sin itself has a strange power of deceiving me. It is the mirage which looks like the shady city of palm trees. It is the apple of Sodom which looks like the fruit of Paradise.

Thus I am in peculiar danger from secret faults. I open the city gates, and let in the adversaries, and dream all the while that they are my friends whom I am welcoming back, till—what is this?—the bands play Die Wacht am Rhein, when I, poor fool, was looking for La Marseillaise. Lord, guard and screen me from myself—"myself arch-traitor to myself."