“If then, brother or sister, thou hast that which would be hidden, make haste and drag the thing from its covert into the presence of thy God, thy Light, thy Saviour, that, if it be in itself good, it may be cleansed; if evil, it may be stung through and through with the burning arrows of truth, and perish in glad relief.  For the one bliss of an evil thing is to perish and pass; the evil thing, and that alone, is the natural food of Death—­nothing else will agree with the monster.  If we have such foul things, I say, within the circumference of our known selves, we must confess the charnel-fact to ourselves and to God; and if there be any one else who has a claim to know it, to that one also must we confess, casting out the vile thing that we may be clean.  Let us make haste to open the doors of our lips and the windows of our humility, to let out the demon of darkness, and in the angels of light—­so abjuring the evil.  Be sure that concealment is utterly, absolutely hopeless.  If we do not thus ourselves open our house, the day will come when a roaring blast of His wind, or the flame of His keen lightning, will destroy every defense of darkness, and set us shivering before the universe in our naked vileness; for there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed, neither hid that shall not be known.  Ah! well for man that he can not hide!  What vaults of uncleanness, what sinks of dreadful horrors, would not the souls of some of us grow!  But for every one of them, as for the universe, comes the day of cleansing.  Happy they who hasten it! who open wide the doors, take the broom in the hand, and begin to sweep!  The dust may rise in clouds; the offense may be great; the sweeper may pant and choke, and weep, yea, grow faint and sick with self-disgust; but the end will be a clean house, and the light and wind of Heaven shining and blowing clear and fresh and sweet through all its chambers.  Better so, than have a hurricane from God burst in doors and windows, and sweep from his temple with the besom of destruction every thing that loveth and maketh a lie.  Brothers, sisters, let us be clean.  The light and the air around us are God’s vast purifying furnace; out into it let us cast all hypocrisy.  Let us be open-hearted, and speak every man the truth to his neighbor.  Amen.”

The faces of the little congregation had been staring all the time at the speaker’s, as the flowers of a little garden stare at the sun.  Like a white lily that had begun to fade, that of Juliet had drawn the eyes of the curate, as the whitest spot always will.  But it had drawn his heart also.  Had her troubles already begun, poor girl? he thought.  Had the sweet book of marriage already begun to give out its bitterness?