[1] The whole force of life and experience goes to prove that
right or wrong-doing, whether in relation to the physical
or the spiritual nature, is sure, in the end, to meet its
appropriate reward or punishment. Penalties are often so
long delayed, that men think they shall escape them; but
some time they are certain to follow. When the whirlwind
sweeps through the forest, at its first breath, or almost
as if the fearful stillness that precedes had crushed it,
the giant tree, with all its boughs, falls crashing to the
ground. But it had been preparing to fall for twenty years.
Twenty years before the water commenced to settle in at
some crotch, and from thence decay began to reach in with
its silent fingers towards the heart of the tree. Every
year the work of death progressed, till at length it stood,
all rottenness, only clasped about by the bark with a
semblance of life and the first gale felled it to the
ground. Now, there are men who, for twenty years, have
shamed the day and wearied the night with their
debaucheries, but who yet seem strong and vigorous, and
exclaim, "You need not talk of penalties. Look at me! I
have revelled in pleasure for twenty years, and I am as
hale and hearty to-day as ever." But in reality they are
full of weakness and decay. They have been preparing to
fall for twenty years, and the first disease strikes them
down in a moment.
Ascending from the physical nature of man to the mind and
character, we find the same laws prevail. People sometimes
say, "Dishonesty is as good as honesty, for aught I see.
There are such and such men who have pursued for years the
most corrupt courses in their business, and yet they
prosper, and are getting rich every day." Wait till you see
their end. Every year how many such men are overtaken with
sudden destruction, and swept for ever out of sight and
remembrance! Many a man has gone on in sin, practising
secret fraud and villanies, yet trusted and honoured, till
at length, in some unsuspected hour, he is detected, and,
denounced by the world, he falls from his high estate as if
a cannon-ball had struck him--for there is no cannon that
can strike more fatally than outraged public sentiment--and
flies over the mountains, or across the sea, to escape the
odium of his life. He believed that his evil course was
building him up in fame and fortune; but financiering is
the devil's forge, and his every act was a blow upon the
anvil, shaping the dagger that should one day strike home
to his heart and make him a suicide. The pea contains the
vine, and the flower, and the pod, in embryo, and, I am
sure, when I plant it, that it will produce them and
nothing else. Now, every action of our lives is embryonic,
and, according as it is right or wrong, it will surely
bring forth sweet flowers of joy, or the poison fruits of
sorrow. Such is the construction of this world, and the
Bible assures us that the next world only carries it
forward. Here and hereafter, "whatsoever a man soweth, that
shall he also reap."--_Beecher._