I ask your attention to two verses: Isa. 1:18, — "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow"; and Ps. 51: 7, — "Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow." Now can you, dear friends, see any difference between those two verses? In the verse in Isaiah the backsliding Church is invited back to God, and though their sins that they had committed were like crimson or scarlet they should be washed away, and the backslider that was restored to God's favor should "be as white as snow" when it first falls from heaven. A great many persons think that is sanctification, entire Christian purity, but it is only what God does when He forgives the sins. "When God washes all one's sins away in conversion the soul is made "as white as snow."

In the other verse David is referring to the cleansing of the heart from original sin, because in that Psalm he says, "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me. # Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts. and in the. hidden part " — where the world cannot see, and the Church cannot see, and my neighbors cannot see — "thou shalt make me to know wisdom. Purge me with hyssop," — that is, purge me in the hidden part, — "and I shall be clean: wash me," — from this depravity which has come down the ages, — "and I shall be whiter than snow." Now, you see, it is in the Bible. I did not make the Bible, I just preach it; the Lord has not sent me to make Scripture, but to preach the Scripture He made. The verse in Isaiah refers to actual sin, and the other refers to original depravity. So here, friends, the Holy Ghost has given us a picture of experimental salvation in the emblem of the snowflake, and all you have to do to see it is to take a snowflake and simply analyze it. You will find in the analogy between a snowflake and the human heart, a most perfect parallel of experimental salvation from sin. Now let us thoughtfully trace out this comparison.

The snowflake when it first comes down from the clouds, so far as you can see, is perfectly pure; and yet, there are elements of earthliness wrapped up in the bosom of every snowflake that falls upon the earth. Hidden away in the internal mechanism, or concealed in the very structure of every snowflake, there are bits of dirt. Do you know that is a perfect picture of the human heart? When you and I were born into this world, we had no sins upon us, no actual sin; we were perfectly innocent, and, so far as the law was concerned, we were white and clean. But there was in our very nature the principle of corruption and of impurity. I am going to introduce a man to-night, and let him preach a little sermon for us, who is not supposed to be an advocate of Christian holiness. He is a learned man, whom England and America both delight to honor. Although he is not a holiness man, yet he has preached us a very good sermon on sanctification. I refer to Professor Tyndall, the great scientist. You will find that Professor Tyndall has said just exactly about a snowflake what God says about your heart; while he preaches from the standard of science, the Bible preaches the standard of God, and just what the one says corresponds with the other. Some years ago, Mr. Tyndall came to America and gave a series of beautiful lectures on science, — charmed thousands and thousands of our people, and his books are greatly read. He said that he had been up the Alps and taken snow from the top of the mountain to see if he could find any that was entirely free from dirt. He got it where he supposed it would be perfectly pure. But when he put it under his binocular microscope, which magnifies several thousand diameters, he found to his amazement bits of steel filings, possibly from Sheffield, and bits of coal dust, possibly from Manchester. These had gone up in the air. Millions and millions of particles of dirt and coal and soot and iron and steel shavings, so fine that they could be borne on the breeze, had been mingled up in the clouds, and when these snowflakes were formed away up in the clouds, these infinitesimal bits of iron and steel and lead and coal and soot, were wrapped up in them; and when the snowflakes fell on the top of the Alps, Mr. Tyndall discovered the bits of steel filings, etc.

Now, that just exactly illustrates our hearts. Away back in the beginning of the world's history Satan came out from the regions of darkness, and he blew a pestilential breath into the heart of Adam; and (if I may use a phrase that is more powerful and true than elegant) just as the iron dust and the coal dust has been mixed up with all the particles of snow, the devil has turned loose a devil dust that has got mixed up with every human heart born into this world, and when you and I, as little infants, dropped down from the cloud of humanity, we brought with us the devil dust in our hearts. We brought in us the germs of selfishness, passion, and evil desire, anger, resentment, pride. Every sin that is in the world to-night, was once only but a little germ of evil in human hearts. The reason why so many people do not see the need of heart cleansing is that they do not understand the real nature of original sin. The popular preachers of this day never say much about sin. The human heart is overlooked, and people, somehow, think that religion consists in doing right merely on the outside, and that if people get their outward sins washed away, the great mass of them think there is nothing more than that. Well, my dear friends, just as you and I have brought into this world the principle of depravity, we need the principle of inward purity to take its place.

The next thought in this comparison is, that this dirt that is in the snowflake can never be discovered except by a microscope. You may take the snowflake on the point of a needle, and hold it between you and the sun, and you may not be able to see any dirt in it. But when you place it under the microscope, you will see a bit of coal dust that looks as large as your hand. Your eyes alone could not see it, but the microscope reveals it. Do you know that illustrates our hearts? A great many people have a way of looking at their hearts simply in the light of reason, simply with their own eyes, with the eyes of nature, and they say, "Why, I do not see anything so bad; I do not see anything so wrong." But if you will take God's Word, which is God's microscope, and pass your heart under it, you will be perfectly amazed to find the sin, the corruption, that is hidden away there. To your eyes it was all right, but under the Word of God you will find the need of cleansing.

Do you know there is a vast amount of sentimentalism among Christians? A great many people say when infants die they go to heaven because they are So innocent. But that is all mere sentimentalism. No infant ever goes to heaven because he is innocent, because, if innocence would take a child to heaven, why could not the birds go there? They are innocent! No, my friends, when infants die, they enter heaven because they have been purified under the covenant of Jesus Christ. He made a covenant with the Father that He would sanctify all except those that rejected Him. Now, some man out there says, "Well, infants do not believe." I answer, they do not disbelieve, they do not reject Jesus, and everybody on earth will be saved in glory except the man that turns away from the blood of Christ. And so infants go to heaven not because they are innocent, but because under the covenant the Lord Jesus Christ purines their hearts.

A young convert is not aware that he has in his heart the germs of inbred sin. He looks at himself simply in what light he has, and has not yet learned to discover the great deep of his heart. ' Sometimes a young convert may go a week, sometimes a month; and I once met a young lady who said from the moment God forgave her sins, for one whole year she never felt the least motion of inbred sin, and she supposed, of course, that she had got pardon and entire cleansing at one time; but after twelve months of uninterrupted sunshine and bliss, she found that suddenly, one day, something arose in her heart, and she was mortified, and went and sought the blessing of sanctification. Now there are a great many persons who somehow do not see the need of sanctification; they say, "I go to these holiness meetings, and I hear this sanctification taught, and, so far as I see, I have got it, but I got all in conversion." Are you sure you have a clean heart? " O, I am sure I have what you are talking about. I love His Word, and I truly serve God." Yes, all converted persons do that; but do you not have anger, pride, resentment, rising in your heart? "O yes," you say; "if you come down to those small things, why, of course, I have them, but that is my human nature; everybody has that." O, I say, that is your devil nature. Perhaps you say, " Well, I don't swear." But don't you feel like it sometimes? My friends, you will find that a great many people do not seem to know what heart purity is, but your heart never can be fixed in God until you are sure this work has been wrought in you.

Then again, sometimes there are Christians who have been serving God for many years, who say, "Well, I don't believe I have got any inbred sin; I believe I have got all the religion I can have until I come to die," and they do not feel the need of a clean heart. They remind me of an old Spanish coin that I read of some years ago. It was worn so smooth that you could find neither image nor letters upon it; but they put that old coin in the fire, and when the fire began to melt it, the picture of the old king and all the letters that were stamped on it, two hundred years before, came out. So of a great many Christians; they have been going along in one rut until they are worn kind of smooth, and they say, " I don't think I need any special work of holiness; I don't need heart cleansing." Bat let them get into sorrow or tribulation, let God put them in a hot furnace, and just about the time the fire begins to melt them they will find there will come out on their soul the image of old Adam, the very old man they did not know they had. The very old things that they thought had been worn off by gradual growth they find coming right out, and they see they need entire cleansing. Adam heard the Lord God walking in the garden, and hid himself. That is what a great many Christians do. They are afraid to meet God. They don't want to pray, they don't want to speak, they don't want to bear responsibility, and they don't want to go and work for Christ, and so they are dodging and shirking. Then again, Adam laid the blame on his wife; and if you lay the blame on your wife or any one else, that is just what Adam did. A great many people are acting just like old Adam. Why? Because they have got the old Adam in them, and Adam will always be true to his nature. Just as gunpowder will always behave like gunpowder, whether it is a handful or a barrelful, so Adam will always behave like Adam. If you have in you an unclean heart, you may rest assured that some time that heart will show itself. Oh, put your heart under the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians, put your heart under Christ's Sermon on the Mount, put your heart under God's wonderful promises, and see how the Word will show you the need of cleansing! Though you be a young convert, though you be a happy, jubilant Christian, you may find the need there of a deeper work of grace.

The next point is that the dirt that Mr. Tyndall found in the snowflake, he says did not properly belong there, and he says the snowflake would be a great deal better if the dirt were out. Mr. Tyndall did not know he was preaching sanctification scientifically, but he was. We find, under the microscope of God's Word, that the depraved nature is within us, but we find it does not properly belong there, and we would be a great deal better if it were out. Now, the doctrine has gone all over this land that original sin must be covered over and not cleansed away. There is a class of teachers in England, — we have got some in America, — if they took this text, instead of preaching from it the way I am, they would say that God never purges the heart, never does what David prayed for when he cried out, "Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow." They teach that God simply covers depravity with a white mantle and hides it, so that when He looks at man He cannot see his depravity, but only the white mantle that is flung over him.

There are people who say we cannot get along without sin; but I get along a great deal better without sin than I did with it. Suppose you go to a man that never has had a headache for ten years, and say, " Mr. _______, how in the world can you get along without

having a headache?" "O, I get along a great deal better without the headache." Go to a poor soul that once had a cancer, and who has been cured, and ask, "How in the world can you get along without a cancer?" and he would say he got along a great deal better without it. Well, inbred sin is spiritual headache and spiritual cancer, and it does not belong to human nature. A minister once asked me, "Do you know you are preaching the destruction of human nature?" I said, "No, I am simply preaching the destruction of the sin out of human nature." Now, sin does not belong to human nature. We tell men oftentimes, and we mean to keep on telling them, that when God sanctifies the human soul He can and does destroy sin and all depraved appetites.

Borne man says, "Do you mean to say that God destroys all a man's appetites?" No, God destroys all the appetites that the de^il made. God made all the natural functions and appetites of the body, and the powers of the mind, and everything that legitimately belongs to man. Divine grace does not destroy these, but all the miserable excrescences and all the unholy things that were foisted upon us by the devil. As Professor Tyndail says of the snowflake, the impurities are in it, but they do not belong there, and the snowflake would be better without them, so evil is in man, but it don't belong there, and he would be a great deal better without it; a man would be a better husband, a child a better child, with a pure heart, than with an impure one; and whatever your work is, you can live in the sight of God a great deal better when all the work of the devil in you has been destroyed. Sin does not belong to human nature; it is brought in by the devil. Sin is a disease and a malady. O brothers and sisters, let me say, the heart never reaches its true state until there is entire cleansing, and a sweet, full resting in God.

The last point is: How are you going to get the dirt out of the snowflakes? Here comes Professor Tyndail with his snow, and he calls on people to get the snow purified. A blustering man, with a great deal of braggadocio, says, " Dr. Tyndail, I believe in doing things by force; I believe in coercion; I believe in will power; and I think if you would just beat and hammer the snow, and then resolve that you are going to make it pure, you can make it pure." And he hammers it; 'he ruins the snow, and has only the dirt left. You know a great many say," I believe in being holy, but I believe in using my will power," and so they say, " Now I am resolved I won't get angry any more "; and they put on the pressure, and they screw themselves up to a wonderful tension. They believe in coercing themselves; but they find out in doing that they have simply exhausted their own powers, and have as much depravity on hand as they had when they began. Another man steps forward and says, "Dr. Tyndall, I think I can make the snow pure: I believe in growth; I believe in development; and I think if you will just make the snow grow larger and larger, that by and by, somehow, it will get pure." That is the way a great many of you are trying to get a clean heart; you are trying to grow and get larger and larger, and somewhere, you don't know where, and sometime, you don't know when, you will accidentally be cleansed. So this man says, "Take the snow and make it grow." So he takes the snowflake and puts ten thousand others to it, but the more snow he gets on hand the more dirt he has got. Oh, you Christian people have got the law of growth confounded with the law of cleansing! But here is a quiet man, the greatest chemist England ever produced — Mr. Faraday; he says, in a quiet way, "Dr. Tyndall, I think I can make the snow pure.'' "Well, you try it." So Faraday comes up with a little glass retort with a tube to it, and a spirit lamp under it with some alcohol in it, and he puts fire to the alcohol and turns in a handful of snow, and does not say one word; he uses no hammer, makes no noise, but simply puts fire under it; and by and by the vessel gets hot, and the snow begins to melt, and if the snowflakes could only talk they would say, " O Professor, you are going to ruin us! Look at these fine fringes! look at these fine crystals! " You know a snowflake is a wonderfully beautiful thing. There is no flower you ever saw that has such fine leaves as a snowflake has. The snow says, " You are ruining us! we are melting away! O sir, you are ruining us! " But Faraday does not say a single word; he just lets the fire burn away, and so the snowflakes begin to melt. By and by it is perfectly melted, and then boiled, and then evaporated, and then the snow is over there in that glass, perfectly spotless, and all the microscopes in the world could not find a bit of dirt in it. The dirt is all left behind.

That is the way God will sanctify you. After you have tried growth, and tried this and that and the other process, by and by you come to Jesus, the great Chemist, and say, "O Lord, make me holy!" Then Jesus comes to your heart quietly, but with power, and puts fire on you. He doesn't hammer yon. He doesn't begin to scold or fret you, or whip or spur you. He doesn't begin to reprimand you, or tell you how mean you are. He doesn't say a hard word, and He doesn't make a noise. But He puts fire on you; and when God begins to melt you down, you feel like those snowflakes. "Oh," you say, " I don't know what in the world is becoming of me! It seems to me I am getting in a vile state "; and you feel the Lord is shaking you all to pieces. Then you will find, down will go your glory, your majesty, your grandeur, your plans, and your pet notions; down will go your idols and your self-conceit; you will feel that God is making you so small you can hardly find yourself, and you wonder what the Lord is doing with you. God is simply melting you down. O brother, do you know that by nature our hearts are hard? Do you know by nature there is a great deal of iron and rock in our hearts, and God has to break us all to pieces? He has to melt us and melt us, until we feel that all our wisdom and knowledge and learning and skill, everything we have, has gone to pieces, and we are just as little nobodies, and we just dissolve and dissolve; and when we wake up we find somehow the burden is gone, the fretting, the anger, the bad temper, the jealousy, the uprisings, all are gone; and when God gets through our heart is clean, and all depravity is washed away. God has removed it without the sound of a hammer, without any coercion, simply by the fire of the Holy Spirit; Isaiah says, "As when a melting fire burneth. "This is the way God purges our hearts, by holy fire. Jesus can cast out the depravity, and you will know, dear brother, dear sister, that your heart is "whiter than snow." Don't you want this experience? Oh, there are fifty people in this house who ought to say, " I know I love God, I know I do serve Him the best I can, but I have had something within me that bothers me! " We want you to come to Jesus, and we want you to submit to Him, and just let Jesus put His living fire upon your soul and cleanse away the inbred sin. And if there are any unconverted persons, we want you to come and have all your sins washed away, and become children of God. How many are there in this company who are sure that the Lord has sanctified their hearts? Stand up, friends, now. You say God has done this in your hearts; you testify before the angels and men that Jesus has purified your hearts. And how many are there who desire this experience? O you dear Christian people who know you have been pardoned, but feel somehow you want another work of grace, if you desire this perfect heart, stand up. Amen,