ONE evening just at twilight, as I was passing a beautiful home in a rural town in the state of Wisconsin, I overheard a pleading voice entreating a well-dressed lad of about seventeen not to go on the street. I saw the face of the mother. It was carved in sorrow, and the tears were rushing down her cheeks. Her voice was importuning, her hand was outstretched, and I caught only the last words,—“Please stay home to-night.”
The mother did not see me; but the son, standing on the lower door-step, with his face toward the street and his back to his mother, saw the stranger, and answered her in an impatient undertone: “I’ll do as I please. You have always kept me in. I hate restraint.”
With these words, he entered the street before me. I followed the young man, curious to see where he would find the liberty he craved, the freedom from restraint that to him seemed so desirable. It was not far. In front of a hotel, where a crowd of men were sitting, smoking, reading, and talking, the youth paused. Beer was served, and cigars and cigarettes were passed from table to table by the waiter.
The young man sat down at a table, and a waiter asked what he wanted. He hesitated, stammered, then asked for cigarettes and a glass of beer. As he lighted a cigarette and began smoking, I passed on, and saw him no more.
I said to myself, “That young man has broken the hedge.” I never passed his way again, but in my mind I have seen him bitten by the serpent. No man can tell what the end of the lad may be.
The long evenings of autumn had come. The skating-rinks were opened. A young, bright girl of sixteen asked her mother if she might go to the rink and skate that night with a young man friend. The mother-heart knew the danger, and replied: “Daughter, it is not best. Some night soon father will go with you. It is not proper for you to go with a young man. You are too young.”
Mary grew angry, and said hot, bitter words, and went. She came home late, intoxicated with the excitement, and determined to endure restraint no longer. Two years later, there sat in a maternity home a pale, haggard girl, with shame and despair written in every lineament of her countenance. What was the trouble?—She had broken a hedge, and been bitten by a serpent.
A young man was cashier in a bank. He was trusted and respected by all. Once he bet on a horse-race—and lost. It was a small sum, but more than he had. To keep “honor,” as he called it, he took the cash from the bank, putting in its place a cash slip, and later was able to redeem it. No one knew; but every time the president entered the bank, the young man trembled, grew pale, and was confused, until the cash was replaced. Then he bet again, and again. It became common for him to tamper with the cash. One day the local daily was sold on the streets with great red head-lines,—“Cashier of the First National Bank Arrested for Stealing $2,000.” What had happened?—The young man had broken a hedge, and been bitten by a serpent.
Our conscience, our knowledge of right and wrong, is a hedge about us. Only when we break this hedge are we in danger of sin. No one can break through this hedge, which God Himself has put about us, without being bitten by the serpent. Eve was bitten in the Garden of Eden. Cain, and Balaam, and Saul, and Judas, and Ananias, and Sapphira, and a host of other Bible characters, broke through this hedge, and were bitten by the serpent of sin. Many young men and women are breaking this hedge to-day. Just so surely will the same result follow them as came to those whose failure is recorded in God’s word. A serpent will bite them.
God has put a hedge about His people. No one can break it without being bitten by sin. “Whoso breaketh an hedge, a serpent shall bite him.” Eccl. 10:8.