January 8 "The iniquity of the holy things" (Exodus 28: 38). What a veil is lifted up by these words, and what a disclosure is made! It will be humbling and profitable for us to pause a while and see this sad sight. The iniquities of our public worship, its formality, lukewarmness, and wandering of heart! Our work for the Lord, its selfishness, carelessness, and slackness! Our private devotions, their laxity, coldness, neglect, sleepiness, and vanity! Dr. Payson, writing to his brother, says, "My parish, as well as my heart, resembles the garden of the sluggard: and what is worse, I find that many of my desires for the improvement of both, proceed either from pride, vanity, or laziness. I look at the weeds which overrun my garden and breathe out an earnest with that they were uprooted. But why? What prompts the wish? It may be that I may walk out and say to myself, 'In what fine order my garden is kept!' This is vanity. Or I may wish for the destruction of the weeds, because I am weary of pulling them up. This is indolence." Even our desire after holiness may be polluted by ill motives. How cheering is the thought that, when the High Priest bore the iniquity of the holy things, he wore upon his brow the words, "Holiness to the Lord." Even while Jesus bears out sin, He presents before His Father's face not our unholiness, but His own holiness