There is no Peace to the Wicked.
By E. Goodrich
The day had been oppressively warm. My work was at the bench. After my day’s work was done and my saws and planes put away, as I did not go home nights, and as the water where I worked was excessively bad, I thought I would take a walk up the road half a mile or so and get a drink of good water, and call on a neighbor with whom I was partially acquainted. The man had been represented to me as a virulent infidel, who took every opportunity to calumniate the Christian religion. I hardly thought he could be as bad as represented. At least, I concluded to go, and was soon there. After I had obtained a drink of water, and a few passing remarks about the weather, the crops, and the job I was at work on, had been made, in a very few minutes, I do not remember how, the subject of religion was broached, and my worst fears were more than realized; for the man was worse than any with whom I had ever talked. He was not a passionate man, ready to get angry and swear and blaspheme at every thing, but he was a man of thought, one of those cool, deliberate, contemptuous fellows, the worst of all to deal with. And as he had read Tom Paine, and had collected and “received by rote” all the objections he could, he was prepared to resist every attack, and in his mind set aside every argument. At the first, I essayed to check this tide of calumny and abuse, but you might as well take out one of the slimy monsters of the deep with your naked hands, as to get hold of him. He was the first man that I had ever encountered but I could do something with, but in his case I could do nothing but wait until the flood abated, and he had repeated his whole lesson of stale and mouldy objections so often repeated by infidels and skeptics. But having exhausted his store of vile abuse, and ceased talking, as if conscious that he had had it all his own way, and as it was time to return to my place of work, as I took my hat and another drink of water, feeling very much chagrined and out of humor, I said to myself, It will not do to quit so—I will try a chance shot and see if there is not some tender spot not yet covered up and guarded. Accordingly, I said, “Neighbor H——, you have had your own way and say, and, as it is time to go home, I will submit the whole question to your judgment, and rest it all on one scripture which I will quote. The scripture is this: ‘But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.’” One would have been surprised to see the effect produced by this single quotation of Scripture. Here111was a fact that he could neither deny nor cover up. And the use of this scripture seemed to serve the same purpose as a shot across the bow of an enemy’s vessel; for he came right to and said, ‘Oh! well, I know there are a great many truths in the Bible. I don’t pretend to deny this.’ Truly, ‘the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight; but all things are naked and open unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.’ Heb. 4: 12, 13. We may hide from others, and may even be deceived ourselves, but we cannot hide from the Almighty, neither can we cover ourselves so that the arrows of God cannot pierce us. It was thus that I bade good evening to my neighbor, and returned to my lodgings wiser, and more confirmed in the truth of God, than before. And I have often had occasion to observe and remark in my own mind concerning the truth of the declaration found in the above heading. The truth of this divine declaration is more apparent as we particularize those sins and iniquities which go to make up the sum total of man’s wickedness. And, we may ask, what form of sin or wickedness is there, the committing of which will render one happy, or yield him peace? Sin is the transgression of law, and we may continue to ask, What is there in the nature of sin, either in its workings in the mind, or in its more frequent manifestations of words and deeds, that is calculated to make one happy? Can love of self, can pride, can covetousness, can envy, wrath, malice, or hatred, or any of these ripened into deeds of crime or iniquity, make one happy? Certainly not. For it is the nature of sin to disturb and disorganize. Sin acts upon the mind as the storm upon the sea, causing its troubled waters to cast up mire and dirt. Sin, like a rust or gangrene, eats out all the finer moral sensibilities of our natures, leaving the soul withered and burned. “There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.” And although we may not contend that sin finds its full punishment of shame, contempt, and sorrow, in this world, yet sin kills as it goes, and the sinner experiences, even in this life, how dreadful a thing it is to sin. He is made, in a measure, to anticipate those horrors and that fiery indignation that shall devour God’s adversaries.