Part 16 (1/2)

PERDITION BOUGHT FOR A SIXPENCE.

The Philistines jeered and laughed and shouted at Samson. Oh, they wanted him to make sport for them, and he made sport for them! How bright and gay was the scene for a little while! After awhile the giant puts one hand against this pillar, and the other hand against this pillar, and bows himself, and three thousand merry-makers are mashed like grapes in a wine-press. Sin rapturous at the start, awful at the last.

That one Edenic transgression did not seem to be much, but it struck a blow which to this day makes the earth stagger like an ox under a butcher's bludgeon. To find out the consequences of that one sin, you would have to compel the world to throw open all its prison doors and display the crime, and throw open all its hospitals and display the disease, and throw open all the insane asylums and show the wretchedness, and open all the sepulchres and show the dead, and open all the doors of the lost world and show the d.a.m.ned. That one Edenic transgression stretched chords of misery across the heart of the world and struck them with dolorous wailing, and it has seated the plagues upon the air and the s.h.i.+pwrecks upon the tempest, and fastened like a leech famine to the heart of the sick and dying nations. Beautiful at the start, horrible at the last. Oh, how many have experienced it!

And there are those who are

VOTARIES OF PLEASURE.

Let me warn you, my brother. Your pleasure boat is far from sh.o.r.e, and your summer day is ending roughly, for the winds and the waves are loud voiced, and the overcoming clouds are all awrithe and agleam with terror. You are past the ”Narrows,” and almost outside the ”Hook,” and if the Atlantic take thee, frail mortal, thou shalt never get to sh.o.r.e again. Put back, row swiftly, swifter, swifter! Jesus from the sh.o.r.e casteth a rope. Clasp it quickly, now or never. Oh, are there not some of you who are freighting all your loves and joys and hopes upon a vessel which shall never reach the port of heaven? Thou nearest the breakers, one heave upon the rock. Oh, what an awful crash was that!

Another lunge may crush thee beneath the spars or grind thy bones to powder amid the torn timbers. Overboard for your life, overboard!

Trust not that loose plank nor attempt the move, but quickly clasp the feet of Jesus walking on the watery pavement, shouting until He hear thee, ”Lord, save me, or I perish.” Sin beautiful at the start--oh, how sad, how distressful at the last! The ground over which it leads you is hollow. The fruit it offers to your taste is poison. The promise it makes to you is a lie. Over that unG.o.dly banquet the keen sword of G.o.d's judgment hangs, and there are ominous handwritings on the wall.

HIDEOUS ATTRACTIVENESS.

Observe also in this subject how repelling sin is when appended to great attractiveness. Since Eve's death there has been no such perfection of womanhood. You could not suggest an attractiveness to the body or suggest any refinement to the manner. You could add no gracefulness to the gait, no l.u.s.tre to the eye, no sweetness to the voice. A perfect G.o.d made her a perfect woman to be the companion of a perfect man in a perfect home, and her entire nature vibrated in accord with the beauty and song of Paradise. But she rebelled against G.o.d's government, and with the same hand with which she plucked the fruit she launched upon the world the crimes, the wars, the tumults, that have set the universe a-wailing,

A TERRIBLE OFFSET

to all her attractiveness. We are not surprised when we find men and women naturally vulgar going into transgression. We expect that people who live in the ditch shall have the manners of the ditch; but how shocking when we find sin appended to superior education and to the refinements of social life. The accomplishments of Mary Queen of Scots make her patronage of Darnley, the profligate, the more appalling. The genius of Catharine II., of Russia, only sets forth in more powerful contrast her unappeasable ambition. The translations from the Greek and the Latin by Elizabeth, and her wonderful qualifications for a queen, made the more disgusting her capriciousness of affection and her hotness of temper. The greatness of Byron's mind made the more alarming Byron's sensuality.

Let no one who hears me this day think that refinement of manner or exquisiteness of taste or superiority of education can in any wise apologize for ill-temper, for an oppressive spirit, for unkindness, for any kind of sin. Disobedience G.o.dward and transgression manward can give no excuse. Accomplishment heaven high is no apology for vice h.e.l.l deep.

My subject also impresses me with the regal

INFLUENCE OF WOMAN.

When I see Eve with this powerful influence over Adam and over the generations that have followed, it suggests to me the great power all women have for good or for evil. I have no sympathy, nor have you, with the hollow flatteries showered upon woman from the platform and the stage. They mean nothing, they are accepted as nothing. Woman's n.o.bility consists in the exercise of a Christian influence, and when I see this powerful influence of Eve upon her husband and upon the whole human race, I make up my mind that the frail arm of woman can strike a blow which will resound through all eternity down among the dungeons, or up among the thrones.

Of course, I am not speaking of representative women--of Eve, who ruined the race by one fruit-picking; of Jael, who drove a spike through the head of Sisera the warrior; of Esther, who overcame royalty; of Abigail, who stopped a host by her own beautiful prowess; of Mary, who nursed the world's Saviour; of Grandmother Lois, immortalized in her grandson Timothy; of Charlotte Corday, who drove the dagger through the heart of the a.s.sa.s.sin of her lover, or of Marie Antoinette, who by one look from the balcony of her castle quieted a mob, her own scaffold the throne of forgiveness and womanly courage. I speak not of these extraordinary persons, but of those who, unambitious for political power, as

WIVES AND MOTHERS

and sisters and daughters, attend to the thousand sweet offices of home.

When at last we come to calculate the forces that decided the destiny of nations, it will be found that the mightiest and grandest influence came from home, where the wife cheered up despondency and fatigue and sorrow by her own sympathy, and the mother trained her child for heaven, starting the little feet on the path to the celestial city; and the sisters by their gentleness refined the manners of the brother; and the daughters were diligent in their kindness to the aged, throwing wreaths of blessing on the road that leads father and mother down the steep of years. Need I go into history to find you ill.u.s.trations? Ah no; in your own memory there was at least one such!

When I come to speak of womanly influence, my mind always wanders off to

ONE MODEL,

the aged one who, twenty years ago, we put away for the resurrection.

About eighty years ago, and just before their marriage day, my father and mother stood up in the old meeting-house at Somerville, New Jersey, and took upon them the vows of the Christian. Through a long life of vicissitude she lived harmlessly and usefully, and came to her end in peace. No child of want ever came to her door and was turned empty away. No one in sorrow came to her but was comforted. No one asked her the way to be saved but she pointed him to the cross. When the angel of life came to a neighbor's dwelling she was there to rejoice at the incarnation. When the angel of death came to a neighbor's dwelling she was there to robe the departed for the burial.