Here is the first elementary truth which meets us at the threshold of Lent, without which it will be of no more value to you than a lock without a key, a mine without a shaft; herein consists its best preparation, to secure a right conviction of sin. That, God blessing the effort, shall be the intent of our sermon.
When the ostrich, scouring along the sandy desert, finds that it cannot escape the huntsman, it is said to thrust its head into a bush, and fancying that the danger which it ceases to see has ceased to exist, it remains there, quite tranquil, to receive the death-blow of the huntsman. Poor, senseless, stupid bird! Yet not one degree more so than is the folly of many who are not birds, but possessed of reason and soul. Plenty there are who, shutting their eyes to the evil, burrowing their heads in the sand-heap of excuses and false peace, thus hide until the fatal stroke of death puts an end to their earthly career, and opening their eyes in a place where there is no repentance, as the rich man in the parable, they realize that it is too late.
If we turn to the Bible, it teaches that there are two great classes or kinds of sin; and if we turn to the witness within and the evidence without, we shall find what the Bible tells us everywhere corroborated and borne out. The one kind of sin is the Original or Birth Sin, that all men are naturally engendered, are conceived and born in sin; that is, they are all, from their mother's womb, full of evil desires and propensities, and that this is the fountainhead of all other, or actual, sins, such as evil thoughts, words, and deeds. There are many who reject this doctrine; they contend that when man is born into this world, his soul is as pure as the snow that comes down in beautiful flurries from the sky, and as perfect as the vessel that passes from the potter's hand; they tell us that we are God's favorite creatures, that He has made us lords of the creation and heirs of eternal life, and that, therefore, it is quite impossible that we should be so prone to sin, as our Church, setting forth the doctrine of the Bible in her confession, declares us to be. But they are willfully ignorant. The question whether we are prone to sin from our cradles upward is a mere question of fact. One has only to look into one's own heart, and what do you find there, good or evil? You will say, a little of both. Be it so; but tell me, or rather tell yourselves, honestly and truly, which of the two cost you the most trouble to learn, and which of the two comes the easier? Is there a doubt? Does one contract good habits easier than bad, or the reverse? Is it easier for a sober man to become a drunkard than for a poor, miserable, besotted drunkard to trace his steps back and to become sober? Or, another point of view. Ask mothers, accustomed to watch their children from earliest infancy, whether every child that has come under their observation had not something to learn that was good, and something to unlearn that was evil. Now, whence did this evil come from? It cannot have been taught to the child, for the evil showed itself at a time before all teaching; it had it naturally. And so it is in other things. The good wheat must be sown and looked after, or it will never amount to much. The weeds sprout up and spread of themselves, and it is as great a labor to keep them down as to get the good wheat up. The truth is, "Like begetteth like." "In Adam's fall we sinned all." The fountain was polluted, so is the stream; sin is born in the bone, as it were, and without God's help we can no more mend it than a sick man can mend and cure himself without the help of a physician.