Flocks of greedy albatrosses-Charles Spurgeon

A recent traveler, relating the incidents of his voyage to India, writes : — ” Flocks of greedy albatrosses, petrels, and Cape pigeons, crowded around the ship’s stern. A hook was baited with fat, when upwards of a dozen albatrosses instantly rushed at it, and as one after another was being hauled on deck, the remainder, regardless of the struggles of the captured, and the vociferation of the crew, kept swimming about the stern. Not even did those birds which were in- differently hooked and made their escape, desist from seizing the bait a second time.” Thus to the letter do ungodly men rush at the baits of Satan; they see others perish, but remain careless, and even when they are all but destroyed themselves they persist in their infatuation. . We saw in the Museum at Venice an instrument with which one of the old Italian tyrants was accustomed to shoot poisoned needles at the objects of his wanton malignity : we thought of gossips, backbiters, and secret slanderers, and wished that their mischievous devices might come to a speedy end. Their weapons of innuendo, shrug, and whisper, appear to he as insignificant as needles, but the venom which they in still is deadly to many a reputation.