THE setting sun was gilding with burnished gold the towers and palaces of ancient Sodom. The soft, caressing breeze was laden with the scent of flowers, and vibrant with the hum of insect life. Everywhere were tokens of material prosperity, for the Vale of Sodom was almost as fertile as the garden of the Lord.
In Sodom itself, everything appeared as usual. The streets were lined with people; visitors from surrounding countries were taking in the sights; Sodom's great white way was running at high pressure; everything was wide open. No thought of impending disaster marred the mad revelry of that last night. Yet two angels were in Sodom that night, writing its doom; and before the sun arose, Sodom and its citizens had perished forever.
Thirteen centuries later, an angel hand wrote the doom of Babylon on the walls of King Belshazzar's palace; and that very night, the scepter passed from Babylon to Medo-Persia. A nation had been rejected.
Not only Babylon was found wanting, but also Egypt, Medo-Persia, Grecia, and Rome. Weighed in the balances of the sanctuary, weighed by the standard of God's word, weighed by the precepts of God's law, these nations were found lighter than air; and as universal empires they passed away.
In the case of Babylon, the judgment was personal as well as national. When the king called for the holy vessels that had been taken from the temple at Jerusalem, and polluted these vessels in the sight of his lords, that moment the king crossed the "dead line," and that night Belshazzar died.
Even so it is to-day. The hand that wrote the doom of ancient empires is writing still; and "Weighed and found wanting" is being written on many an individual and institution which to carnal eyes may seem prosperous and enduring. More than this, the hand that is writing to-day is not only writing the doom of a city or an empire; that hand is writing the doom of the world.
Neither the darkness of the blackest night, nor the secrecy of all deceptive arts, can veil one thought from the Eternal. Deeds once done can never be recalled. It is a fearful thing to face the Judgment without a Saviour. Every one who does so, will hear the sentence from the great Judge, "Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting." Dan. 5:27. J. W. McCORD.
