Read "The Deadliest Sin" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
There are not many sins when once we sift them. / In actions of evolving human souls / Striving to reach high goals / And falling backward into dust and mire, / Some element we find that seems to lift them / Above our condemnation-even higher / Into the realm of pity and compassion. / So beauteous a thing as love itself can fashion / A chain of sins; descending to desire, / It wanders into dangerous paths, and leads / To most unholy deeds, / And light-struck, walks in madness toward the night.
Wrong oft-times is an over-ripened right, / A rank weed grown from some neglected flower, / The lightning uncontrolled: flames meant for joy / And beauty, used to ravage and destroy. / For sins like these repentance can atone. / There is one sin alone / Which seems all unforgivable, because / It springs from no temptation and no need / And no desire, save to make sweet faith bleed, / And to defame God's laws.