Our Reasonable Service
17
the victory alone; and how thankful we should be that we have a living
Saviour, who is ready and willing to aid us!
I recall the case of a man in a congregation that I was once ad-
dressing. He was almost wrecked in body and mind by the use of
liquor and tobacco. He was bowed down from the effects of dissipa-
tion; and his dress was in keeping with his shattered condition. To all
appearance he had gone too far to be reclaimed. But as I appealed
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to him to resist temptation in the strength of a risen Saviour, he rose
tremblingly, and said, “You have an interest for me, and I will have
an interest for myself.” Six months afterward he came to my house.
I did not recognize him. With a countenance beaming with joy, and
eyes overflowing with tears, he grasped my hand, and said, “You do
not know me, but you remember the man in an old blue coat who rose
in your congregation, and said that he would try to reform?” I was
astonished. He stood erect, and looked ten years younger. He had
gone home from that meeting, and passed the long hours in prayer
and struggle till the sun arose. It was a night of conflict, but, thank
God, he came off a victor. This man could tell by sad experience of
the bondage of these evil habits. He knew how to warn the youth of
the dangers of contamination; and those who, like himself, had been
overcome, he could point to Christ as the only source of help.
In my travels I have witnessed scenes of feasting and revelry; and
as I have marked the effects of unrestrained indulgence, as I have
listened to the blasphemous mirth, and seen the indifference and even
contempt for all things sacred, I have thought of the sacrilegious feast
of Belshazzar, to which were invited a thousand of his lords, his
princes, his wives, and his concubines,—that feast where wine was
freely drunk from the sacred vessels of the temple of God, while the
revelers sang the praises of their gods of silver and gold. They knew
not that an unseen Watcher heard every word of blasphemy, beheld
every impious action.
In the midst of the revelry, Belshazzar saw the bloodless hand
of an uninvited guest tracing upon the wall of the palace words that
gleamed like fire,—words which, though unknown to that vast throng,
were a portent of doom to the new conscience-stricken revelers. The
boisterous mirth was hushed, and they shook with a nameless terror as
their eyes fastened upon the wall. Where but a few moments before
had been hilarity and blasphemous witticism, were pallid faces and
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