Self-satisfied pride—one has only to turn the pages of This Book to learn that prove is the source of a host of evils, and here we learn that above all things God hates the spirit of pride. One might multiply verses and the old schoolman and theologions, following the teaching of Holy Writ, put pride as the first and foremost of the seven deadly sins. And vividly this story shows how pride prepares the way for its evil companions. Lifted up in his pride, surrounded by fawning officers and dependents, he sends for the holy vessels which his father had taken from the temple at Jerusalem and they drink wine in them, praising meanwhile the gods of wood and iron, and stone. Pride is the first staté—the next is the desecration of the holy things of God. It is but a vivid and striking example of what goes on constantly in the world about us.
Belshazzar had done only what we do when we take the powers of heart lode clean and pure and useful, well and mind and will which are meant
bleaking to God and used in His service, And use them for our own selfish and often evil ends, God is Love and he made man in His own own image, able to give and receive affection. Love is the greatest force in the "world. Love is vision and insight—love is understanding and is not love profane when it is directed only toward earthly things—lavished on men and women without reaching out also to God who gave so much to us in His great love for us.."God who so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son to die for us." Is not the intellect desecrated when its force is spent on earthly attainment—worldly objects and ends with never a thought of God? Spent wholly on business, commerce and trade, with no effort made to study the things of God, no time set aside for the consideration of its Maker and attempt to know His will. And is not the will prostituted from its high vocation when it is used to drive the wheels of a God ignoring life? God has given us a free will. Shall that very freedom be made a curse instead of a blessing. The coin bears the image and superscription of the True King. It is treason to render it to any paltry Caesar of our own crowning.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.