Sin ! The sound is brief. But it presents a dark abyss of thought. No mind can trace its birth. No eye can see its death. Before the worlds it scaled the heavens, and dragged angels down. In life’s first dawn it entered Eden and slew innocence. It ends not with the end of time. It ever rolls an ever-deepening course.

Reader, think much of sin.

It is earth’s death-blow. It marred the beauty of a beauteous world. It stripped it of its lovely robe. It caused the soil to harden; the leaves to wither and decay. It turned fertility to weeds, and armed the brier with its bristling thorns. It made the clouds to blacken, and the storm to rage. It raised the tempest’s roar, and plumed the lightning with its forky wings. It placed its foot upon a perfect workmanship—and left it a disordered wreck.

Reader, think much of sin.

It is man’s ruin. Its most tremendous blight fell on our inner life. It drove the soul from peaceful fellowship with God. It changed the loving child into a hardened rebel. It robbed the mind of light. It rendered reason a bewildered maze. It made the heart a nest of unclean birds: a spring of impure streams: whirlpool of tumultuous passions: a hot-bed of ungodly lusts: a den of God-defying schemes. It is the malady—the misery- the shame of our whole race. It is the spring of every tear. Each sigh, which rends the breast,-— each frown, which ploughs the brow,—each pain, which racks the limbs, are cradled in its arms. It is the mother of that mighty monster–death. It digs each grave in every grave-yard. Each widow and each orphan tastes its gall. It fills each hospital with sick. It strews the battlefield with slain. It is the core in every grief. It is the worm which gnaws the root of peace.

Reader think much of sin.

Its terrible destructions die not in the grave. There is a region, where its full-blown torments reign. It built the prison-house of hell. It kindled quenchless flames. It forged the chains, which bind lost sinners to their burning beds. It sharpened the undying sting of an upbraiding conscience. It arms the jailer—Satan, with his scourge. It bars the hopeless in that outer darkness, where weeping ever weeps—and wailing ever wails—and teeth for ever gnash-—and all is woe, which knows no respite and no end.

Reader, think much of sin.

It works this bitter and eternal anguish, because God’s curse attends it. It raised a rebel-hand against His will. It dared to violate His holy law. It strove to lay His honour in the dust It trampled on the statute-book of heaven. Therefore God’s anger fiercely bums against it Hence every misery follows in its rear. He must be wretched who has God against him.

Reader, here is a picture, in which all horrors meet. Regard it with an earnest eye. No fiction colours it. No power can over paint tbe terrible reality. No artist’s skill can represent a flame. The awful truth exceeds report. The lost writhe out eternity in fully learning the deserts of sin.”

Archdeacon Henry Law, Christ is All: Levitcus, “The Sin Offering” 22-24.