e 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 damned. 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 shipwrecks 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 shore, 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 shore
again. Put back, row swiftly, swifter, swifter! Jesus from the shore
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 ungodly banquet the keen
sword of God'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 su