and open the front door for the full-grown house-breakers. One
smooths the path for the other. All sin has an awful power of
perpetuating and increasing itself. As the prophet says in his
vision of the doleful creatures that make their sport in the
desolate city, 'None of them shall want her mate. The wild beasts of
the desert shall meet with the wild beasts of the island.' Every sin
tells upon character, and makes the repetition of itself more and
more easy. 'None is barren among them.' And all sin is linked
together in a slimy tangle, like a field of seaweed, so that the man
once caught in its oozy fingers is almost sure to be drowned.

3. And now, lastly, one word about the command, which is also a
promise: 'To thee shall be its desire, and thou shalt rule over it.'

Man's primitive charter, according to the earlier chapters of
Genesis, was to have dominion over the beasts of the field. Cain
knew what it was to war against the wild creatures which contested
the possession of the earth with man, and to tame some of them for
his uses. And, says the divine voice, just as you war against the
beasts of prey, just as you subdue to your purposes and yoke to your
implements the tamable animals over which you have dominion, so rule
over _this_ wild beast that is threatening you. It is needful
for all men, if they do not mean to be torn to pieces, to master the
animal that is in them, and the wild thing that has been created out
of them. It is bone of your bone and flesh of your flesh. It is your
own evil that is thus incarnated there, as it were, before you; and
you have to subdue it, if it is not to tyrannise over you. We all
admit that in theory, but how terribly hard the practice! The words
of our text seem to carry but little hope or comfort in them, to the
man who has tried--as, no doubt, many of us have tried--to flee the