Are these Senators right in their opinion? We will begin with our text; "A just balance and scales are the Lord's; all the weights of the bag are his." Here Solomon says that the common matter of honest weights and scales is a religious matter. He says you will never have even common "garden honest" without a conviction, that honesty is God's business, that He will see to it. Religion is the invisible accompaniment of scales and weights. You will not have honest weights permanently if religion is a spent force. And ordinary life shows us that we all admit it. There are such bodies as Town Councils. Neither they nor the central governments of our countries believe for a moment, that the moral standard in men is so high that they would keep their scalles and weights just and up to thw standard, of their own accord. No, indeed. There are laws about it; the. Councils have inspectors of weights and measures. Yes, and! they would be useless if they made regular stated visits to business. They make irregular visits, and drop on the dishonest. A thousand things go to make the weights and scales and measures false. Thera are sheer dishonesty, the pressure of competition, the fault of the public in wanting much for little money, the constant tendency of man to let things—including his weights—side, because it is a little trouble to send them of his own accord to have then tested. And what is true of scales and weights is true of everything else. Clean lips are the Lord's; a clean hearb is the Lord's; family life is the Lord's; honesty in politics is the Lord's; truth is the Lord's. Without the sense of God in His holiness being the essence of these precious things on which the life of the world depends, they will be held as mere conveniences, to be watered down when it suits us.
Why has the Biblie held its place as the greatest book in, the world? Because it teaches God's almightiness? No. Because it promises w great destiny for man? But because it reveals God as the Holy God, That is why this Jewish book is where it is. No other religion has any idea of holiness: Neither the classica] religions, nor Indian, nor Chinese. They all have gods of thieves even, Re member that Mercury was the god of thieves and merchants. A nice compliment to you merchants! He was not like Jehovah, who was and is deeply concerned with a just balance and scales." The God of the Bible is holy. There are things that He cannot bear and will not have. The distinction between good and evil-is absolute in the God of the Bible, and in no other god, or system of ethics. That is Gods character, holy; no paltering with sin, and so He says, 'Be yd holy, for I am holy.' And such is the weakness of the soul of man, such the feebleness of his moral impulses, such his readiness td whittle down holiness and right to -suit his convenience and to minister to his cupidity, that even plain' right and honesty cannot maintain' themselves, if we become a race without reverence, without prayer, Without worship, a race of frivolous Sports, without any "depth of earth in us," without ai conscience bited without permission.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.