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"Whiter than snow!" What can be whiter than newly fallen snow? You have seen it in the first early light of the morning, before it has been stained by the world, and it has been so dazzlingly pure that it has made your weak eyes smart with the brilliance. It stretches out before you clean and white as an angel's wing. Then the city awakes. Its fires are lighted. Its chimneys pour out continuous streams of smoke. The atmosphere becomes thick and heavy, and dirty. A thousand impurities pass over the white snow-robes, and leave the black impressions of their unclean feet. It loses all its radiance. It becomes more and more impure, until at last it becomes the uncleanest of all things, dirty snow. Now, the whiteness of the snow is our type and symbol of innocence. We speak and think of the little ones as innocent, and when we wish to express their purity, we use the figure of nature's purity, and declare them "white as snow." But the snow is soon soiled. Innocence is soon lost. The foul air of worldliness is breathed upon it, and its white lustre is gone. Well, now, placed in that atmosphere, what does the Lord expect of us? Does He expect us to retain our whiteness? Yea, we have to keep our garments undefiled. His purpose is that we should pass through temptation, and yet stand before Him at last "not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing." The demand of our religion is that we keep ourselves "unspotted from the world." Our Master prayed that we might be in the world, and yet not of it; in the world but not worldly; not merely walking in innocence, but in the more perfect whiteness of holiness. Now, can that be realized? Take the life of a business man in these days when there is such a terrible strain in the procuring of daily bread. There is, in business circles to-day, an immense quantity of defiling pitch. Can any man keep himself white and unspotted? Again and again I have heard the answer, "No, it is impracticable and impossible. A man must be spotted; he cannot keep himself white, and if he is wise he will go into the world with garments that will show spots as little as possible, garments as near the world's colour as he is able to procure." So much for the business man's life. Now, take a minister's life. A minister can sell his honour to gain the bread of applause. He can be besmirched by flattery. He can be lured by a false ambition. He is beset by innumerable temptations to worldliness. Can the Master's ideal be realized? Can he keep his garments white? Can we appeal to experience both for the minister and the business man? I do not believe in that sweeping condemnation of business men, which proclaims them all to be a spotted flock. There are men who in their business life keep their hands as clean and their hearts as tender as when they pray, or as when they talk to their little child. Social life with all its uncleanness is illumined by souls who walk in spotless white. The ministry is adorned by many men whose hands and hearts are undefiled. There are souls who wear the white flower of a blameless life. But even if we had no such examples of.pure and spotless lives, to which we could make appeal, we have still before us the Word of God, with its clear demand for spotless purity. The Bible never makes a compromise. It never lowers its standard. Jesus of Nazareth passed through our world unspotted, with garments whiter than snow. He lived our common life. He experienced our infirmities. He was beset with temptations, hedged about by worldliness. He felt the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them. I ask, how was it accomplished, that in a corrupt and sinful world He kept Himself unspotted from the world? I turn to the simple record of His life, and there is one outstanding feature which impresses me deeply from beginning to end. I am impressed with Jesus' overwhelming sense of the reality of God's immediate and continual presence. He carried about His own atmosphere. So did Paul. So do all true followers of Christ. We must carry about with us the atmosphere of heaven if we are to escape defilement from the atmosphere of earth.

(J. H. Jowett, M. A.)

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KJV: Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

WEB: Purify me with hyssop, and I will be clean. Wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.