"Take heed and beware of covetousness." The warning is addressed to all, but it should come with peculiar force to those who are called on—in however narrow a sphere—to deliver the message of God. Their lips must not teach one thing, and their lives another; they must not guide others to the glorious land, and themselves wander away to perish. If they stand in a clearer light than most men, greater is their guilt and their condemnation if they sin against that light. Covetousness is a snare into which the enlightened, the honoured, the privileged have fallen; it has ruined a Balaam amongst the prophets, a Judas amongst the apostles. And yet how few dread its power over themselves! To be in haste to grow rich, is perhaps the leading characteristic of men in this age: they are impatient of obstacles in their way, as Balaam at the stumbling of the beast that he rode; they see not the opposing angel that stands before them with the warning: "They that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil." [Illustration] [Illustration] XIV. Rahab's Scarlet Cord. NO fragile cord this, the "scarlet thread" which Rahab fastened in her window. Its firm twist has borne the weight of the two Israelite spies whom this woman of a doomed race, strong in faith, saved from the pursuit of their enemies. It was a moment of deep anxiety when Rahab led the spies to the casement in the darkness of night, and ere they descended by that scarlet cord, earnestly pleaded with them for the family whom she loved. "Now therefore, I pray you, swear unto me by the Lord, since I have shewed you kindness, that ye will also show kindness unto my father's house, and give me a true token: and that ye will save alive my father, and my mother, and my brethren, and my sisters, and all that they have, and deliver our lives from death!" "Our life for yours," answered the men to their brave and generous preserver. "Behold," they afterwards said, "when we come into the land, thou shalt bind this line of scarlet thread in the window which thou didst let us down by: and thou shalt bring thy father, and thy mother, and thy brethren, and all thy father's household, home unto thee. And it shall be, that whosoever shall go out of the doors of thy house into the street, his blood shall be upon his head, and we will be guiltless; and whosoever shall be with thee in the house, his blood shall be on our head, if any hand be upon him."