The Progress., 1897-06-19
THE PROGRESS.

ly rs bad as mora1ists have pronounced
Them They come near tho verge Of the
precipice just to look off. They want to
see how far 1t really is down, but they lose
their balance while they look and fall into
remediless ruin, or, catching themselves,
Chamber up, bleeding and ghastly, on tho
rock. gibbering with curses or grooming
Intellectual prayer. BY all means encour-
age healthful inquisitiveness; by all means
discourage i'll regulated curiosity.
This subject also impresses me with the
fact that fruits that are sweet to the taste
may afterward produce great agony. For
hidden fruit for Eve was pleasant she
invited her husband also to take of it.
But her Punishment from paradise and
5000 years of sorrow and wrctchedness
and war and woe paid for that luxury.
Sin may be very sweet at the start. and it
may induce great wretchedness afterward.
The cup OF sin is sparkling at the top, but
there is death at the bottom. Intoxication
has great exhjlaration for awhile, and it
fillips the blood, and it makes q man see
i've stars where others can see only one
star, and it makes the poor man rich, and
turns checks which arc white red as roses
But what about the dreams that come after,
when he seems falling from great heights
or is Frustrated by other fancied disasters
and the peIspiration stands on the fore
head-the night dew of everlasting dark
ness-and he is ground under the horrible
hoof Of Nightmares shrieking with lips
that crackle with all consuming torture?
Rejoice, . young man, In thy youth,
and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of
thy youth! But know thou that for all
these things God will bring thee into judg-
mont" Sweet at the start, horrible at tho
last. Go into that hall of revelry, where
ungodly mirth staggers and blasphemes.
Listen to the sense1ess gable. See the last
trace of intelligence dashed out from faces
made in Gods own image. ''Aha, aha!'
says tho FOSTERING tnebriate. ''This is Joy
for you. FIJI high your cups, my boys.
I drink to my wife's misery, and my chill
dren's rags, and my Gods defiance" And
he knows not that flend stirs the goblet
in his hand and that ladders uncoil from
the dregs and thrust their for1cd tongues
Kissing through the frOth on the rim. The
Philistines jeered and laughed and shouted
at Samson. Oh, they wanted him to make
sport for them, and lie made sport for
them! How bright and gay was the scene
for little while! After awhile the giant
puts one hand against this pillar and the
other hand against that pillar and bows
himself, and 5000 merrymakers are
mashed like grapes in wineprcss. Sin
rapturous at the start, awful at the last.
"A Staggering Blow.
That one Edenic transgression did not
seem to be much, but 1t struck blow
which to this day makes the earth stagger.
To find out the consequences Of that one
sin you would have to compel the world
to throw open all its prison doors and dis
play the crime, and throw open all it's hos
pitfalls and display the disease, and throw
open all the insane asylums and show the
Indebtedness, and open all the sepulchers
and show the dead, and open all the doors
OF the lost world and show the damned.
That one Edenic transgression stretched
chords of misery across the heart of the
world and struck them with dolorous wall
ing, and 1t has seated the plaques upon
the air, and the shipwrecks upon the tenn
pest, and fastened, like leech, famine to
the heart of the sick and dying nations.
Beautiful at the start, horrible at the last.
Oh. how many have experienced 1t!
Are there here those who are votaries of
pleasure? Let me warn you, my brother
Your pleasure boat is far from shore, and
your summer day is ending roughly, for
the winds and the waves are loud voiced,
and the overcoming clouds nre all awrithe