CHRIST BETRAYED by Francis N. Zabriskie

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jun 23, 1887

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 13, No. 24.

CHRIST BETRAYED.

By Francis N. Zabriskie

WHO are the professed Christians that deliver up Christ and betray their Master? They are not alone the men of expediency, like Pilate. They are more often the lovers of self-gratification, like Herod. For awhile they seem to run well. Their crucial test does not come till they reach Vanity Fair, where are displayed on every side the lusts and pleasures, the honors and preferments, the gold and jewels, of the world in glittering profusion. Little by little their hearts relax their vigilance, and their eyes wander over the "delights of all sorts" which are heaped around. They begin to reason themselves out of their scruples, and to indulge a little, and a little more, in things which their hearts tell them are not favorable to piety—till, at last, they quench and grieve away the Spirit. They adopt the principle of self-indulgence, and seek not so much to fit themselves for Heaven as to get all they can out of the earth on the way. They cease, in a word, to be pilgrims, and become permanent residents in Vanity Fair, which is only the City of Destruction in its gala dress. Wheresoever their god of pleasure and the pleasure of God present conflicting claims, they hold to the first and reject the other. They sink down before the eyes of the world to its own level, and perhaps far below the level of its best names. Men draw an unfavorable testimony from their career to the reality and power of religion, and unbelievers adduce them as arguments and hold them up as objects of ridicule. They crucify the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.—Rev. Dr. F. N. Zabriskie, in Christian Intelligencer.