x. THE LOOKING-GLASS AND THE LAYER. 181 



God. No penitential tears can wash away the stain 

 of a single sin. The waters of baptism may flow over 

 us ; the wine of the sacramental cup may be adminis- 

 tered; penances and mortifications may be had recourse 

 to, but all in vain; our crimson and scarlet sins will 

 prove indelible throughout all the painful process. 



Our Lord sent the blind man, whose eyes He 

 opened, to the pool of Siloam, that he might wash, 

 and- thus have his cure completed. The first object 

 which his newly-acquired vision beheld was his own 

 image reflected in the water. And is not this circum- 

 stance a type of what Jesus does still in the miracle 

 of grace ? It is the washing in His own blood that 

 completely cures our blindness, and enables us to see 

 ourselves as we truly are. The laver in which we 

 are washed becomes the mirror in which we see our 

 own reflection ; and the mirror of self-complacency, 

 in which hitherto we sought to see visions of our 

 own comeliness whereof to glory in the flesh, is con- 

 verted into the fountain of life in which the discovery 

 of our own vileness is overborne by the discovery of 

 the surpassing, all-compensating loveliness of Him in 

 whom God sees no iniquity in Jacob, and no per- 

 verseness in Israel. Formerly hearers of the word, 

 but not doers of it, we were like a man beholding 

 his natural face in a glass ; " for he beholdeth himself 

 and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what 

 manner of man he was." But now, washed in the 

 blood of Jesus, sanctified by His Spirit, made new 

 creatures in Him, " we all with open face beholding 



