Pocahontas star herald., 1912-05-10
The Wages of Sin

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in the world is not so keen as it
was IN the ages when men were
given TO self denomination; bat the
destructive power of sin was never
so obvious and unacceptable. The
most striking confirmation of the
waste and misery which sin works
in society Is not found today in
theology or in philosophy, but IN
the newspapers. Every morning
and evening, in every newspaper
in the country, the awful devasta-
tion of character, happiness, and
social welfare by sin is reported In
great headliness. On every front
page of every newspaper ought to
be written the old and familiar text,
1.-THE wages of sin is DEATH" for in
those words are summed up half the
happenings of the day. Murder,
violence, theft, infdelitles, and be.
trayals of faith of every kind are
reported in columns of hidious de.
tail; while the story of the brief
madness of passion, violating the
law to crafty the momentary i'm
pulse of nature, is told and retold
with wearisome reiteration. There
is very little of the prophetic spirit
in most newspapers, but they per-
form with startling emphasis the
prophetic function of declaring the
immutable will of God in the moral
order of the world.
The man who thinks sin a mere
incident in the development of the
race, a passing phase of imperfec-
tion, need only read his newspaper
intelligently to see what dynamic
force of disintegratlon resides in sin,
and with what appalling certainty
it brings degradation, misery, and
death in its train. Men may phil
osophize about evil as they choose,
and hide its real nature under pleas
ant phrases or behind scientific
Terms, but the fact cannot be dis
gnised that sin is more hideous than
ever. The old-time image of the
devil with brutal leer on his face
was a far truer symbol of the evil
in the world than the urbane and
cultivated Mephlstopheles Of the
modern drama. Art has been pro-
situated to spread certain glamour
over SIN, and old and cultivated
societies have devised conventions
which clothe it with shred of decen-
cy; but whenever and wherever the
mask IS torn off it shows brutal,
hideous, unhuman face. 1t poisons
the sources of life, and trampies all
true and holy things in the mire;
and, though it sometimes escapes
outward disgrace and visible penal
ty, 1t never goes unpunlshed.
There is moral disorder in So
ciely, but no moral ana rchy; for the
law is always enforced-not always
oD, but always IN, the offender.
The Furies do not always follow
the lawbreaker with the clamor of
bragen wings; they make their home
in his heart, and hell becomes, not
vague nightmare, but daily ex-
penence, The punishment of sin
begins the moment it is commit
ted, and no man or woman ever
escapes the full penalty. For the
punishment is within, not without;
its certain and most appalling form
is not arrest, trial, and legal penal
ty, but the disintegration OF the
moral nature of the man or woman
who has sinned. The most appall-
ing tragedy in life only incidental
ly gets into the newspapers; 1t goes
on silently, and, for time, almost
unobseryed; but sooner or later the
dead soul is as obvious as the dead
tree. 10 see a man slowly but
surely die at the heart, losing one
one by the great faculties and quail
tiles Of his nature-moral sense,
spiritual vision, integrity, honor,
pesce-is one of the heart-breaking
experiences of life. So visible dies