"The Borers Prepared the Way."
RECENTLY passing through a park in which several beautiful locust trees had been prostrated by the storm, we expressed our surprise at the effect of the brief though terrific blast that swept over the town. "Oh, the borers prepared the way for the tempest. Don't you see those dark lines through the heart of the tree," replied a friend. And there, unseen to the careless observer, were the traces of the destroying reptiles, while the green foliage waved in the sunlight, and the birds of song made music in the boughs. And thus it is, we thought, with human character. Often communites and nations are startled at the sudden fall into open disgrace of a person in whom general confidence was reposed, and who, perhaps, was conspicuous for Christian activity and influence. God had seen what man could not discern, the inward decay. The fatal worms of lust, avarice, and unholy ambition, had eaten away the moral principle, and even the strength of a noble manhood. And when the gale of strong temptation came, the victim fell, and ever after was a wreck by the paths of life, warning the wondering beholders of the danger of secret sins, and waiting only the final stroke of doom to consign it to "everlasting shame and contempt." To all comes the solemn assurance of the living oracles, "Be sure your sin will find you out," either before the cross of atonement, or in the Golgotha of the second death.—Tract Journal.