Stealing Snakes | AdventAI

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 14, 1868

Stealing Snakes.

A Pittsburg paper tells of two thieves who robbed a gentleman one night of a box he was carrying under his arm with great care. The gentleman was a naturalist, and the box contained four rattlesnakes. The rascals must have experienced a sensation when they opened the box and divided this booty. While we laugh over their consternation, and feel that the fangs of the snakes inserted in their flesh where it would hurt but not kill, would not have been a great departure from the line of strict justice, yet we may see in their cupidity and disappointment a picture of what transpires very frequently, and possibly very near at home. Every man who does his neighbor a wrong has stolen a snake, and must carry it with him into eternity, unless restitution is made. He may never meet in life the victim of his rapacity or oppression; the deed may be hidden from all human eyes; he may gloat over his ill-gotten gains, and revel in splendors and pleasures they will buy, but the serpent is still there; it coils around his treasures, it enters into his very soul, and leaves its trail in every chamber of his heart. It will “cling to him everlastingly.” He may be unconscious of its presence for a while, but the hour of terrible surprise will come when he finds how empty are all his treasures, how hollow are all his joys, and the serpent, with deadly hiss and expanded fangs, reveals the fatal prize his sinfulness has won.—Texas Christian Advocate.