BE CLEAN by Wm. A. Westworth

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 20, 1900

BE CLEAN.

By Wm. A. Westworth

WM. A. WESTWORTH.

OUTCAST, a wanderer, lone and forsaken, Torn from companions, thrust from his home, Outside the city's gates, hungry and naked, Crying, “unclean!”—a leper to roam.

Hark! in the distance a strange hum of voices. See! down the mountain side multitudes stray. Why this commotion, and wherefore this surging? Listen! “The Saviour is coming this way.”

Hope, almost dead, and long since forgotten, Wakens, and, changed into faith, cries aloud. On toward his Lord the leper now hastens, Heedless of threats and rebukes from the “crowd.”

Breathless and helpless, he reaches the Saviour; Falls at his feet in contrition of soul; Cries out in his anguish of body and spirit, “Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me whole.”

“I will; be thou clean.” The leper is pardoned: Sin and disease all are banished away. The love of the Master changed pain into gladness, Tears to rejoicing, and night into day.

Brother, has sin drawn you far from the Father? Doubts and despair made you leprous and lost? Has Satan beguiled you? have habits enslaved you? And, robbed of its guide, is your bark tempest tossed?

Look! even now your Lord is come near you. Healing and love you can find at his feet. Let him speak, “Be thou clean,” to your soul in its sadness, And rejoice in his pardoning mercy so sweet.

Oh the joy! oh the rapture! to know he has cleansed you; To receive from your Saviour new life in the soul; To hear from his lips the rebuke to the tempter, And know, by his power, that you now are made whole.