126 Sermon Illustrations on Worldliness

How apt many are, at the sight of a rich worldling, to envy him for what he hath! but, for my part, I rather pity him for what he wants. He hath a talent; but it wants improvement: he hath a lamp; but it wants oil: he hath a soul; but it wants grace: he hath a star; but it wants the sun: he hath the creature, but wants the Creator. In his life, he doth float upon a torrent of vanity, which empties itself into an ocean of vexation; and, after death, then take this unprofitable servant, bind him hand and foot, and cast him into outer darkness; go set his soul adrift forever in an impetuous lake of fire and brimstone. Where now is the object of your envy? It is not his silver that will now anchor him, nor his gold that shall land him, nor his friends that can comfort him: therefore, if he be worth the envying, who is worth the pitying? If this be felicity, then give me misery. Lord! rather make me poor with a good heart than rich with a bad conscience.

I saw a man beginning a long journey. It was a most perilous journey, through a wild, inhospitable country. It did not seem so at first. A green and flowery lane led from his dwelling. The road was smooth, the day bright, friends near, the prospect fair. He set gayly off in an easy carriage, attended by assiduous servants, and followed by wagons loaded with all curious provision for present amusement or need. Song and fragrance filled the morning air; and though, as the early hours flew by, these fled with them, still his spirits were high, and the wheels rattled merrily over the graded way. The smiles and congratulations of friends saluted him as he passed, and some envied him. He counted himself happy; and, rejoicing in his admirable appointments, gave up his heart to pleasure. The evening of the first day has come, and, lo! the carriage is going down a hill. How steep it is getting! Faster and faster it goes. The air darkens; the gloom thickens; it grows cold; and faster, faster, rolls the carriage downward. Nothing can check it. He tries; the servants try. He shrieks for help; but in vain. Downward dash the horses; and see!—at the bottom of the hill a river, dark, and without a bridge. The road leads into it. In rush the horses; and with struggles and groans, and plunges of agony, all disappear. But our traveller did not die in the stream. At the other shore, he came forth from the water, cold, desolate, alone. His servants were gone; his treasure was gone; his amusements were gone; and on that bleak shore, in that bitter clime, bound still for that awful journey, I saw him standing, pale, weak, in helpless despair. On, on, he must go. He was hungry, but he had no food; thirsty, but there was no water; foot-sore, but he must walk. See, he totters; but he has no staff: dangers assail him; but he has no defence: remorse gnaws him; but he has no resource. An irresistible destiny urges him; and while the hunger ever bites, and the way grows rougher, and horrors thicken about him, on, on, he must go. Yet he knew all this from the first, but counted it nothing. All his preparations were for the pleasant road, through green and sunny fields. He seemed rich then: men called him so,—all but one honest soul, who frankly told him that his arrangements were short-sighted wretched, and that, if he went thus, his folly was as egregious as soon his poverty would be dreadful. But he was called a rude man for his pains, and bidden begone. Why should he be ever disturbing the present joy with his doleful prophecies? The very sight of him made one melancholy; and his voice seemed to troll out his warning like a dismal bell at a funeral. "Let us use the joys we have while we have them, and let the future take care of itself!" So he spoke; and so he went: and now there he is. Nay, you need not tell me that my picture is preposterous, that there is no such fool on earth: I know how wise the children of this world are in their generation, and how unnatural all this would be if I meant the petty concerns of this life alone. But suppose I strip off the veil, and tell you that eternity is that awful journey, and life that pleasant lane, and the body that easy carriage in which the soul sets out so gayly, and death that bridgeless river where friends can go no farther, and servants must forsake us, and all the treasures of earth go down forever? Where now is the unnaturalness? Does it not become natural enough, tame, even, from its very commonness? Thus from your own mouth I condemn you, and, from the shock you feel where the whole scene is bounded by an inch of time, convict you of unutterable madness in preparing for the little course of this life only, and going all unfurnished for everlasting ages. Professor Hoge.

G195. WORLDLING, Model for the. I once saw the ascent of an air-balloon: it was bound to the earth by eight cords. As the process went on of filling with gas, it seemed struggling to get free, and striving to break the bonds which kept it down. At length, one string was cut; and immediately the part at liberty was lifted from the earth: the second and third were loosened, till, the last being snapped asunder, it rose majestically towards heaven, showing thereby its high destination, and evincing the object for which it struggled to get free. There is a picture of the mind I would fain possess, — a mind whose affections are in heaven, a mind filled with the Spirit, and, in proportion as it is filled, demonstrating its character by its ardent aspiring and earnest longings after its heavenly inheritance: thus, as the cords are cut which bind the soul to earth, it will rise in heart and affection to the region where it fain would be. C. Simeon.

G196. WORLDLING, Portion of the. These two lads are figures, — Passion, of the men of this world, and Patience, of the men of that which is to come; for, as here thou seest, Passion will have all now, this year; that is to say, in this world. So are the men of this world: they must have all their good things now. They cannot stay till next year, that is, until the next world, for their portion of good. That proverb, "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush," is of more authority with them than all the divine testimonies of the good of the world to come. But as thou sawest that he had quickly lavished all away, and had presently left him nothing but rags, so it will be with all such men at the end of this world. Bunyan.

A writer in the New-York Observer says: In the village in which I lived for many years, there was a ball but a few steps from my house, and one of the young ladies who was to be there, died suddenly on the very day of the ball. It was proposed by one of the managers to postpone the dance; but the others would not consent; and on it went, although the corpse lay directly in front of the ballroom, and the dim light in the room where it lay could be seen by every dancer, and the sound of the music and dancing disturbed the melancholy watchers. Who can doubt but that such amusements blunt the finer sentiments of our nature, and weaken even the humane feelings of their votaries, to say nothing of their irreligious character and tendency? Congress will adjourn at the announcement of the death of one of their number; but a similar announcement procures not the adjournment of a ball.

A gentleman who had been successively engaged in three professions, that of minister, physician, and lawyer, was asked the comparative advantages of them for acquiring property. He replied, "The man who will give but a fourpence to save his soul, will give twenty-five cents for relief from sickness, and a dollar to have his own will."

Ovid, in a grave work addressed to Augustus, advises the suppression of theatrical amusements as a great source of corruption.

The Earl of Chesterfield was a nobleman for whom nature had done much, and birth and education more. He was in his day universally allowed to be the most elegant and accomplished man in Europe; and he was no less conspicuous in the political than in the fashionable world. No man ever possessed greater advantages for the attainment of and the enjoyment of worldly pleasures; and no man ever drank deeper of the sweet, but poisonous draught. Let us hear him at a time when disease and age hung heavy upon him, and rendered him incapable of further enjoyment. "I have seen," says he, "the silly rounds of business and of pleasure, and have done with them all. I have enjoyed all the pleasures of the world, and consequently know their futility, and do not regret their loss. I appraise them at their real value, which is, in truth, very low. Whereas those that have not experienced, always overrate them. They only see the gay outside, and are dazzled at the glare. But I have been behind the scenes. I have seen all the coarse pullies and dirty ropes which exhibit and move the gaudy machines; and I have seen and smelt the tallow candles which illuminated the whole decoration, to the astonishment of the ignorant audience. When I reflect on what I have seen, what I have heard, and what I have done, I can hardly persuade myself that all that frivolous hurry of bustle and pleasure of the world had any reality; but I look upon all that is past as one of those romantic dreams, which opium commonly occasions; and I do by no means desire to repeat the nauseous dose, for the sake of the fugitive dream. Shall I tell you that I bear this melancholy situation with that meritorious constancy and resignation, which most people boast of? No, for I really cannot help it. I bear it, because I must bear it, whether I will or no! I think of nothing but killing time the best way I can, now that he has become my enemy. It is my resolution to sleep in the carriage during the remainder of my journey."

Achan, caught with forbidden spoil, like those who hold to treasures of the world. He lost the spoil, his life and all. No profit to believer to have worldly riches unless given of God. Those who refrained from the accursed things were entrusted by God. Forbear what God forbids and He will give us treasures with His blessing

A gentleman of France, who, having feasted high on sensual gratification, said: “Let God Almighty give me all the good things in Paris, and secure me from death, and He may keep His Heaven to Himself.”

I stumbled upon an English book of etiquette the other day. In it I found this curious statement: “A gentleman may carry a book through the streets if it is not wrapt, but if it is done up in wrapping paper it becomes a parcel and must be carried by a servant.” The wrapping-paper makes a wonderful difference. And so absurd are the fashionable ideas of refinement and gentility.--OBADIAH OLDSCHOOL, _The Interior_.

A news item says:

Mrs. A. B. Sims, of Des Moines, winner of the woman’s whist championship of the United States, stood before an audience of 4,000 at Winona Lake and told why she burned up the forty decks of cards that she had at her home.

“It was not uncommon for me to play whist from 10 A.M. to 11 P.M.,” said Mrs. Sims. “After that I saw what I was really doing. I burned up all the pasteboards, and I should like to speak in every church to the women and tell them what card-playing led me to, and what it will lead them to. It was undermining our church. The whist and euchre parties were sweeping the women of the congregation and the church was sinking because of their neglect. The card craze as it prevails among women is the most serious competitor the Church has to-day.”

Worldliness manifests itself in its games as in other phases of its life. As the fathers saw the horror of the gladiatorial shows and their pernicious effect on morals, so in these latter days is caution necessary and salutary.

An English writer, with some novel ideas of how the smoke-laden atmosphere of London might be purified, writes:

At one time I thought of proposing the establishment of horticultural home-missions for promoting the dissemination of flowerpot shrubs in the metropolis, and of showing how much the atmosphere of London would be improved if every London family had one little sweetbrier-bush, a lavender-plant, or a hardy heliotrope to each of its members; so that a couple of millions of such ozone generators should breathe their sweetness into the dank and dead atmosphere of the denser central regions of London.

A little practical experience of the difficulty of growing a clean cabbage, or maintaining alive any sort of shrub in the midst of our soot-drizzle, satisfied me that the mission would fail, even tho the sweetbriers were given away by the district visitors; for these simple hardy plants perish in a mid-London atmosphere unless their leaves are periodically sponged and syringed, to wash away the soot particles that otherwise close their stomata and suffocate the plant.

The ingenious scheme would fail because the plants themselves would become foul and need to be cleansed. Failing this, they would die. So in life character is easily incrusted with the spirit of worldliness. (Text.)

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

“The regular practise of the Christian is exceptional with the world,” says a writer in the _Pacific Monthly_.

“Out in Kansas when the bottom dropt out of the great boom in real estate some years ago, men found it harder to get rid of property than to acquire it. A lawyer going through the country one day met an old friend leading a reluctant cow toward town. Inquiry brought out the information that the cow had been secured in exchange for a city lot. ‘And do you know,’ said the new owner of the bovine, ‘that I turned a neat trick on the old granger! He can’t read a word, and in the deed I worked off two lots on him instead of one.’”