The subject of the morning also impresses me with the fact that fruits
that are sweet to the taste may afterward produce great agony.
Forbidden fruit for Eve was so pleasant she invited her husband also
to take of it; but her banishment from Paradise, and six thousand
years of sorrow, and wretchedness, and war, and woe paid for that
luxury. Sin may be very sweet at the start, and it may induce great
wretchedness afterward. The cup of sin is sparkling at the top, but
there is death at the bottom. Intoxication has great exhilaration for
a while, and it fillips the blood, and it makes a man see five stars
where others can see only one star, and it makes the poor man rich,
and turns cheeks which are white red as roses; but what about the
dreams that come after, when he seems falling from great heights, or
is prostrated by other fancied disasters, and the perspiration stands
on the forehead, the night dew of everlasting darkness, and he is
ground under the horrible hoof of nightmares shrieking with lips that
crackle with all-consuming torture? "Rejoice, O young man, in thy
youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth; but know
thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment!"