Years ago there was a long, severe frost in England. The river Thames was frozen over for weeks. So the enterprising people built streets of shops over the icy surface, and there was driving, and buying and merriment upon the solid glass-like river.
But one night, suddenly the thaw set in and the ice heaved and cracked and broke away in chunks. Booths and merchandise were hurled down the flood.
Let us suppose that some citizen had said, "It would be nicer to live in the beautiful ice street, than in the narrow lane where I now dwell," and then moved all his furniture and his family into a new house built on the frozen river. What would have become of him and his that night?
Such a supposition goes on to show the folly of being taken up with the present only. Wisdom taught of God says of sinful pleasures, "They are not what they seem; they are fine colored fruit, but hollow and corrupt inside. They do not last." Wisdom does not lay up treasures on earth, but in heaven, and says, "I must soon be done with earth, and heaven abides."