THE LOCUST AS A SYMBOL. 



23 



what household fires will they not extinguish, leaving deso- 

 late hearths and homes behind ? 



But that Power, who by the bridle of instinct conducts the 

 migratory locust to perish in the waves, has set bounds also 

 to the career of the locust of society. He is not impelled 

 irresistibly, like his insect prototype, to his own destruction ; 

 but if he turn not from his course he is borne by the current 

 of vice into the gulf of perdition. 



The analogy between locust legions and lovers of guilty 

 pleasure holds good even after death. Cast up by the sea, and 

 left upon the shore a bank of corruption the insect remains 

 infect the air, and complete by pestilence their previous work 

 of destruction. And so, when swept by death from the face 

 of society, the moral locust fails not to leave behind the ill 

 odour and pestilential influence of corrupt example. 



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