(For the Young.)
How softly the snow-flakes fall! how white and pure they look! How soon the brown earth disappears, and the very mud heaps are turned to whiteness! The leafless hedge, the naked tree, the dark green meadow, the new-made grave, the red tiled roof, the smoke-dried thatch, all wear one color and one covering; one mantle clothes them all, hides all defects, smoothes all roughness’s, rounds off all points and angles, makes the darkest objects white, the dirtiest clean, the dullest bright, and the most commonplace beautiful. The blackness of the newly ploughed lands is hidden now, the faded grass is gone, and in its stead a pure all-covering mantle shines, a sheet of “living light.” And when the “eye of day,” (as some have called the sun) looks down, the whole scene seems to smile as every tiny particle glistens in his rays; and the clearer his light the brighter grows each object.
“Clean every whit,” exclaims the young reader as he looks abroad on the wide expanse of country outstretched before him, and, if accustomed to the pages of Good News, he can hardly fail to see at what it all points.
Of whom did the Lord Jesus speak those gracious words “clean every whit,” but of those that believe in his blessed name? Washed in his precious blood, clothed in himself, the vilest sinner who believes becomes spotless as the driven snow in the sight of him who “sent his Son to be the Saviour of the world.” Vile indeed we are by nature, and our hearts “deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.” And when the all-convicting word of God ploughs up the sinner’s soul, oh how utterly wicked, how black, how foul his own heart is seen to be in his own eyes! But the moment that he comes to Christ, the instant he believes, at that very instant he is cleansed. His “transgressions are forgiven,” his “sin is covered,” his “iniquity is not imputed” (Ps. 22). His old self has utterly disappeared from before God’s face, “buried with Christ,” “crucified with him” (Rom. 6:4, 64Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. (Romans 6:4)
6Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. (Romans 6:6)). “Yet raised up together with him” (Eph. 2), “he lives, yet not he, but Christ liveth in him” (Gal. 2:2020I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)), who “of God is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption” (1 Cor. 1:3030But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption: (1 Corinthians 1:30)) Thus seen in Christ,
“Covered is his unrighteousness.”
And the eye of God can rest in perfect complacency upon him, and see no spot, no stain. How wonderful, yet how true!
“‘Clean every whit,’ thou saidst it, Lord;
Shall one suspicion lurk?
Thine surely is a faithful word,
And thine a finished work.”
“Accepted in the Beloved,” “complete in him,” the youngest believer should never let a doubt linger for a moment in his heart. You are “perfected forever” (Heb. 10). God says so, is not that sufficient?
But there is another lesson yet to be gathered from the snow-flake. If in looking on the believer, our gracious God sees not him, but Christ, should not his fellow-believers be “imitators of God” in this also? Mark how the snow-flakes have rounded off and smoothed the roughest surfaces; ay, the very thorns on the hedge are concealed by them. And if we always looked at a brother as clothed in Christ, should we so readily discover the “points and angles,” the faults and failings of his character? Seeing Christ rather than him, we are looking on, how could we help loving him? For what object so dear to the heart of a believer as Christ? Is there softness and beauty in the snow-covered scene before you? And have you, dear young reader, quite lost sight of that stone-heap, that mud-bespattered gate-post, that rutted road, that rough thorn hedge, which but yesterday had not a leaf upon it to gladden the eye? “Yes,” say you, “the falling snow-flake has completely hidden all these ugly things, and made them look so soft, so pure, so beautiful, that I quite forget what they were like before.” And why? “Oh because,” say you, “I see the snow, and not the things it covers.” Well, it is not so easy always to see Christ in a brother or a sister, as it is to see the mantling snow, but if you try, and ask for grace to do it, you will succeed at last. Faith sees as God sees, and “love covereth a multitude of sins.”