Some months since a neutral brother questioned the word “disappearance” in the above tract (p. 8 of the London ed., p. 10 in those of Manchester and of Glasgow.) Now an anonymous person calls it “blasphemy,” as if what was said imports that evil was in Christ's body some time or another!! He reasons that “disappearance from” means that the evil was in. It can only, in my opinion, be imagined to do so by an evil eye; for the sentence speaks of the moment of the immaculate conception. But if the evil, which was in the virgin's nature, “completely disappeared,” as far as the Babe was concerned, by that miraculous action of the Holy Spirit, the most perverse will cannot make the sentence say or mean that evil ever was in Christ's body. I am grieved to think that any one called a brother should like to make it so appear: why, God will manifest. If simple souls prefer for to “from,” the author has no objection. But the meaning of “from” as there used is self-evidently (not from having been in, but) from entering, the express contrary of implying that evil had been in a body which only then began to exist: as no doubt every intelligent, as well as every simple reader has understood till now. The desired misconstruction contradicts the distinct object and the uniform doctrine of the tract. It is for others to estimate the source, character, and aim of such an attack. The reader is requested to read the tract and judge for himself.
W.K.