174 



THE OLIVE LEAF. CHAP. 



assemble at the door of the tabernacle, who are diligent 

 in the performance of every religious duty, and have a 

 pious reputation among their fellow men when they 

 gaze into this looking-glass have to confess that they are 

 vile and polluted, and that their own righteousness is as 

 filthy rags. In the courts of God's house the visions of 

 their own comeliness which please them in human 

 society are dispelled, and they learn lessons of a hum- 

 bling but wholesome nature, and are conscious that He 

 who looks at the heart cannot be deceived by the 

 appearances which impose upon man. So was it with 

 the godly men of old who in the truest sense assembled 

 at the door of the tabernacle, and had communion with 

 God face to face. Job had been considered and called 

 a perfect man comparatively ; he stood the severe tests 

 to which Satan had subjected him, and was proved to 

 be true gold. But the revelation of heaven disclosed 

 the dross that was mingled with it, and caused him to 

 exclaim, " I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the 

 ear, but now mine eye seeth Thee, wherefore I abhor 

 myself and repent in dust and ashes." A similar effect 

 was produced upon the mind of Isaiah by the vision of 

 God's holiness in the temple. He had previously 

 denounced the iniquity of Israel, as if he himself had 

 nothing to do with it, as one standing on a pedestal 

 high above its polluting waves; but now he realizes 

 that he himself is personally and deeply implicated in 

 it, and he cries out in great distress of soul, " Woe is 

 me ! for I am undone ; because I am a man of unclean 

 lips, and I dwell among a people of unclean lips, for 



