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 sayest thou? This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground." Then rising, He said to them, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground." This significant act of twice writing on the ground, together with the words, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her" (ver. 7), proved to be a piercing answer to the Jews; they understood it and felt it. Their love was fixed on self instead of on the God of Israel; and to shew them their own inward state, the Lord stooped down and wrote on the ground; their thoughts also were all worldly, not heavenly; and to show them this, the Lord again stooped down, and wrote on the ground. This significant act the Jews well understood: they felt that it was applied to them, for they had read in their Prophets that those who forsake Jehovah should be written in the earth. (Jer. xvii. 13.) Hence they were convicted by their own conscience, and went out one by one, leaving Jesus and the woman together. "When Jesus saw none but the woman, He said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee?" "No man, Lord," replied the woman. Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more."

O my soul, what words of mercy are these! for while they fix on adultery, sin, as its own polluted quality, mercy says—"Go, and sin no more!" In a spiritual or religious sense, adultery is a total perversion of all that is good, and a falsification of all truth. The Jews, by their earthly-mindedness, and by their substituting traditions for Divine truth, had fixed their