at himself and at Christ that
he had been inveigled into it by what he might be pleased to say to
himself were false pretences. His self-restraint, he felt, was breaking
down; his covetousness was getting the better of him; he felt that he
must break with Christ and His followers; but in doing so he would at
once win what he had lost during these years of poverty, and also
revenge himself on those who had kept him poor, and finally would
justify his own conduct in deserting this society by exploding it and
causing it to cease from among men.

The sin of Judas, then, first of all teaches us the great power and
danger of the love of money. The mere thirty pieces of silver would not
have been enough to tempt Judas to commit so dastardly and black a
crime; but he was now an embittered and desperate man, and he had become
so by allowing money to be all in all to him for these last years of his
life. For the danger of this passion consists very much in this--that it
infallibly eats out of the soul every generous emotion and high aim: it
is the failing of a sordid nature--a little, mean, earthly nature--a
failing which, like all others, may be extirpated through God's grace,
but which is notoriously difficult to extirpate, and which notoriously
is accompanied by or produces other features of character which are
among the most repulsive one meets. The love of money is also dangerous,
because it can be so easily gratified; all that we do in the world day
by day is in the case of most of us connected with money, so that we
have continual and not only occasional opportunity of sinning if we be
inclined to the sin. Other passions are appealed to only now and again,
but our employments touch this passion at all points. It leaves no long
intervals, as other passions do, for repentance and amendment; but
steadily, constantly, little by little, increases in force. Judas had
his fingers in the bag all day; it was under his pillow and he dreamt
upon it all night; and it was this that accelerated his ruin. And by
this constant appeal it is sure to succeed at one time or other, if we
be open to it. Judas could not suppose that his quiet
self-aggrandisement by pilfering little coins from the bag could ever
bring him to commit such a crime against his Lord: so may every covetous
person fancy that his sin is one that is his own business, and will not
damage his religious profession and ruin his soul as some wild lust or
reckless infidelity wo