One evil contains within itself the possibilities of all
evil. Medical writers have now much to tell touching the
convertibility of disease. They have come to the conclusion
that the constitutional defect appearing in a family in one
generation is not necessarily transmitted in that exact form to
succeeding generations. What appears at one time as insanity
will reveal itself at another as epilepsy or paralysis;
convulsions will reassert themselves as hysteria or insanity;
insanity is converted into a tendency to suicide; the suicidal
tendency will become a mania for drinking; what is neuralgia
in the father may be melancholia in the son; what is deformity
in one generation may be apoplexy in the next. In an afflicted
family the constitutional defect has curious ramifications, and
undergoes strange metamorphoses.
It is much the same with evil. Men will indulge in one vice, while
they express the utmost abhorrence of other vices of which they could
never think themselves susceptible. But this is a mistake. All evils
are one in root and essence; and surrendering ourselves to one form
of iniquity, we surrender ourselves to all; changing circumstances
and temptations will involve the lawbreaker in other sins, and in
aggravated guilt.--W. L. WATKINSON, “The Transfigured Sackcloth.”
(961)
* * * * *
When the father of William the Conqueror was departing for
the Holy Land, he called together the peers of Normandy and
required them to swear allegiance to his young son, who was a
mere infant; when the barons smiled at the feeble babe, the king
promptly replied, “He is little, but he will grow.” He did grow,
and the babyhand ere long ruled the nations as with a rod of
iron.
The same may be said of evil in its slenderest beginning, in its most
inocuous form: “It is little, but it will grow.” In its beginning it
is a fancy, a flash of thought, a look, a word, a touch, a gesture, a
tone, an accent, an embryo that no microscope could detect; but at last
it is a Cain, a Judas, a Nero. The acorn-cup yields the upas-tree; out
of a spark flashes hell.--W. L. WATKINSON, “The Transfigured
Sackcloth.”
(962)