modern language, is just this: every sin that a man does has
perennial consequences, which abide with the doer for evermore.

I need not dwell upon illustrations of that to any length. Let me
just run over two or three ways in which it is true. First of all,
there is that solemn fact which we put into a long word that comes
glibly off people's lips, and impresses them very little--the solemn
fact of responsibility. We speak in common talk of such and such a
thing lying at some one's door. Whether the phrase has come from
this text I do not know. But it helps to illustrate the force of
these words, and to suggest that they mean this, among other things,
that we have to answer for every deed, however evanescent, however
long forgotten. Its guilt is on our heads. Its consequences have to
be experienced by us. We drink as we have brewed. As we make our
beds, so we lie on them. There is no escape from the law of
consequences. 'If 'twere done, when 'tis done, then 'twere well it
were done quickly.' But seeing that it is not done when 'tis done,
then perhaps it would be better that it were not done at all. Your
deed of a moment, forgotten almost as soon as done, lies there at
your door; or to take a more modern and commercial figure, it is
debited to your account, and stands inscribed against you for ever.

Think how you would like it, if all your deeds from your childhood,
all your follies, your vices, your evil thoughts, your evil
impulses, and your evil actions, were all made visible and embodied
there before you. They are there, though you do not see them yet.
All round your door they sit, ready to meet you and to bay out
condemnation as you go forth. They are there, and one day you will
find out that they are. For this is the law, certain as the
revolution of the stars and fixed as the pillars of the firmament: