296 THE OLIVE LEAF. CHAP. 



fashion out something altogether new. Satan cannot 

 originate ; he can only copy. Just as the galls of the 

 oak resemble the normal products, so do the results of 

 sin resemble the results of righteousness. And it is this 

 likeness that constitutes their charm and power. As 

 the parched and weary traveller is tempted by the 

 apparently luscious fruits that hang on the solitary bush 

 of the desert, having a striking resemblance to those 

 which tasted so sweetly and refreshingly in his own 

 northern land ; so the sinner in his thirst for happiness, 

 amid the weariness and monotony of his daily life, is 

 tempted by the pleasures of sin, that seem so substantial, 

 so satisfying, so admirably adapted in every respect to 

 meet the wants of his case. But with this superficial re- 

 semblance how wide and woful is the essential differ- 

 ence ! The oak-apple is only a bitter gall with a worm 

 at its core. The delicious fruit when tasted turns out to 

 be a nauseous excrescence which fills the mouth with 

 ashes. How dreadful is the undoing of all who have 

 eaten the apples of Sodom ! The first experience in 

 Eden has been repeated continually ever since. The 

 same false promise followed by the same cruel dis- 

 appointment, which operated in the case of our first 

 parents when the forbidden fruit, which they were told 

 would make them as gods, brought them under the 

 laws of suffering, toil, and death, have operated in the 

 case of all their descendants. The type of the primeval 

 sin and its punishment is the type upon which all the 

 baleful and monstrous growth that has sprung from 

 this bitter root has been developed. 



