Note 1 — ISAIAH. (continued 4)

Nothing shall more effectually betray the heart into a love of sin and a loathing of holiness, than an ill-managed prosperity. It is like some meats, the more luscious, so much the more dangerous. Prosperity and ease upon an unsanctified, impure heart, is like the sunbeams upon a dunghill; it raises many filthy, noisome exhalations. The same soldiers who, in hard service, are in perfect subjection to their leaders, in peace and luxury are apt to rebel; (and the passions, which in adversity are easily controlled, in prosperity are apt to break loose). That corrupt affection which has lain, as it were, dead and frozen in the midst of distracting business, or under adversity, when the sun of prosperity has shined upon it, then, like a snake, it presently recovers its former strength and venom. Vice must be caressed and smiled upon that it may thrive and sting. It is starved by poverty, it droops under the frowns of fortune, and pines away upon bread and water; but when the channels of plenty run high, and every appetite is plied with abundance and variety, so that satisfaction is but a mean word to express its enjoyment, then the inbred corruption of the heart shows itself pampered and insolent, too unruly for discipline, and too big for correction.—South, 1633–1716.