all.
Servants, in costly liveries, passed to and fro, bearing the rich
dainties on massive salvers, one of which was to be presently
besprinkled with the martyr's blood.

In such a scene, I would have you study the genesis of a great crime,
because you must remember that in respect to sin, there is very little
to choose between the twentieth century and the first; between the sin
of that civilization and of ours. This is why the Bible must always
command the profound interest of mankind--because it does not concern
itself with the outward circumstances and setting of the scenes and
characters it describes, but with those great common facts of
temptation, sin, and redemption, which have a meaning for us all.

This chapter is therefore written under more than usual solemnity,
because one is so sure that, in dealing with that scene and the
passions that met there in a foaming vortex, words may be penned that
will help souls which are caught in the drift of the same black
current, and are being swept down. Perhaps this page shall utter a
warning voice to arrest them, ere it be too late, and be a life-buoy,
or rope, or brother's hand reached out to save them as they rush past
on the boiling waters. For there is help and grace in God by which a
Herod and a Judas, a Jezebel and a Lady Macbeth, a royal criminal or an
ordinary one, may be arrested, redeemed, and saved.

In this, as in every sin, there were three forces at work:--First, the
predisposition of the soul, which the Bible calls "lust," and "the
desire of the mind." "Among whom," says the apostle, "we also all once
lived in the lusts of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of
the mind, and were by nature children of wrath." Second, the
suggestion of evil from without. Finally, the act of the will by which
the suggestion was accepted and finally adopted.

It is, in this latter phase, that sin especially comes in. There may
be sin in being able and disposed to sin. The possession of a sinful
nature needs the atonement and propitiation of the precious blood.
There may be sin, also, in dallying with temptation, in not
anticipating its advent at a further distance. But, after all, that
which is of the essence of sin is in the act of the will, which allows
itself to admit and entertain some foul suggestion, and ultimately
sends its executioner below to carry its sentence into effect.

I. THE PREDETERMINATION TOWARDS THIS SIN.--The word "lust" is now