There is nothing sadder, my beloved hearers, nothing more calculated to strike dread into the heart, than the punishment of a deserter in the army. The offender is led before his regiment, and after the rehearsal of his disgrace to his fellow-soldiers, his arms are pinioned, his eyes bandaged, and an open coffin stands ready to receive his lifeless body. The file of soldiers aim at the one fluttering heart, and the lightning-like death ends the dreadful scene. And why is a deserter's doom made so awful? Simply because the crime of desertion is so great, its demoralizing effect which it would have on the army so fatal, that it must be punished in the most telling and fearful manner. History, both sacred and secular, has put no deeper brand of infamy than on deserters. Benedict Arnold stands forth as an instance of the one, Judas Iscariot as an instance of the other. American history holds up the one before us, bandaged, pinioned, shot through with the bullets of a nation's abhorrence and malediction, whilst the other, Judas, is a name detested as far as the Bible is read and to the day of doom. In our text we read of another deserter. His name is Demas, and the Apostle Paul has set the mark of infamy upon him. Who, we question, was this man Demas? And what was the nature of his offense? We know very little of his early career, but that little is most favorable. He had been an associate of St. Paul in the ranks of Christ's followers. Paul more than once makes honorable mention of his name. When he wrote his letter to the Church at Colossae, he coupled the name of Demas with that of St. Luke. He thus writes: "Luke, the beloved physician, and Demas greet you," which shows that he must have been favorably known in the Church, and that his greetings must have been highly thought of, else would the apostle not have forwarded them through his own letter. And one more fact do we know of him. He not only professed love toward Christ, but he had once suffered for his Christian profession. He most likely had worn the honorable mark of prison chains in the name and for the sake of Christ. In his letter to Philemon, St. Paul, remembering his companions in suffering, writes: "There salute thee Epaphras, my fellow-prisoner in Christ Jesus; Marcus, Aristarchus, Demas, and Lucas, my fellow-laborers." So the apostle once wrote from a Roman prison of Demas, and it was from the same prison that he afterwards sadly penned these painful words: "Demas hath forsaken me." And why? Did his health fail? Did he go to labor elsewhere? Paul tells us: "Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world." There we have the reason, and it is one that we shall more clearly regard in our instruction these moments.