forth that which is a kind of horrible parody of that conjugal
relation. A man is married to his wickedness, is mated to his evil,
and it has, as it were, a tigerish longing for him, unhallowed and
murderous. That is to say--our sins act towards us as if they
desired to draw our love to themselves. This is just another form of
the statement, that when once a man has done a wrong thing, it has
an awful power of attracting him and making him hunger to do it
again. Every evil that I do may, indeed, for a moment create in me a
revulsion of conscience; but it also exercises a fascination over me
which it is hard to resist. It is a great deal easier to find a man
who has never done a wrong thing than to find a man who has only
done it once. If the wall of the dyke is sound it will keep the
water out, but if there is the tiniest hole in it, the flood will
come in. So the evil that you do asserts its power over you, or, in
the vigorous metaphor of my text, it has a fierce, longing desire
after you, and it gets you into its clutches.

'The foolish woman sitteth in the high places of the city, and
saith, Whoso is simple let him turn in hither.' And foolish men go
after her, and--'know not that her guests are in the depth of hell.'
Ah! my brother! beware of that siren voice that draws you away from
all the sweet and simple and pure food which Wisdom spreads upon her
table, to tempt the beast that is in you with the words, 'Stolen
waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.' Beware of
the first step, for as sure as you are living, the first step taken
will make the second seem to become necessary. The first drop will
be followed by a bigger second, and the second, at a shorter
interval, by a more copious third, until the drops become a shower,
and the shower becomes a deluge. The river of evil is ever wider and
deeper, and more tumultuous. The little sins get in at the window,