“The main point was, which side used them with the greatest effect,” said Mr. Vance, who had read Josephus thoroughly, but who had quite another thing in his mind. “By the way, Jack,” and he turned suddenly to that young scapegrace who was slyly slipping a bent pin in Will’s direction,—“I saw an enemy slinging stones, or something worse, at you the other day, and you not doing the first thing in self-defence.”
“Who?—me!—what?” stammered Jack. “Reckon there don’t nobody fire stones at this chap and not get as good as they send.”
“Yes, there’s an enemy who must have machines something like those Will has described. He begins with very small stones. You wouldn’t really think Satan had anything to do with that little game of ‘toss-up’ you and Tom were having. He flings very little sins at first,—just a bad thought, a wrong desire,—and we think it’s all fun; but by and by there comes a three-hundred-pounder and takes men right off their feet, puts them in state-prison, or sends them to the gallows. We need something to hurl back in self-defence, you see. Do you remember what telling shots Christ sent against the tempter on that high mountain? Bible truth! That’s what you want for ammunition, boys. Have plenty of that, keep close to your great Captain, and you are safe. Uzziah forgot that last part. Dick, tell in your own words what happened to him.”
“He grew proud as he grew great, and insisted on burning incense, which only the priest had a right to do, and God sent leprosy upon him.”
“Josephus says,” put in Will, “that there was an earthquake just at that moment, and a rent made in the temple through which the sun shone upon Uzziah’s face, and he was immediately struck with leprosy.”
“That should remind us of the day of judgment,” rejoined Mr. Vance, solemnly. “Then all the earth shall be shaken, and Christ, the Judge, shall sit upon His throne, the brightness of His glory far exceeding the sun; and in that clear light all who have not been washed in the blood of the Lamb will be shown covered with the dreadful leprosy of sin. It says of Uzziah not only that the priests thrust him out of the temple as unclean, but that he himself ‘hastened to go out,’ he was so ashamed and confounded. Just so sinners in that dreadful day will call on the rocks and mountains to fall on them and hide them. Will you, my boys, be of that number who must go away forever from the presence of the Lord?”
The superintendent’s bell announced the closing exercises, and then the boys rushed noisily out.
“Every word forgotten already,” thought Mr. Vance, watching Tom and Jack go whistling down the street.
“What does make our Will so uneasy?” his mother said that night, as the former sat down to read, first on the doorstep, then in the garden, in the parlor, and lastly in his own room.
She couldn’t hear the cricket, the bees, even the clock, saying over and over, “Shut out of heaven forever! Shut out of heaven forever,—forever,—forever.”