The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-04-23

gave her their shields of ornamental sil- yer and gold, but they hl"led thase shields at her with all the foeye of heir mighty arms until her mangled and bleeding and lifeless body lay buried un- der her prizes of war. After Benedict Arnold betrayed his country he was hated even more in England than in America One day he was seated in the gallery of the House of Commons when a states man arose to address the house. Before commencing his speech he said: T see in the gallery of this house A contempt- ible character, who, by the betrayal of his own land. has forfeited every right to the respect of mankind Before en- ter upon my speech l hope that Benedict Arnold, known as Arnold the traitor. might be requested to withdraw from this body of honorable men" Yes, the very men who profit by crime despise their instrument and desert him in his igno- miny.
 Will Turn Against You.
 Man treadng the path of sin do not be fool Do not suppose that those sinful people who are praising you now will fawn upon you after your morals and money are gone. All that the saloon keeper wants is your gold: as soon as you are in rags his free lunch counters will no longer give a welcome to you and
 
 gold; as soon as your money is gone he will kick you out of his presence as willingly as he would put bullet in the heart of a mad dog. As, yes, the far country held plenty of friends as long as the younger son had horses and wine suppers. but IS soon as his money was gone his friends were gone, his servants were gone; there was a great famine in that land. Companions of sin will fawn at your feet while you live in palace They will crush you under their heels when they can destroy you. Aceldama the field of blood, was bought by the evil priests, who had turned against Judas as your companions of sin will yet turn against you.
 Acedama teaches another lesson. The easiest way 10 make an apostate is not by denouncing or rldcuing the divine mission of Jesus Christ, but by develop ing the tendencies to sin which have not been eradicated from his nature Let me illustrate my thought practically You have all wandered through the northern forests in the winter time Everywhere you have seen the tall trunks of the trees slpporting the bare branches. Not leaf is in sight: not flower is blooming. Where are the mill ions upon millions of leaves which as an arched roof covered the mountain path ways last summer? All gone But if you will rub your fingers lightly oyer the bark of those branches you can see where new buds and new sprouts will come forth just as soon as springtime places to her lips the silver trumpet of the warm winds. As l approach man who Is called a Christian man I figuratively find him without sin, but as 1 touch his heart l find, still figuratvely speaking that all over his heart are latent sinful buds easy to be developed. Unless man lives close to Christ and continues to live close to Christ these evil buds will sprout and grow even as the white apple blos- soms cover teh tree branches almost in one May day. The reason Judas be- trayed Christ was because he allowed his latent buds of sin to develop; that is all
 Judas not different from his fellow apostles? How was that?" some one asks me. Why, Christ called him a devil" Aye, my friend, that is true. But Christ did not call Judas devil in the sense that he was in the beginning any different from any other of the apostles Indeed, l know he was just about the same. The apostles at that time honored and respected Judas so much that they made him their treasurer. He was their almoner; he handled all their moneys He was not impulsive like Peter. He was a calm, cool calculator. Why, If Pe- ter had been elected treasurer in Judas
 
 to him would have got all that he had, and no provision would have been left for the needs of the little company. The reason Judas was elected treasurer was because at first he was loyal to his Mas ter and he was very cafeful in handling the funds.
 The Sin of Judas.
 But whene Judas began to look after the money the old latent sin of his life grew warmer and budded and sprouted Covetousness was Judas sin Every penny, every piece of silver and gold which came into his possession only mad dened his passions Methinks l can see him at night counting the gold while his companions slept. ''Ah" he kept saving to himself. If this gold was only mine. This passion. this evil passion, kept growing and growing upon him. It kept growing upon linn just as the desire for gold or fame orisocial position may have been growing upon you. Once Judas would have knocked man down who would have placed a menacing or mur- derous hand upon his Christ But now he kept saying Gold, gold; l must have gold. must nave gold, even if I do destroy Christ to get it. Listen! Let me trace the downfall of Judas-frst, the honored apostleship; second. the election to the treasurership of the apostolic band; third, the hugging of the gold bags to satisfy the cravings of his developing avarice; fourth, the protest because the box of ointment of spikenard. very pre- cious, was poured upon Christ's head: fifth, the selling of Chrlst's life for thirty pieces of silver Judas was not devil always Judas went down to the be- travel step by step. He went down to the betrayal of Christ as some of us are going, slowly, surely awfully, demoniac- ally. step by step, step by step.
 The field of blood teaches us in the next place, that the most awful danger that can be done against Christ is done by his apostates and not by his out and out bitter enemies. For weeks and months, as I said before, the high priests were trying to take Christ and cruelty him. But when they sought to lay hands upon him they feared the multi tudes, because they took him for a prophet" What is the meaning of this? They dared no. touch him. Christ's ben eficiaries at that time would have risen up and swept the high priests and the Pharisees from off the earth.
 4 Suppostion.
 Supposing toward the close of the Crl- mean war the English general had given orders that Florence Nightingale was to be shot as q spy what would have hap pened? Methnks about the commanders tent would have been seen 5000 poor fel- | lows pleading and praying and threatens ing One soldier would say: "She nursed me through fever and saved my life 1 She shall not diei" Another would say: l She held my hand when they cut off l