The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1908-01-15
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'-mSarsSSSG GSa~H-sS<SA\
a SERMON ASN, i
81 TfE REV. A%Ha
$lMWHENDEeS0Nss' ss'
Theme: u Nations Warning.

Hamburg avenue and VERIFIED street,
on the above theme, the Rev. Ira
Wemmell Henderson, pastor, took as
his text Daniel SIS: In the same
hour came forth fingers of mans
hand, and wrote over against the
candlestick upon the plaster Of the
wall Of the kings palace; and tho
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 reyelry and vice,
surrounded by his retinue and the
parasites of a degraded court, f1aunt-
I'M; his villainy in the very face of the
living God, finds that God is not
Knocked, much less is He dead. The
animated hand points the tight end OF
a long. rope 1t emphasizes clear
warning of Jehovah. And it terrifes
the king.
Belshazzar had cause to fear. 1t is
no wonder that his knees knocked
and that his limbs shook, that he had
q fit, 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 lie 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 it
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. 1t epitomizes 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 it has happened in his
tory that men and nations have wait
ed until the moose has tightened. How
many have flaunted their wilfulness
in the face of Jehovah with a SEEM
ing calm superiority to the inevitable.
How many have refused to heed even
after the hand has, as it were, written
over against the wall of their own
lives. Louis presumed to defy God
and man and to exalt his whims above
the right. And his fatuousness pro-
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 Washington.
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 ultimatum concerning the
rights of man with the red blood of
the flower of our manhood.
The lesson of BelshaZzar is apropos.
1t is pertinent. And it is nowhere
more needed than within the confines
of most Christian and civilized Amer
ica To mention no others, 1t is of
practical value in our commercial and
governmental and ecclesiastical af-
fairs. For commerce has been made
the creature of the whims and fan
cies of unscruplous fnanciers. The
Government has been, and is now be-
ing, made the opportunity for thieves
olofa M Nf
political stripe. The church has been
dormant. In many quarters she has
been, so it would seem, dead. We
have been remiss in much. We have
been fast and loose in more. We have
deifed wealth and permitted goddess
ness to strut with little let or hind
rance upon the kings highway. God
knows we have been warned. Let
us trust that we shall heed the hand.
Let us not emulate Belshazzar.
No man may deny that we have
drifted fast toward the rocks of ma
tional dishoncr and disgrace in our
commercial affairs. The financial anu
commercial situation is a disgrace to
a free people, not to say of Chris
'tian nation. And bad as is the story
that comes directly to our ears it is
not half of what may be told ald but
ian adumbration of the catastrophe
that will follow as surely as that Cod
lives if we do not mend our ways.
The spectacle of panic in the midst
of the most legitimate prosperity that
the world has ever known is in itself
a far greater condemnation of our
methods and our career than any
sermon. Words cannot picture the
sinfulness of the situation so we'll IS
can the fact with which we are face
to face. Any sane man can perceive
the outcome. None but 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 progressed
in many quarters, and even now are
moving, toward political degeneracy.
The administration Of our cities is
by-word and a joke among the ma
tions of the world. AS we contem-
plate them ourselves we seem almost
to take delight to say that they are as
badly managed as they are. Ger
tainly many of us openly despair Of
reformation and pronounce popular
self-government upon that point to be
and utter and a shameful failure.
The efforts of those who sit behind
the scenes and pull the wires in our
national affairs are to accomplish the
discrediting and overthrow of any
man or measure that is squared to
the unflinching application of the
rule of Righteousness regardless of
the consequences or the cost. We
NAV well thank God that here and