The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1922-02-02

gross and desperate sin at one bound.
They lean toward sin before they leap
into sin. Just as bridge is weakened
by the continued washing around the
foundation of the pier so character is
gradual but certain in submission to
sins sway in the life until finally the
step is taken that results in disgrace
and ruin. The seed of one of those
! giant trees in California is no larger
! than a mustard seed, yet see what it
grows. Sin begins small like a mus
tard seed but develops until it con-
trolls the entire man to his ruin. Sin
is like a leprosy that poisons the
blood and gradually brings on death.
tell you that sin is a cheat and a
liar. 1t promises you a good time but
damns you at last. If you could see
the finish of your sin you would stop
and break with it at once, the horror
or it would be so terrible The wages
of sin is death. 1t is death to hope,
death to peace, and death to the best
things for time and eternity.
Your sin will destroy your will. An
old Chinaman laying up on his bunk
in an opium joint, putting away at his
pipe was asked how he liked the stuff.
He replied: 81 got to like it; 1 been
smoking for forty years" His sin had
mastered him and he was helpless in
its grip. There are a million fools
in hell who at one time boosted they
could change their habits when they
chose. And there is another million
or more who are heading that way,
walking by the light of the same
torch.
Robert Louis Stevenson in a most
striking and forcible manner has told
of the operation of this law in the
moral world and the peril of persist
ing in those things that are contrary
to the best interests of the soul. In
his story of DR.. Jekyll and Mr.. Hyde
he pictures the gradual development
and power of evil in the individual
life. You remember that DR.. Jekyll
was kind and respected physician
who discovered a remarkable drug
that had the power to change him to
mean and cruel individual known as
Mr.. Hyde. For weeks he would be DR..
Jekyll, tender and loving and kind to
everybody. Then, after taking the
drug, he would take on the character
of Mr.. Hyde, cruel and murderous.
/ AS Mr.. Hyde, a child ran against
him on the street and he felled her to
the ground with one blow. One night
an old man with white hair politely
asked him to show him the way to a
certain place and Mr.. Hyde flew in a
rage and knocked him down with his
cane, and then with apelike fury leap
ed on his PROSTATE form and like a
fiend crushed his bones. Everybody
loved DIR. Jekyll, while everybody
spectable sinner You can rake in
turned away from Mr.. Hyde with
loathing and disgust.
Time went by and the transforma-
ton was made again and again by the
aid of the drug. By and by, DR.. Jekyll
noticed it became easier and easier to
change himself from his good self
into his evil self, from the good doc
tor to the wicked Mr.. Hyde, and at the
same time it was getting harder to
> change himself back to DR.. Jekyn.
Finally he would become Mr.. Hyde
!, without even the use of the drug. he
went to bed as DIR. Jekyll and woke
up as Mr.. Hyde. He sat down on a
bench in the park and suddenly he
had changed to Mr.. Hyde.
Then one day he shut himself in his
) room and try as he would he could
] not transform himself again to the
t good side of his nature. His servants
heard a strange voice in his room
r whining and crying. Friends were
: called in to see what was the trouble
and he locked the door. They battered
, down the door and there on the floor
they found DR.. Jekyll dying as the
wicked Mr.. Hyde. He had taken poi.