158. The two other brothers, Shem and Japheth, did not follow Ham's wicked example. While conscious of the scandalous fact that their father was drunk and lay in shameless nakedness like a little boy,--while recognizing that this ill became the ruler of Church and State, they remained mindful of the reverence due a parent. They gulped down the offense given; they hid the offense and gave it a worthier aspect, so to speak, by covering their father with a garment, approaching him with eyes averted. They would have been incapable of this fine outward expression of reverence for their father, had they not occupied a correct attitude toward God in their hearts and believed their father to be both priest and ruler by right divine. 159. It is a fearful example, this one of Ham. Though one of the few saved during the flood, he forgets all piety. It is profitable to carefully consider how he came to fall. Outward sins must first be committed in our minds; that is, before sins are visibly committed, the heart first departs from the Word and from the fear of God. It neither knows God nor seeks after him, as we read in Psalms 14, 2. As soon as the heart begins to set aside the Word, and to despise the ministers and prophets of God, ambition and pride follow. Those who stand in the way of our desires are overborne by hatred and slander, until finally insolent speech ends in murder. 160. Those who are to become rulers of Church or State, should daily pray earnestly to God that they may remain humble. It is the object of stories of this character to set this duty before us, for it is evident what occasioned Ham's frightful fall. 161. If, then, the saints fall into sin, let us not be offended. Much less should we rejoice over the weakness of others, haughtily esteeming ourselves braver, wiser, or holier than they. Let us rather endure and cover up, and even put a good construction upon and excuse such errors in so far as we can, remembering that perhaps tomorrow we may suffer what happened to them today. For we all constitute a unit, being born of the same flesh. Let us then heed the advice of Paul, "Let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall" (1 Cor 10, 12). In this way the other two brothers looked upon their drunken father. Their thoughts were these: Behold, our father has fallen. But God is wonderful in his dealing with saints, whom he sometimes permits to fall for our instruction, that we may not despair when afflicted by kindred infirmity.