This gentleman made a special journey to Freshwater to collect some specimens of a species, which is said to be found in no other part of the British Isles except the South Downs near the Needles.
Shortly after sunset he proceeded along the top of the cliff, armed with a pot of syrup and a brush, and whenever he came to a thistle, he just daubed it slightly with the syrup and passed on.
About midnight he returned along the same path, but this time provided with a lantern, and as he stepped from thistle to thistle, his innocent victims were found clustering round the syrup, and fell, an easy prey, into the collector's hands.
What a solemn picture, I thought, of How Satan Dupes His Victims!
He, too, stalks through the land with his pot of syrup, daubing the pleasures of sin with a delusive sweetness, and soon after, his victims, intoxicated with the poisoned draft, and hardened by the deceitfulness of sin, lose all consciousness of their terrible danger.
You, my unsaved reader, are like the nocturnal moth; you love darkness rather than light, and hate to be exposed to the searching rays that radiate from God's holy Word, because it tells you that your deeds are evil.
The evening of life comes on; the darkness thickens round the soul. Sin, the sweet morsel upon which you have fed so long, is dragging you down into a lost eternity. At length a light shines upon you, poor deluded worldling. It is but the lantern ofThe Grim Collector-Death- who steps from thistle to thistle, fit emblems of the curse, and lays his cruel hand upon his victims. The light that dazzles and affrights them is not from Christ in glory, for upon Him their back is turned; it is but the reflection of the lurid flames of hell, the conscience awakened all too late, the danger perceived when escape is forever impossible!
Oh! my friend, do turn away from the pleasures of sin, which satisfy but for a moment and then leave an aching void behind, and fix your gaze upon the blessed Son of God, who can meet your every need.
You want to taste of life!
He bids you come to Him, and life eternal will be your portion.
You must have pleasure, you say?
At His right hand there are pleasures forevermore. Does your poor heart crave rest?
Listen, then, to His tender words:
" Come Unto Me, And I Will Give You Rest " (Matt. 11. 28).
But mark Before peace of conscience and rest of heart can be yours, it is necessary that you should have pardon for your many sins, and this, too, is only to be obtained at the feet of the One, who shed His precious blood on Calvary's cross in order that a full and free forgiveness might be proclaimed to you.
" Be it known unto YOU... that through this MAN [Jesus] is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins; and BY HIM all that believe are justified from all things " (Acts 13. 38, 39).
Instead of the poisoned sweets of Satan's pleasures, may you taste the unending joys of the Father's house