p. 21 | Absalom's Hair by Dudley Marvin Canright

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 4, 1871

Absalom's Hair.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

THERE is a lesson in this subject worthy of thought. Absalom was a very beautiful man. There was not his like in all Israel. 2 Sam. 14: 25. It appears that one of his chief ornaments was his remarkable head of hair. He seems to have taken peculiar pride in this. When it was cut at the end of each year, he had it weighed. 2 Sam. 14: 26. But this very thing that he gloried so much in was the immediate cause of his death! While riding through the woods in the battle his head caught in the thick boughs and he was left hanging there till his enemies slew him. 2 Sam. 18: 9.

Are there not thousands of other cases similar to this where some personal attraction, in itself a desirable gift of God, finally becomes the snare by which the person is destroyed? A beautiful form, a sweet voice, musical talent, wit, &c., oftener perhaps than otherwise, fill their owners with pride, conceit, and a love of the gay world, which often brings them to sorrow and ruin. Alas! that human nature is so weak that it must pervert the best blessings of God and turn them over to the service of the enemy! Really are not misfortunes and humiliations the only things that will save us? D. M. CANRIGHT.