THE CLOSE-BY PERILS by Rev. T. L. Cuyler

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Apr 15, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 15.

THE CLOSE-BY PERILS.

By Rev. T. L. Cuyler

THE real danger with most good people is not from enormous and Heaven-defying sins. It is from what we call little sins, and often regard as mere faults, foibles, or infirmities. Where shall we find a pair of scales or a measuring-line to determine the size of a sin? What we regard as very small may be in God's sight very great. The essence of sin is breach of God's laws—an offense against him; it is a matter of principle. The principle of evil may be just as distinctly visible in the theft of a dime, as in the midnight robbery of a bank. The lustful look is adultery in the egg. Sin and holiness are rated by the same scales of measurement. As the divine Master tells us that a "cup of cold water given in his name" is a righteous act worthy of reward, so is the man "who is unjust in that which is least unjust also in that which is much." If the vine of a Christian's character is so damaged that its spiritual beauty and influence are impaired, it matters nothing whether a single huge crime or a thousand petty sins work the havoc. Rarely does a professed Christian commit a huge crime; we are all in danger from the stealthy little foxes that slip in and do Satan's work unchallenged. Dr. Maclaren puts this truth very pungently when he says that "the worst sin is, not some outburst of gross transgression, forming an exception to the ordinary tenor of a life, bad and dismal as such a sin is, but the most fatal are the small, continuous vices which root under-ground and honeycomb the soul. Many a man who thinks himself a Christian is in more danger from the daily commission, for example, of small pieces of sharp practice in his business, than ever was David at his worst. White ants pick a carcass clean sooner than a lion will."

Big sins frighten us; little ones steal in unobserved, like the insects that eat out the fiber of solid furniture in Cuba, and when the strain comes the timber snaps, and fills the eye with dust. More than one minister has lost his place by little artifices that engendered a suspicion of his square, solid honesty. Thousands of Christian parents destroy all their religious influence over their children by their ebullitions of bad temper. This is not a mere foible. Bad temper is an ugly, venomous sin—it is a sin against the central, cardinal Christian grace of love. Look at the mischief that is often wrought in a congregation by a hateful tongue of censoriousness, that embroils a neighborhood and poisons the reputation of fellow-members of Christ's fold. Envy is often accounted a small sin; so is a pistol-ball small, but if lodged in a human brain it is deadly. A very able and excellent minister once left a church because they had practiced on him a petty piece of stinginess; he rightly concluded that if they acted meanly in one act, they could not be trusted to deal fairly by him in other things. Foxes do not loom very large or make a loud noise, but they can strip the Lord's vineyard as clean as the weevils will strip a wheat-field, if they are allowed to have full swing. How does spiritual declension begin with a Christian? It commonly begins with small offenses against the laws of absolute purity, or honesty, or conscientiousness; it starts with occasional neglects of Christian duty and occasional acts of self-indulgence. When robbers want to plunder a house, they hoist a small boy up into a window, and he unbolts the doors for the gang. Let us look out for Satan's imps slipped in at the open windows of our hearts!

—Rev. T. L. Cuyler, in Evangelist.