Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-03-12
CHRISTIAN ENDEAvOR HOUR
Conducted by Grace Livingston Hill,
For March IS. 1904.

!. Belshazzar, the king, made great feast
to thousand of his lords and drank wine
before the thousand.
2 Belshazzar, while he tasted the wine,
commanded to bring the gold and silver
vessels. which his father, Nebuchadnezzar
had taken out of the temple which was in
Jerusalem. that the king and his princes
his wives and his concubines might drink
therein
y. Then they brought the golden vessels
that were taken out of the temple of the
mousse OF God. which was at Jerusalem, and
the King AMI his princes, his wives and his
concubines drank in them.
4. They drank wine and praised the gods
OF gold and Of silver, o. brass of iron, of
wood and Of stone.
D. In the same hour came forth fingers of
mans hand and wro' over against the
candlestick upon the plaster of the wall of
the h-ngs palace, and the king saw The
part of the hand tat wrote.
70. And TINS Is the writing that was writ
ten: Meme, Meme, Tekel Upharsin
~. This Is the Interpretation of the thing
finished it.
2. Tekel. thou are weighed in the balance
and art found wanting
" Peres. thy kingdom is divided and
given TO the Modes and Persians.
The vivid coloring of the scene of this
wild orgy has tempted many an artist to
try his hand at picturing Belshazzar's ban
quet hall; but 1t needs no paint nor canvas
nor skill of human hand to depict for US
the luxury of the frescoed room, the costly
hang1ngs, the rich draperies, the flash of
priceless Jewels the infiamed faces with
vice and passion let loose, the eyes bright
with the lust for more evil. These all have
peen imprinted on our brains from the time
when we first read the wonderful, terrible
story: Sin let loose! Gods recognition and
warning! Swift retribution. This is the
story in brief. And it has been the story of
many another through all the years that
nave passed since the moving finger wrote
anu wrote to warn you and me, and my
Trend and your friend, as much as to warn
tine king and the thousand o. his lords with
all their foolish, wicked women
ana II was not that Be,shaZZar did not
Know better He had Nebuchadnezzars
experience to warn him. Only short time
before Northumberland, before his death
proclaimed his allegiance to the God of
Israel and issued his orders that all peoples
and languages and nations should be cut
IN pieces who said anything against the
God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego
Yet the young king drinks and forgets, and
as King. is unmade by his appetite Rev
elry and carousing fill the long hours of
the night until infiamed with desire for
some new outrage, and, wishing to show
his greatness beyond any that have come
before him, the king listens to the tempter
turing him ON to deeper depths of wicked
ness.
The gold and silver vessels. the precious
holy vessels from the temple of the house
of God. Get themv' says the tempter
Desecrate the holy thing. 1t will give you
yet more pleasure. Let loose the demon
In you and defile all holiness so that there
Snail be nothing pure to reproach you,''
And the evil In the heart given liberty
needs but the suggestion to command the
act
How has many a man since, --.,iamed by
drink as was BelshaZzar, been tempted to
defiie the holy things that God has given
into his keeping, to lay hands in cruelty
upon the wife he mas PROMISE to love a4u
cherish, to take the comforts of his own
tender little child and I'll them for more
drink, to lay unlawful hands upon money
put into Lis keeping in trust for another
that he may satisfy his appetites!
There are appetites for other things than
drink which, when INDUCED, have power to
blind our eyes. Sometimes it is greed or
ambition or some other selfish longing
We can even understand how the drunkard
must feel when we realize that these de-
sres of ours have led us blindly and will
lingly as his appetite leads him.
AS little child, having tasted the first
piece of the forbidden candy or fruit fin
lshes greedily the whole box in a hurry,
and then, aghast at what it has done sees
shaZZar, terrorstricken, with the precious
holy goblet to his lips, sees the writing of
fame upon his beautiful walls and knows
that he has gone too far and that God has
come to stop him.
Just so the forger, the thief, the impure
man, the drunkard, the unjust man will
surely see, in the midst of his indulgence,
the verdict written one day: God hath
numbered thy kingdom and finished it,"
Every man is a king His kingdom is
himself. Over his desires and appetites he
should be ruler and not give them dominion
over him. Some of these desires are to be
put down that others may grow and make
the whole man perfect as nod meant him
to be. But when the evil appetites are
given reign they unmake the man, and
when God weighs him he is found wanting.
Then his money, mis- influence, all the pleas
lres of his life and Inc sweet sacred things
that God has given into his keeping will
be divided and given to others. A mans
kingdom is his but once. If he proves not
faithful to the trust God gives 1t to others.
There may be appetites of ours which we
can see little harm in INDUCING OCCASION
ally, but is it not wiser to keep them en-
tirely down when they are capable of I'M
making us, or, If not US, then of unmaking
others through our influence?
Applied Truth.
Theocritus, an ancient Greek, on being
told by his physician that he must give up
his wine cup or lose his eyesigh, replied:
Farewell, sweet light
How to Help the Leader.-Tell the old
fable Of the two birds who lived in a
forest One day a man came into the for
est carrying a gilded cage, which he set
down on a messy bank and around it
strewed some seeds. The birds flew down
and ate the seeds. Then the man threw
them more Seeds nearer to the cage. These
they ate also. The next day the seeds were
inside the cage, and the birds flew to
tree to think about They began to
wonder if 1t was not some sort of a snare
set to catch them. But they had already
taste for those delicious seeds. Their appe-
tite urged them to fly into the cage and
eat the rest, while their reason Urged them
to let them alone. But at last appetite
gained the day, and me two foolish birds
few down to the cage and began to eat
the seeds, when the door flew shut and
they were carried off captives from their
happy forest to live a tiny gilded cage
all their lives. Speak of how unhely ape
tites and habits may lead one on until the
door of despair is smut upon them.
Parallel PasSa geS.-ISaian BILL, %. "a;
Isaiah 2S:1; Proverbs 20:1; Proverbs IA, 5;
Nahum Ito; Luke 81: "a; Romans 1913, IA;
1 Corinthians 6:1O; Galatians 5:21; 1 Thes-
SO, Z.