The Olneyville times. (Olneyville [Providence, R.I.]) 1887-1917, 1907-12-27
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a SERMON A%S
pY ThE REV. W.
IMMHENDERScNV'
Theme: A Nations Warming.


on the above theme, the Rev Ira
Wemmell Henderson. pastor. took as
his text Daniel SO: In the same
hour came forth fingers of a mans
hand, and wrote over against the
candlestick upon the plaster OF the
wall OF the kings palace; and the
king saw the part of the hand that
wrote" He said:
This is a weird story. The Incl
dent is gruesome. The circumstances
give pause for thought The picture
is terrific. BelshaZzar, the wicked
king, in the midst of revelry and vice,
| surrounded by his retinue and the
| parasites of a degraded court, flaunt-
| inS his yillainy in the very face of the
! living God. finds that God is not
mocked, much less is He dead. The
animated hand points the tight end of
| long rope. 1t emphasizes a clear
warning of Jehovah. And il terrifies
the king.
Belshazzar had cause to fear. II Is
no wonder that his knees knocked
and that his limbs shook, that he had
a Mt, so as TO say, of the ague. Well
/ he might. For Nebuchadnezzar the
king, his father before him, had had
| an exhibition of the power and the
presence Of God within the world.
! He had harbored wickedness in his
| heart and within his dominions and
! God had humbled him. BelshaZzar
| therefore might have learned from
| ancestral experience what would be
! likely to be the sure result of his
many and perverse sins. Simple rea-
soning might have led him to refrain
TO try the patience of Jehovah TO his
own undoing. But he would not be
! taught. He would not even be
warned. And the same night Bel
| shazzar the king of the Chaldeans
| was slain.
This weird tale is as useful as 1t
Is gruesome and as illustrative as it
| is terrific. 1t is admonitory 1t
! should be exemplary 1t certainly af-
fords food for sober and continued
! thought. II epitomiZes a lesson that
! so many men and nations in the past
have failed or refused TO grasp The
! lesson that a man cannot fool with
laws of morality and Righteousness
and with the principles enunciated by
! Almighty God and be safe or live for
! long.
How often IL has happened in his
! tory that men and nations have wait
ed until the moose has tightened. How
many have Haunted their wilfulness
| in the face of Jehovah with a SEEM
! ing calm suneriority TO the inevitable.
! How many have refused to heed even
after the hand has, as 1t were. written
over against the wall of their own
! lives. Louis presumed to defy God
and man and to eXalt his wilkins above
the right. And his fatuousness pre-
pared the way for freedoms France
George the Third moved TO thwart
| the plans of Providence in the new
world. But the political idiocy of
! George the Third simply fastened the
! ascendancy of George shington
| America tried to demonstrate the
holiness of an unholy slavery and to
compromise principle. But God wrote
! large upon the page OF our national
history His utimatum concerning the
rights of man with the red blood of
! the flower of our manhood
The lesson of Belshazzar is apropos
! II is pertinent And it is nowhere
more needed than within the confines
! OF most Christian and civilized Amer
! ica To mention no others. IL IS Of
practical value in our commercial and
! governmental and ecclesiastical az
I
/ the creature of the whims and fan
cies of unscruplous fnanciers. The
/ Goyernme~- has been. and is now be-
! ing, made opportunity for thieves
and malsi""tors of every coaceivable
political stripe. The church has been
dormant. In many quarters she hos
been, so it would seem. dead We
have been remiss i'm much. We have
/ hpon 70 CT nd lnn=n In hax
deified wealth and permitted godlese-
ness to strut with little let or hind
rance upon the kings hiehwav. Cod
knows we have been warned Let
us trust that We shall heed the hand.
Let us not emulate Belshazzar.
No man may denv that we have
drifted fast toward the rocks OF na-
tional disEonor and disgrace in our
comm ercial affairs. The financial ana
commercial situation is a disgrace 20
a free people, not TO say OF a Chris
tian nation. And bad as is the story
that comes directly TO our ears II is
not half OF what may be told aud bat
an adumbration of the catastrophe
that will follow as surely as that cod
lives IL We do not mend our ways.
The spectacle OF panic in the midst
of the mos legitimate prosperity that
the world has ever known is in itself
far greater condemnation OF our
methods and our career than any
sermon. Words cannot picture the
sinfulness of the situation so we'll Gs
can the fact with which We are face
TO face. Any sane man can perceive
the outcome. None but a fool or a
knave would deny the sin. Shall we
shut our eyes TO the writing hand?
Fast as we have drifted toward
commercial and financial disaster we
have none the less swiftly progre -sed
in many quarters, and even now are
moving, toward political degeneracy.
The administration OF our cities is a
by-word and a joke among the ma
tions of the world. As we contem-
plate them ourselves we seem almost
TO take delight 10 say that they are as
badly managed as they are. Ger
tainly many of us openly despair OF
reformation and pronounce popular
self-goyernment upon that point 10 be
and utter and a shameful failure.