And here, too, is the healthy act of confession. "_I acknowledged my sin unto Thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid._" He retained no single germ of the whole unclean brood. He brought them out into the light one by one, as though he were emptying a noisome kennel. He brought them out, and named them, in the awful Presence of the Lord. And here is the ministry of forgiveness, and therefore the miracle of restored health. Let me mark the rich variety of the descriptive words. "_Forgiven!_" "_Covered!_" "_Imputed not!_" It is all removed and obliterated, and the place of defilement and profanity becomes the holy temple of the Lord. SEPTEMBER The Tenth _CRITICISM AND PIETY_ "_Thinkest thou, that judgest them that do such things, that thou shalt escape?_" --ROMANS ii. 1-11. That is always my peril, to assume that by being severe with others I exculpate myself. I go on to the bench, and deliver sentence upon my brother, when my proper place is in the dock. And this is the subtlety of the snare, that I regard my criticisms and condemnations of other people as signs of my own innocence. This is the last refinement in temptation, and multitudes fall before its power. The way to moral and spiritual health is to direct my criticisms upon myself. I must stand in the dock, and hear the grave indictment of my own soul. Unless I pass through the second chapter of Romans I can never enter the fifth and sixth, and still less the glorious forgiveness of the eighth. "There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus." I pass into that warm, cheery light through the cold road of acknowledged guilt and sin. "If we confess our sins He is just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." SEPTEMBER The Eleventh _A FATAL DIVORCE_ "_They feared the Lord, and served their own gods._" --2 KINGS xvii. 24-34. And that is an old-world record, but it is quite a modern experience. The kinsmen of these ancient people are found in our own time. Men still fear one God and serve another. But something is vitally wrong when men can divorce their fear from their obedience. And the beginning of the wrong is in the fear itself. "Fear," as used in this passage, is a counterfeit coin, which does not ring true to the truth. It means only the payment of outward respect, a formal recognition, a passing nod which we give on the way to something better. It is a mere skin courtesy behind which there is no beating heart; a hollow convention in which there is no deep and sacred awe.