Sin a Serpent Not to Be Tampered With
THERE are many of the boys and men of our country who now have the power to save themselves, who will soon be crushed to death by whisky, cigarette smoking, or the loathsome diseases common to the fast and sporting class of men and women, or some other crime, unless they stop, repent, and forever quit such business. “A noted wild beast tamer gave an exhibition of his pets in one of the leading London theaters. He carried lions, tigers, leopards, through their part of the entertainment, awing the audience by his wonderful nerve and his control over them. As a closing act of the performance he was to introduce an enormous boa-constrictor, thirty-five feet long. He had bought it when only two or three days old, and for twenty-five years he had handled it daily, so that it was considered perfectly harmless and completely under his control. He had seen it grow from a tiny reptile into a huge monster. “The curtain rises upon an Indian woodland scene. The weird strains of an oriental band steal through the trees. A rustling noise is heard, and a huge serpent is seen winding its way through the undergrowth. It stops. It raises its head four, five, six feet in the air. Its eye sparkles. Its whole body seems animated. A man is seen on the other side emerging from the heavy foliage. Their eyes meet. The serpent quails before the man—the man is victor. “Under his direction it goes through a series of frightful feats. At a signal from the man it slowly approaches him, and begins to coil its heavy folds around him. Higher and higher they rise, until man and serpent seem blended into one, and its hideous head is reared aloft high above the mass. The man gives a little scream, and the audience unite in a thunderous burst of applause, but it freezes on their lips. The trainer’s scream was his wail of death agony. Those cold, slimy folds had embraced him for the last time. They had crushed the life out of him, and the horror-stricken crowd heard bone after bone break as those powerful folds tightened around him. Man’s plaything had become his master. His slave for twenty-five years had now crushed him.”—Missionary World.