Whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes off the relish of spiritual things—in short, whatever increases the strength and authority of your body over your mind, that thing is sin to you, however innocent it may be in itself."
The wisest of casuists might find it difficult to better that interpretation of human duty!—W. H. Fitchett, "Wesley and His Century."
(2391)
PLEASURE, MOCKERY OF
In the days of the Inquisition cruel men
deceived the prisoner, as pleasure and sensualism
deceive the young now. With soft
words the jailer promised the prisoner release
on the morrow. When the appointed
hour came he opened the door and pointed
down the corridor, and oh, joy of joys!
yonder was the green sward, cool with grass,
and gay with tulips and crimson flowers.
With a shout of joy the prisoner ran forward
to cast himself upon the cool ground,
but lo! it was a mockery, a delusion, a lying
deceit. What afar off seemed grass was
really sheet-iron painted in the similitude of
verdure. What looked like red tulips and
crimson flowers was iron beaten into the
similitude of blossoms and heated red hot by
flames underneath. Where coolness was
promised scorching was given. The vista
promised pleasure; it gave pain. And when
a man or a woman looks upon the worldly
life, with all its pleasures of appetite and
physical sense, from afar off, it wears a brilliant
aspect and a crimson hue. But near at
hand the scene changes, and lo, the honey is
bitter, all the fountains of peace are
poisoned.—N. D. Hillis.
(2392)
PLEASURES, POISONOUS
A gentleman in Paris desired to buy a
ring, and, as he tried on several rings in the
jeweler's store, he noticed one that was set
with tiny eagle's claws. The next day his
hand began to swell. The doctor told him
that he was poisoned, and on inquiry he
found that the old ring came from Italy,
and was once used for poisoning an enemy.
For four centuries that particle of poison had
remained between the eagle's claws.
Watch the rings of pleasure which
the world offers, there are within them
the eagle's claws with the poison.
Those pleasures may sparkle with fascination
and seem greatly desirable, but
they mean death in the end. The poison
is subtle; the claws are concealed; but
at last poison and claws do their fatal
work.
(2393)
Pledge—See Loyalty.
PLEDGE-KEEPING
The Archbishop of York, at a recent meeting,
told how, when he was at Portsmouth,
he had induced a working man to sign the
pledge. The man said: "Ah, sir, I won't be
able to keep this pledge. Every night I have
to pass ten public-houses, and my mates are
with me, and we treat each other."
The archbishop said, "Do you think it would help you if I were to see you home?"
At this the meeting broke out into a cheer.
"Don't cheer that," said the archbishop; "that is the kind of work which the clergy are doing every day." The man replied, "If you could only see me past these houses, I should get home all right."
(2394)
PLUCK
What a characteristic story of poverty and
pluck is that of Andrew Carnegie! His
father, a Scotch weaver who worked with
hand-looms, thrown out of employment by
improved machinery, came to Pittsburg when
"Andy" was but ten years of age. The boy
went to work as a bobbin-boy at $1.20 a week.
At thirteen he was promoted to the post of
engineer of the factory engine. At fourteen
he became telegraph boy, and was promoted
at sixteen, for quick intelligence, to the post
of telegraph operator at a salary of $300 a
year. About this time his father died, and
the support of the family devolved on him.
He soon got a dollar a week extra for copying
telegrams for the papers, which he called
his "first bit of capital." His salary went
for household expenses, but the dollar surplus
he invested wisely, first in the express
business, then in sleeping-cars, and, finally,
as an outcome of his management of transportation
in the Civil War, in a plant to
manufacture iron railway bridges. And so
by alertness and economy and untiring
energy he came to be the world's most distinguished
manufacturer and philanthropist,
putting as much talent into giving as he had
before put into getting.
(2395)
See Courage in Life; Stedfastness.
