The Birmingham age-herald., 1902-11-02
DIR. TALMACE'S SERMON.
BY THE REV. FRANK DE WITT TALmAeE. D. D.

'G VII lHEMAGE4 Ds U.
 God weighs man not only with regard to his sins of commission, but also as to what he might have accomplished for God had he applied himself for his Di- vine Master as he should have done.
 The Scales of God.
 When God in this royal banquet hall of Babylon held high the balances with which he weighed Belshazzar, the king of the Chaldeaas God weighed that life by a standard entirely different from that with which he would weigh the life of an ignorant, brutal African cannibal, taught from the days of his youth that it was right and honorable to eat the roast flesh of his captives and slaves. Gnd flsrosi in .ne of the scales If his balances all Relshazzars infinite oppor- tunities for doing good the mighty ruler of the weIthiest capital of the east. Cod lac q D that ono se1lc all Belshazzar's opportunities for knowing and learn ng about the true God and is divine love. Belshazzar was not, as some suppose. the heather ruler of heather nation He was the grandson of the Nebuchadnezer whose famous prime mlnister was Daniel. the mighty man of God. In all probability he had heard from Daniels own lips the com mandments of the God of the Jews, and how that God had protected the prophet and closed, the mouths of the hungry wild beasts when his servant was thrown into the lions den Daniel, at the time of which I speak, was about eighty years of age. He could have testified and in all probability did testify to Bel shazzar how the love of the true God had cared for his believing child, now for nearly fourscore years. So the word written on the wall of that banquet hall was the record of a test. Belshazzar's opportunities of leading a godly life had been placed in one scale, and when the evil effects of the life he did lead were put in the other scale it had gone down like fash That was the inevitable re- suit. He had been weighed in the bal ancss and found wantirg.
 My brother and sister, are you ready to let God hold aloft the same balances with which he weighed Belshazzar's life in the royal banquet hall of Babylon? Are you ready to let him weigh the re- suits of your life2 "Oh. mo-" you an- swer; my life is nothing to what it ought to be, when l think of my past religious bringing up. No one had a better and more consecrated Christian mother than I have had. No one today has more consecrated praying wife than have Every night even my lit- tie children pray for me and yet I am
  ought to do." If all this be true. then, my brother, how are you to escape the doom of him who sat in Babylon's ban quet hall? You are being weighed in the balances and found wanting.
 The Influence of Prayer.
 It is an awful heart rending sight to see man stand up and confess that he has crushed out of his heart the religious influences which surrounded his searly life. l once heard of an old man who arose in a great religious meeting and, facing the audience, said substantially this: "Oh, my friends, beg of you not to hght against the influences of the prayers that have teen uttered in your behalf. If you do you will live to regret it, as 1 have done. 1 was brought up in Christian home. After 1 came to the city my business grew so rapidly that I drifted away from church and from the Bible and from the family altar. I had a little daughter who was the idol of my life She was at that time accustomed almost every evening to go to a neigh bor's house. I reproved her two or three times and at last whipped her for going. That night she was taken sick, and when she was flushed with the fever she called me to her side and said Papa, don't think did wrong because I wished to go over to MT. So-and-so's house. I went there for you. You used to have family prayers but somehow you are too busy now to have them, and my little school mates papa always has family pray CTS said the old man, with tears streaming down his cheeks. My little daughter had to tell that to me, who had once been rocked in a Christian cradle and reared in a Christian home. She had to tell that to me, a sinful man, when she herself was about to take the long journey over the river of death, from whence no traveller ever returns" If you, O sinful man, fight against the religious influences of your past life you, like the aged, broken-hearted parent. will live to regret 1t. When God holds high his balances, he is going to weigh us in refer ence to our religious opportunities, as he did when he weighed the sinful life of Belshazzar, the King of the Chaldeans.
 Gods balances weigh every individual life irrespective of the conduct of other people. It was no availing excuse for Belshazzar to say that he ought not 10 be weighed in Gods balances and found wanting while there were a thousand other drunken lords of the Babylonish capital intoxicated in the royal banquet hall It was no legitimate excuse for the eastern ruler to raise that his immoral infamous ways did not call for more se- we're condemnation than those of hun
 
 were loathsome with the same cancerous sins. And yet there are thousands of fragrant sinners today who foolishy think that God will overlook and pardon their evil practices merely because they are no worse than their next door neghbors no worse than people with whom they come | in daily contact. They act as if they ex- pected a universal pardon for unrepent- ant sin, in spite of the fact that the BI- ble directly and emphatically declares, Every man shall die for his own sim justice makes an example of con- spicuous criminals like John Wilkes | Booth Giteau, Czolgosz and the assassln of President Carnot, each of them perish ing for his own crime. not for the crimes | Of others, just as you must perish if you | die impenitent, for the sins you have in- dividually committed, regardless of what others have done.
 You Must Be Weighed.
 Gods balances weigh every individual at the times when he feels independent of God as we'll as when he feels dependent upon tn divine mercy. Never in all his life did Belshazzar consider himself more | independent of his enemies than on the | occasion of this sinful feast The capi- i tai of Babylon was stocked with provis- | ions enough to supply the city for many | years. The battering rams of the be- | eie5iiS oiiiy sHdu Alaue no impression at | all upon the bronzed gates. The walls were too high to scale. For two long years the Persian hosts had been con ducting a futile siege. But history tells that on the night of this famous feast while the king and his princes and a thousand aristocratic lords of his king dom were drinking themselves drunk. Cyrus. seeing his opportunity, turned aside the course of the river Euphrates and in the early hours of the morning marched along that river bed under the