The Birmingham age-herald., 1902-11-02

Chicago. October 26.-From one of the most thrilling incidents of the Bible hls- tory Rev. Frank De Witt Talmage draws lessons for the life of today; text Daniel V, 27. Thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting
 The words were spoken In the royal banquet hall of the most famous capital in the east This is BabyIon-beautiful, licentious. corrupt, luxurious, shameless Babylon; Babylon the pride of the Chal- deans Babylon the wonder of the world.
 ctesias tells us that Babylon was sixty miles square. That means 1t area was more than one-third the size of the mod ern city of London. the English beehive with it's 100000 inhabitants. It was of such vast wealth that within Its central temple was an idol made of solid gold which alone was worth over S2O0 OO,000. It's surrounding walls were s65 feet high wide enough to allow four charioteers to drive their sixteen chargers abreast upon the top of them while the moons shim- mered upon 250 watch towers and tipped with light the spears of hundreds. or sen tinels and shone upon a hundred gates of solid brass. which swung open to let friends in and changed shut to keep enc mics out.
 Standing upon the heights of the fa- nous hanging gardens. which Nebuchad- nezzar, the king who had courted Amytis among the hills of Ecbatanna, had thrown up to humor whim Of his queen, we can see off in the distance the mighty river Euphrates flowing through the midst of the metropolis and cutting the
 city in twain. Along the wharves Of the
 river were daily heard the cries of the sailors unloading from the ships cargoes
 of merchandise and foodstuffs, as well as
 the gold and silver myrrh and precious stones imported from other lands. In the
 center of the capital we' can also see
 where the engineers had gathered the waters of this mighty river into a large artificial lake forty miles square. This lake was wide enough and deep enough to habor all the modern navies of the world. In 1t all these ships of war could drop their anchors, fold their white sails and float side by side in peace.
 The boulevards of this ancient city were pillared with statuary. The streets en- circled with busy marts where merchants wrangled for barter and gain or led down to the magnificent bridges which spanned the river. These bridges were flanked with palaces. where beauty and wealth loitered away the lazy hours or sang themselves to sleep. cradled in the grace full gondolas, which gently pressed the waters into ripples or contemptuously tumbled the foam from off their crested breasts. Everywhere artesian wells toss ed up the waters into fountains, shining through which the sun arched the flowers with rainbows, while birds of brilliant hue. whose ancestors had been brought from tropical climes. stopped their sing ing long enough to quench their thirst or to cleanse their gorgeous plumage. There in the evening hour these fountains lifted up their lips while their cheeks blushed into a deep red for the good night kiss of the setting sun.
 The Feast of Belshazzar.
 But we must hurry on tonight and not finger over the scenic delights of this fa- nous capital for I am going to lead you into the royal banquet hall where Bel shazzar the king of the Chaldeans, is giving a great feast to a thousand lords of his kingdom. He is giving this feast tonight in hall decorated with the tro- phies of conquest and the triumph of art, with the rhythmic with song and redolent with incense, with the faces of his dead ancestors pictured upon the walls or chis- eled by the sculptors in marble of purest white. He is giving this feast in a ban quet hall where the sandaled foot strikes mosaic floor or sinks into softest rug; where, under the light, the precious stones sparkle and gleam as the jeweled hand of an aristocrat pushes back the tapestry or lifts the golden chalice to the lips. The king is giving this drunken feast to show his contempt for the be- seging army of Cyrus the Great which for nearly two long years had fruitlessly laid siege to his capital, that seemed im- pregnable
 But at last. in this banquet hall at this famous feast, when the intoxicated eye became more brilliant than the diamonds glittering upon the naked throats of the assembled guests and the flushed cheek redder than the wine cup, there appears a marvellous sight. Out of space there stretches a hand-an armless, -bodiess hand-and with the finger of the strange hand for a pen a hidden power writes there awful words of doom upon the wall of that banquet hall. It is to interpret one of these words, "tekel," which means thou art weighed in the balances and art found wanting that I am today preaching this sermon. I preach upon this one word because these fatal five let ters announced to Belshazzar. the king of the Chaldeans. that night that he had to die.
 Gods balances always have accordant He weighs every man accord ing to the work which he has given him to do. He weighs every man in pro- portion to the religious opportunities that have surrounded his past life. He weighs every man with reference to the Christian home in which he was born l and to the Christian men and women