thoughts to the higher things, as how to keep themselves pure by pious exercises and works of mercy, but who alack! who of us is sinless? If we say we are without sin, the truth is not in us. So earthly are we that the first stage in our progress toward God will be to emerge from the black pit of sin into the light and life of grace. We must first come up into God's kingdom on earth, and drawing our Jacob's ladder after us, plant it there anew and resume our journey heavenward. We plant it and reverse it. Under the stress of manifold tribulations we turn prayerfully to God and so emerge chastened and cleansed from sin, but our farther progress upward will be by the same steps reversed, a watchfulness against defilement, a less selfish, a higher and a holier form of prayer and a complete abandonment of self in the interest of humanity and of God. For " this is religion clean and undefiled before God and the Father, to watch and pray and to visit the widows and the orphans and comfort them in their tribulation."
