"KEEP SHORT ACCOUNTS WITH GOD."
By Parish Visitor
If there is the smallest sin resting upon the conscience, there can be no true peace. Every sin has its shadow, and the least shadow is sufficient to come between the soul and God. The Father's smile is not the privilege, merely, but the right of each child in the divine household, and nothing but the consciousness of sin—sin unpardoned—can interfere with this privilege. How important, then, is it that the conscience should be kept free from the shadows which arise from sin unconfessed, and therefore unforgiven! We are not inclined in these days to regard confession in its true light. We look upon it as a stern and unwelcome duty, and seldom, if at all, consider it the privilege which it really is. The result is, we shrink from availing ourselves of it, and allow sins to accumulate on our conscience till their shadows grow into a thick cloud, completely hiding the Father's face. That this should be so, arises, we think, partly from the fact that we are apt to attach too large a meaning to the word itself. Confession means, simply, to admit, to acknowledge, to disclose; nothing more; whereas many seem to regard it as also implying deep sorrow for sin, and self-abasement before God—in other words, a certain condition of soul which must be arrived at, and for which they require a certain amount of time. The consequence is that, instead of taking each sin at once, as soon as they are aware of it, and transferring it from themselves to the great Sin-bearer, they wait, with its heavy load upon them, for a more convenient season, afraid and unable, meanwhile, to look up into their Father's face without his pardon and without his smile. O child of such a Father, resolve to keep "short accounts" with him! Let the moment when his Spirit within you tells you of a faint sin, be the moment for saying, "I will arise, and go to my Father, and say unto him, Father, I have sinned." That very sin has already been judged by him, when laid by him upon Christ; but he wants you to judge it and lay it upon Christ yourself. And the very moment you do this, "as far as the east is from the west," so far doth he remove that transgression from you, and pronounce you clean. Yes, "keep short accounts with God." "Let your garments be always white;" "for then shalt thou lift up thy face without spot," and shalt "have confidence, and not be ashamed before him."—Parish Visitor.