their earthly career.

The records of memory are like those pages on which you write with
sympathetic ink, which disappears when dry, and seems to leave the
page blank. You have only to hold it before the fire, or subject it
to the proper chemical process, and at once it stands out legible.
You are writing your biography upon the fleshly tables of your
heart, my brother; and one day it will all be spread out before you,
and you will be bid to read it, and to say what you think of it. The
stings of a nettle will burn for days, if they are touched with
water. The sting and inflammation of your evil deeds, though it has
died down, is capable of being resuscitated, and it will be.

What an awful menagerie of unclean beasts some of us have at our
doors! What sort of creatures have you tethered at yours? Crawling
serpents, ugly and venomous; wild creatures, fierce and bloody,
obscene and foul; tigers and bears; lustful and mischievous apes and
monkeys? or such as are lovely and of good report,--doves and lambs,
creatures pure and peaceable, patient to serve and gentle of spirit?
Remember, remember, that what a man soweth--be it hemlock or be it
wheat--that, and nothing else, 'shall he reap.'

2. Now, let us look for a moment at the next thought that is here;
which is put into a strong, and, to our modern notions, somewhat
violent metaphor;--the horrible longing, as it were, of sin toward
the sinner: 'Unto thee shall be its desire.'

As I explained, these words are drawn from the previous chapter,
where they refer to the holy union of heart and affection in husband
and wife. Here they are transferred with tremendous force, to set