The serpent's poison taints infant veins

(Henry Law, "Numbers" 1858)

Alas! what broods of vileness nestle in man's heart! As wave succeeds to wave, sin presses on the heels of sin. If a brief calm seems to give peace, a fiercer storm soon rises. The seeds of evil, for a while concealed, revive as weeds in spring. All human history proves this.

We are pilgrims journeying through a wild wilderness. It is infested with the old serpent and his brood. At every step, at every turn, we meet some forked attack. Each day the mischief taints our veins. Satan's least touch is fatal venom. In Eden he began his murderous work. And still his fiery darts fly round.

No mother's son escapes.

The serpent's poison taints infant veins.

All earth is perishing, but earth brings no relief.

SELF has no help.

The LAW is no physician. Its glance detects disease. Its voice proclaims the hopeless state. But it holds no cordial remedy in its stores . It denounces the leprous spots. It sternly sentences, and leaves the wounded to expire.

MAN cannot help himself; or save his brother.

No rites,
no forms,
no services,
can suck out sin's poison.

All are surely lost, unless God had decreed to heal. So all the 'serpent-wounded' upon earth must surely have sunk down to hell, unless free mercy had most freely pitied. But He who said, 'Raise up a serpent on the pole', said also, 'Lift up My Son upon the accursed tree'.

"And as Moses lifted up the serpent on a pole in the wilderness, so I, the Son of Man, must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in Me  will have eternal life." John 3:14-15