Editorial February 16, 1924 Issue

Innocence

Duncan Sinclair

If the question were asked, What is one of the spiritual qualities greatly needed in the world to-day? it would be right to reply, Innocence. On considering the question it will be found that all of the spiritually great those who have helped to mold the thought of the peoples of the world along the lines of righteousness, have been innocent men or women.

Innocence is a term not difficult to define; everybody knows what it means. It implies freedom from sin, from guile. A truly wonderful spiritual quality is childlike innocence. Looking back, perhaps over a long vista of ill-spent years, what would not many give for that innocency which appears to be no longer theirs. It were well that all should ponder the subject, because no mortal is as innocent in the sight of God as he might be and as he ought to be.

It will be remembered that Moses had to flee from the land of Egypt with the guilt of an Egyptian's blood on his hands. And every trace of that guilty blood had to be purged away in the land of Midian, in the solitariness of the desert, before he was innocent enough to deliver his people, the Hebrews, from the bondage of the Pharaohs of that time. Could aught but innocency have fearlessly approached the tyranny that held the children of Israel in bondage to break its hypnotic spell? Could aught but innocency have led these same children across the Red Sea, and, finally, to the promised land? Could aught but innocency have heard the moral law and placed it upon perpetual record? Moses must have become one of the most innocent of men, as he was one of the meekest.

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