e to "play a game of cards" an
irresistible gambler's passion.

Abraham gave up his only son at God's bidding, and as the fruit of
that act of obedience God gave him seed as numerous as the stars of
the heaven and as the sands upon the seashore.

Jacob told one lie, and his ten sons came back with his lie
multiplied tenfold. For twenty years Jacob mourned for Joseph,
supposing that he was dead. I have no doubt that night after night
he wept for Joseph, and in his dreams saw the boy torn to pieces,
and heard his cries for help. It took him a long time to reap the
harvest.

Israel murmured against God because of the report of the land of
Canaan brought back by the spies. Had they not to reap a multiplied
harvest? Listen: "After the number of the days in which ye searched
the land, even forty days, each day for a year, shall ye bear your
iniquities, even forty years, and ye shall know my breach of
promise."

When I made the remark in a meeting once that a man had to reap more
than he sowed, a man in front of me dropped his head and sobbed
aloud. After the meeting, a friend stepped up to him and said:

"What is your trouble?"

Pointing to me he said, "Every word that man has been saying is
true. Four years ago I was the confidential clerk of a firm in this
city. I have reason to believe that if I had continued as I began, I
should have been in the firm now. But one night in a saloon under
the influence of drink I committed a crime, and I was sent to the
penitentiary, where I repented in sackcloth and ashes. To-day I came
back for the first time, and went to the old house, and they ordered
me out. I went to other business-houses I was acquainted with, and
received the same treatment. I met men on the street whom I once
knew, who had held inferior places to me, and I lifted my hat, but
no one returned the bow."

The man wrung his hands in agony and said, "It is all true, it takes
a longer time to reap than to sow."

Do you not believe it? Ask your neighbor who has drank up his
character and reputation and home, and has brought a blight on his
family. It takes a long time to build up a character, but you can
blast it in a single hour.

A man died in the Columbus penitentiary some years ago who had spent
over thirty years in his cell. He was one of the millionaires of
Ohio. Fifty years ago when they were trying to get a trunk road from
Chicago to New York, they wanted to lay the line through his farm
near Clevelan