The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1873-02-22


drunken king, while his lords and his
courtiers crowded around, and his concu-
bines drank with him. His counselors had
deserted their posts and repaired to the
hall of revelry, the generals no longer kept
watch, but they, too, drank with the king.
When such men rule any where, the houl
Of national ruin is not far away. The
night passes, the wild shout of drunken
abandonment reaches its height, when the
sacred vessels of Jehovah are brought out
to give Zest to the festival. Then came
the spirit hand, writing doom that it
scarcely required prophet to foretell.-
found wanting" was doom that common
sense then and all history since must have
pronounced on that king. The last crown
ing wrong of his life was rather in desert
sells of Jehovah. The end of the story is a
short one, 1" in that night was Bellshazzar
slain and the Median took the kingdom. -
Certainly it was time for a new rule when
gates of the capital unguarded to attend a
drunkard's feast.
We turn next to Persia, reared in hard
ships, on barren plains, the Persian hardi-
hood now made them masters of the East,
but note their history. Instead of destroy
ing, they soon rivalled the vices of those
they conquered. The stern asceticism of
Cyrus soon gave place to the debauchery of
Artaxerxes. Just here we have another
piece of ancient painting. The Book Of
Esther, whether fact or a romance, gives
us almost as vivid an insight into the inner
life of the Persian king as that of Daniel
does into that Of Babylonia. At Susa, the
vices and drunkenness of the court was
relieved by the virtues of Eashti; while at
Babylonia all was alike worthless. Well,
Persia fulfilled her mission, and the phal-
anX of Greece swept from the Danube to
the Gauges. The masses of the Persians
were scattered at 1ssus and Arbela, more
because the king drinking in his tent, was
unable to inspire the motley assemblage with
age on their own part. Then, too, Greece
was not still reduced to complete slavery.
The remembrance Of the stern virtues of
Lycurgus, Scion and Wiltiades, inspired
respect for the drunken Alexander. The
Grecian drunkard still retained the res
pect of his followers, the Persian one did
not. Well, Persia fell a victim of royal
vice and popular misery and discomfort,
and Greece was supreme. With her cul-
ture ana refinement, her heroic memories
and sullied fame, her future seemed secure;
but on the throne already sat a drunkard.
Alexander died in a drunken debauch at
SO, before he had time to consolidate his
conquests, and his empires fell to pieces.
That mad drinking festival at Babylon
changed the history of the world. The
dying words of the blood stained king
were fulfilled in the murderous conflicts
among his followers. Instead of one, from
the Grecian conquests sprang four empires,
but in each history merely repeated itself. |
Seleucus and Plotemy ruled with vigor and |
virtuous fathers, and seldom in the annals |
of the world has its fair surface been dis
graced by more complete werthlessness |
than the late members of the lives that |
regned at Antioch and Alexandria exhib-
tied. Adultery, drunkenness, murder, |
fratricide and parricide were the ordinary |
amusements of men holding the lives of
millions at their absolute disposal. The |
idea that governments were for the good |
of the governed was still to await silently |
through centuries for its evolution. 1t |
seems strange that the sons Of the heroes |
who fought at Marathon or Salamis could
have become weak enough to submit to
such rule; yet the explanation is simple.
1t is to be found in the hopeless corruption |
and vice of the people. They who once
led in the arena of arms, now were only |
anxious to invent some now excitement,
some new vice, while, wherever one might |
turn on the one hand, they met want and
hopeless misery; on tho other, wealth, vice
and drunkenness; but as sure as the SIM
tional punishment follow national democrat
ization, and to corruption and drunkenness,
a sure loss of liberty will succeed.
We are reaching time when our records |
are becoming more certain, but all the
surer is our proposition being proven that |
nations die, not from outside violence, but |
internal weakness. AS long as Rome pre-
served the stern simplicity of her earlier
days, she grew steadily in power, but with
increasing power came increasing demon
alization. They conquered Carthage, but |
failed to win greater, more needed, victory |
over themselves. The invasion of Hannibal |
teaches lesson that the world would have
done well to heed in its earlier As we'll as
its later ages. He could lead his veterans |
over the Alps, crush to atoms the armies
of Rome, until her consuls trembled in
their capital, but could not prevent them
from falling victims to the wine Of Capua.
1t seems strange fact Carthage should
have owed her fall directly to the weakened
arms of her warriors, weakened not by
exercise, DuL lule, uIuHheh iuuuiScucc.
Few of the worlds empires arose from
feebler germs than iron handed. all con-
quering Rome. The mud huts of Romu-
lus were inhabited by jewellers used to
hardships, with no care for luxury, and it
was the same spirit of stern self-reliance
that overthrow the reign Of Targuin and
placed Rome in the way to become the
mistress of the world. 1t is curious study
how just as power increased, in the same
proportion, luxury and etfeminancy in
creased, until the day that saw the fall of
Carthage, became the day from which we
may date the causes that led to her final
ruin. Nothing. only the hopeless effemi-
nancy, and debauchery of Greece, enabled
her to establish her rule over the Acropolis
or the descendants of Lycurgus, and at the
same time she was becoming victim of
the same vices that enabled her to win an
easy victory over Greece. 1t was degen-
crate sons of illustrious sires who permit