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The mind of man has been compared to a white sheet of paper. Now, it is like a white sheet of paper in this, that whatever we write upon it whether with distinct purpose or no, nay, every drop of ink we let fall upon it, makes an abiding mark, a mark which we cannot rub out without much injury to the paper; unless, indeed, the mark has been very slight from the first, and we set about erasing it while it is fresh. In one of the grandest tragedies of our great English poet, there is a scene which, when one reads it, is enough to make one's blood run cold. A woman, whose husband had made himself king of Scotland by means of several murders, and who had been the prompter and partner of his crimes, is brought in while in her sleep, and continually rubbing her hands, as though she were washing them, crying ever and anon, "Yet here's a spot...What! will these hands ne'er be clean?...here's the smell of blood still; all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand." In these words there is an awful power of truth. We can stain our souls; we can dye them, and double dye them and triple dye them; we can dye them all the colours of bell's rainbow, but we cannot wash them white. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten them, all the fountains of the deep will not wash one little spot out of them. The usurping Queen of Scotland had been guilty of murder; and the stain of blood, it has been very generally believed, cannot be washed out. But it is not the stain of blood alone; every stain soils the soul and none of them can be washed out. Every speck of ink eats into the paper; every sin, however small we may deem it, eats into the soul. If we try to write over it, we make a deeper blot; if we try to scratch it out, the next letters which we write on the spot are blurred. Therefore is it of such vast importance that we should be very careful of what we write. In the tragedy which I was quoting just now, the Queen says, "What's done, cannot be undone." This amounts to the same thing as what I have written, in the sense in which I am now calling upon you to consider these words. What's done cannot be undone. You know that that is true. You know you cannot push back the wheels of time, and make yesterday come again, so as to do over afresh what you did wrongly then. That which you did yesterday, yesterday will keep: you cannot change it; you cannot make it less or greater; if it was crooked you cannot make it straight.

(J. C. Hare.)

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KJV: And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground.

WEB: Yahweh said, "What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood cries to me from the ground.