The nature of sin and its deliverance

However absurd the statement may appear to one 

who has not yet discovered the fact for himself,

the ....cause of every man's discomfort is evil,

moral evil—

first of all, evil in himself, ...

     his own sin,

          his own wrongness,

          his own unrightness;

and then,

evil in those he loves: ......

the only way to get rid of it, is for the man to get rid of his own sin.

No special sin may be recognizable as having caused this or that special physical discomfort ......

but evil in ourselves is the cause of its continuance,

the source of its necessity,

.......

Foolish is the man, 

     and there are many such men,

who would rid himself or his fellows of discomfort 

     by setting the world right, 

     by waging war on the evils around him, 

                   while he neglects that integral part of the world where lies his business, 

                   his first business—

                        namely, 

                        his own character and conduct. 

.......

There is no way of making three men right but by making right each one of the three; 

     but a cure in one man who repents and turns, 

     is a beginning of the cure of the whole human race.

……..

“The one cure for any organism, is to be set right —
to have all its parts brought into harmony with each other;
the one comfort is to know this cure in process.

Rightness alone is cure.  
The return of the organism to its true self,
is its only possible ease. …..”

(George Macdonald, Hope of the Gospel p. 3)