fly in the face of nature and fact, and is the mother of all sin. To
live to self is to die while we live; to live to God is to live even
while we die. Nations and individuals are ever tempted thus to ignore
God, and rebelliously to say, 'Who is Lord over us?' or presumptuously
to think themselves architects of their own fortunes, and sufficient for
their own defence. Whoever yields to that temptation has let the 'prince
of the devils' in, and the inferior evil spirits will follow. Positive
acts are not needed; the negative omission to 'glorify' the God of our
life binds sin on us.

Further, Belshazzar, the type of godlessness, had desecrated the
sacrificial vessels by using them for his drunken carouse, and therein
had done just what we do when we take the powers of heart and mind and
will, which are meant to be filled with affections, thoughts, and
purposes, that are 'an odour of a sweet smell, well-pleasing to God,'
and desecrate them by pouring from them libations before creatures. Is
not love profaned when it is lavished on men or women without one
reference to God? Is not the intellect desecrated when its force is
spent on finite objects of thought, and never a glance towards God? Is
not the will prostituted from its high vocation when it is used to drive
the wheels of a God-ignoring life?

The coin bears the image and superscription of the true king. It is
treason to God to render it to any paltry 'Cæsar' of our own coronation.
Belshazzar was an avowed idolater, but many of us are worshipping gods
'which see not, nor hear, nor know' as really as he did. We cannot but
do so, if we are not worshipping God; for men must have some person or
thing which they regard as their supreme good, to which the current of
their being sets, which, possessed, makes them blessed; and that is our
god, whether we call it so or not.