The New Testament
discovers to us the mystery of iniquity as ungodliness; its inmost
essence being unbelief in God's truth, the denial of His justice,
the rejection of His love, the violation of His law. The South Sea
islanders have a singular tradition to account for the existence of
the dew. The legend relates that in the beginning the earth touched
the sky, that being the golden age when all was beautiful and glad;
then some dreadful tragedy occurred, the primal unity was broken up,
the earth and the sky were torn asunder as we see them now, and the
dewdrops of the morning are the tears that nature sheds over the sad
divorce. This wild fable is a metaphor of the truth; the beginning of
all evil lies in the alienation of the spirit of man from God, in the
divorce of earth from heaven; here is the final reason why the face
of humanity is wet with tears. How vividly Christ taught that all our
fear and we arise out of this false relation of our spirit to the
living God! Above and beyond all, Christ recognizes the sackcloth that
He may take it away.
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