When the offspring is so hideous and so dreadful! John Angell James, "Sorrow for the Death of Friends" How dreadful is the nature of sin! Sin is the parent of death. Death is the first-born of sin. What must be the parent--when the offspring is so hideous and so dreadful! Who can have watched the harbingers of death--the groans, the pains, the dying strife--without being struck with the fearful nature of man's revolt from God? Death in itself, and by itself--is horrid and revolting! To see all this inflicted upon a Christian, a child of God, an heir of glory; to see no way even to the kingdom of God, to the realms of immortality, but this dark valley of corruption, earth, and worms--this gives us a most impressive idea of the dreadful nature of sin! How such scenes should enlarge our views of the malignity of sin, and embitter our hearts against it! O sin--sin! What have you done!