Had any one foretold to him
a week before even the possibility of this occurrence, how indignantly
would he have spurned the very thought! That he should become, and
deservedly so, the inmate of a felon's cell--how monstrous the
supposition! Yet so it came to pass. The heart is deceitful above all
things, and he who trusts in it is "cursed." Multitudes find their own
case the renewal of Hazael's experience. When Elijah told him the
enormities he, when on the throne of Syria, would practice, he
exclaimed--"Is thy servant a dog that he should do these things?" He was
not then, but he afterwards became just such a dog.
But if the heart be deceitful, sin is scarcely less so. When the poor
boy first clutched his prize, as he esteemed it, he promised himself
nothing but pleasure and profit, but how miserably was he deceived!
After he had converted the draft into money, and thus rendered its
return impossible without detection, he saw his guilt in its true
character, and for many nights tossed in torment on a sleepless bed,
while at last he was made to take his place along with hardened convicts
in a city prison. Thus it always is with sin. Like the book the apostle
ate in vision, it is sweet as honey in the mouth, but bitter in the
belly. Like the wine Solomon describes, it may sparkle in the cup and
shoot up its bright beads on the surface, but at the last it biteth like
a serpent and stingeth like an adder.
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