spring in a man's heart, the seraph's wings are set in motion. Remember
that beautiful old story in the historical books, of how the erring
king, brought to sanity and repentance by Nathan's apologue, put all his
acknowledgments in these words, 'I have sinned against the Lord'; and
how the confession was not out of his lips, nor had died in its
vibration in the atmosphere, before the prophet, with divine authority,
replied with equal brevity and completeness, and as if the two sayings
were parts of one sentence, '_And_ the Lord hath made to pass the
iniquity of thy sin.' That is all. Simultaneous are the two things. To
confess is to be forgiven, and the moment that the consciousness of sin
rises in the heart, that moment does the heavenly messenger come to
still and soothe.

Still further, notice how the cleansing comes as a divine gift. It is
purifying, much more than pardon, that is set forth in the symbolical
incident before us. The seraph is the divine messenger, and he brings a
coal from the altar, and lays that upon the prophet's lips, which is but
the symbolical way of saying that the man who is conscious of his own
evil will find in himself a blessed despair of being his own healer, and
that he has to turn to the divine source, the vision of which has
kindled the consciousness, to find there that which will take away the
evil. The Lord is 'He that healeth us.'

But, further, the cleansing is by fire. By which, as I suppose, in the
present context, and at Isaiah's stage of religious knowledge and
experience, we are to understand that great thought that God burns away
our sins, as you put a piece of foul clay into the fire, and the stain
melts from the surface like a dissipating cloud as the heat finds its
way into the substance. 'He will baptize with the Holy Ghost and with
fire'--a fire that quickens. A new impulse will be granted, which will