A Scene in the Devil’s Pawn Shop. “Her beautiful pilgrim robe was drawn through the dust and relegated to the rear.”
“At numberless places along the way. In the distance I see an exchange store, duly authorized to do business along this Highway. If you so desire, we will proceed thither.”
She assented gratefully, and soon the vehicle stopped. The two alighted and stepped into the place known along the King’s Highway as the Devil’s Pawn Shop.
This establishment was easily accessible from either Highway, and had been in operation for thousands of years, carrying on an extensive business.
In such a place our parents pawned a glorious inheritance for a taste of forbidden fruit, and Esau exchanged a legitimate birth-right for a mere mess of pottage.
In another similar place Judas sold his Lord and Master for thirty dirty pieces of silver; and Ananias and Sapphira pawned their natural and spiritual lives for a little worldly profit which was held but for a few hours, and that in guilt and pain.
Satan has a Pawn Shop, or an exchange store, for every phase of desire that can enter into an unsatisfied heart, or a soul unduly ambitious. This one, into which Mr. World escorted Miss Church-Member, is intended for those who become dissatisfied with the dress of righteousness, or for any who wish a change in any part of their apparel. It proved intensely interesting to Miss Church-Member, with her new-found ambitions, to walk through the aisles of this great department store, each department being used for a separate kind of apparel.
The entire Pawn Shop was full of old curiosities which had never been redeemed. These, and more recent specimens, told the story of many a faithless pilgrim. In the footwear department I saw many a “preparation of the gospel of peace” which had been pawned for shoes of worldliness, and elsewhere I saw the garments of truth which had been girt about the loins of the saints, but which had been exchanged for robes of vanity.
There were also many antiquated pilgrims’ robes which had been given for more fashionable attire.
Miss Church-Member became more and more ashamed of her own robe as she saw how many already had effected the exchange which she was now contemplating.