II. So notice again how this story teaches the heavy cost of these
helpers' help.

Ahaz had, as he thought, two strings to his bow. He had the gods of
Damascus and of other lands on one hand, he had the king of Assyria on
another. They both of them exacted onerous terms before they would
stir a foot to his aid. As for the northern conqueror, all the wealth
of the king and of the princes and of the Temple was sent to Assyria
as the price of his hurtful help. As for the gods, his helpers, one of
his sons at least went into the furnace to secure their favour; and
what other sacrifices he may have made besides the sacrifice of his
conscience and his soul, history does not tell us. These were
considerable subsidies to have to be paid down before any aid was
granted.

Do _you_ buy this world's help any cheaper, my brother? You get
nothing for nothing in that market. It is a big price that you have to
pay before these mercenaries will come to fight on your side. Here is
a man that 'succeeds in life,' as we call it. What does it cost him?
Well! it has cost him the suppression, the atrophy by disuse, of many
capacities in his soul which were far higher and nobler than those
that have been exercised in his success. It has cost him all his days;
it has possibly cost him the dying out of generous sympathies and the
stimulating of unwholesome selfishness. Ah! he has bought his
prosperity very dear. Political economists have much to say about the
'appreciation of gold.' I think if people would estimate what they pay
for it, in an immense majority of cases, in treasure that cannot be
weighed and stamped, they would find it to be about the dearest thing
in God's universe; and that there are few men who make worse bargains
than the men who give _themselves_ for worldly success, even when