I.
Cleanness discloses fair forms.
God is angry with the unclean worshipper, and with false priests.
The pure worshipper receives great reward.
The impure will bring upon them the anger of God, Who is pure and holy.
It would be a marvel if God did not hate evil.
Christ showed us that himself.
St. Matthew records the discourse.
The clean of heart shall look on our Lord.
What earthly noble, when seated at table above dukes, would like to see
a lad badly attired approach the table with “rent cockers,” his coat
torn and his toes out?
For any one of these he would be turned out with a “big buffet,” and be
forbidden to re-enter, and thus be ruined through his vile clothes.
The parable of the “Marriage of the King’s Son.”
The king’s invitation.
Those invited begin to make excuses.
One had bought an estate and must go to see it.
Another had purchased some oxen and wished to see them “pull in the
plough.”
A third had married a wife and could not come.
The Lord was greatly displeased, and commanded his servants to invite
the wayfaring, both men and women, the better and the worse, that his
palace might be full.
The servants brought in bachelors and squires.
When they came to the court they were well entertained.
The servants tell their lord that they have done his behest, and there
is still room for more guests.
The Lord commands them to go out into the fields, and bring in the halt,
blind, and “one-eyed.”
For those who denied shall not taste “one sup” to save them from death.
The palace soon became full of “people of all plights.”
They were not all one wife’s sons, nor had they all one father.
The “brightest attired” had the best place.
Below sat those with “poor weeds.”
All are well entertained “with meat and minstrelsy.”
Each with his “mate” made him at ease.
II.
The lord of the feast goes among his guests.
Bids them be merry.
On the floor he finds one not arrayed for a holyday.
Asks him how he obtained entrance, and how he was so bold as to appear
in such rags.
Does he take him to be a harlot?
The man becomes discomfited.
He is unable to reply.
The lord commands him to be bound, and cast into a deep dungeon.
This feast is likened to the kingdom of heaven, to which all are
invited.
See that thy weeds are clean.
Thy weeds are thy works that thou hast wrought.
For many faults may a man forfeit bliss.
For sloth and pride he is thrust into the devil’s throat.
He is ruined by covetousness, perjury, murder, theft, and strife.
For robbery and ribaldry, for preventing marriages, and supporting the
wicked, for treason, treachery, and tyranny, man may lose eternal bliss.
III.
The high Prince of all is displeased with those who work wickedly.
For the first fault the devil committed, he felt God’s vengeance.
He, the fairest of all angels, forsook his sovereign, and boasted that
his throne should be as high as God’s.
For these words he was cast down to hell.
The fiends fell from heaven, like the thick snow, for forty days.
From heaven to hell the shower lasted.
The devil would not make peace with God.
Affliction makes him none the better.
For the fault of one, vengeance alighted upon all men.
Adam was ordained to live in bliss.
Through Eve he ate an apple.
Thus all his descendants became poisoned.
A maiden brought a remedy for mankind.
IV.
Malice was merciless.
A race of men came into the world, the fairest, the merriest, and the
strongest that ever were created.
They were sons of Adam.
No law was laid upon them.
Nevertheless they acted unnaturally.
The “_fiends_” beheld how fair were the daughters of these mighty men,
and made fellowship with them and begat a race of giants.
The greatest fighter was reckoned the most famous.
The Creater of all becomes exceedingly wroth.
Fell anger touches His heart.
It repents Him that He has made man.
He declares that all flesh shall be destroyed, both man and beast.
There was at this time living on the earth a very righteous man: Noah
was his name.
Three bold sons he had.
God in great anger speaks to Noah.
Declares that He will destroy all “that life has.”
Commands him to make “a mansion” with dwellings for wild and tame.
To let the ark be three hundred cubits in length, and fifty in breadth,
and thirty in height, and a window in it a cubit square.
Also a good shutting door in the side, together with halls, recesses,
bushes, and bowers, and well-formed pens.
For all flesh shall be destroyed, except Noah and his family.
Noah is told to take into the ark seven pairs of every clean beast, and
one of unclean kind, and to furnish the ark with proper food.
Noah fills the ark.
V.
God asks Noah whether all is ready.
Noah replies that all is fully prepared.
He is commanded to enter the ark, for God tells him that he will send a
rain to destroy all flesh.
Noah stows all safely in the ark.
Seven days are passed.
The deep begins to swell, banks are broken down, and the clouds burst.
It rains for forty days, and the flood rises, and flows over the woods
and fields.
All must drown.
The water enters the houses.
Each woman with her bairns flees to the hills.
The rain never ceases.
The valleys are filled.
People flock to the mountains.
Some swim for their lives.
Others roar for fear.
Animals of all kinds run to the hills.
All pray for mercy.
God’s mercy is passed from them.
Each sees that he must sink.
Friends take leave of one another.
Forty days have gone by, and all are destroyed.
All rot in the mud, except Noah and his family, who are safe in the ark.
The ark is lifted as high as the clouds, and is driven about, without
mast, bowline, cables, anchors, or sail to guide its course.
At the mercy of the winds.
Oft it rolled around and reared on end.
The age of the patriarch Noah.
Duration of the flood.
The completeness of the destruction.
God remembers those in the ark.
He causes a wind to blow, and closes the lakes and wells, and the
great deep.
The ark settles on Mount Ararat.
Noah beholds the bare earth.
He opens his window and sends out the raven to seek dry land.
The raven “croaks for comfort” on finding carrion.
He fills his belly with the foul flesh.
The lord of the ark curses the raven, and sends out the dove.
The bird wanders about the whole day.
Finding no rest, she returns about eventide to Noah.
Noah again sends out the dove.
VI.
The dove returns with an olive branch in her beak.
This was a token of peace and reconciliation.
Joy reigns in the ark.
The people therein laugh and look thereout.
God permits Noah and his sons to leave the ark.
Noah offers sacrifice to God.
It is pleasing to Him that “all speeds or spoils.”
God declares that He will never destroy the world for the sin of man.
That summer and winter shall never cease.
Nor night nor day, nor the new years.
God blesses every beast.
Each fowl takes its flight.
Each fish goes to the flood.
Each beast makes for the plain.
Wild worms wriggle to their abodes in the earth.
The fox goes to the woods.
Harts to the heath, and hares to the gorse.
Lions and leopards go to the lakes.
Eagles and hawks to the high rocks.
The four ‘frekes’ take the empire.
Behold what woe God brought on mankind for their hateful deeds!
Beware of the filth of the flesh.
“One speck of a spot” will ruin us in the sight of God.
The beryl is clean and sound,--it has no seam.
VII.
When God repented that he had made man, he destroyed all flesh.
But afterwards He was sorry, and made a covenant with mankind that He
would not again destroy all the living.
For the filth of the flesh God destroyed a rich city.
God hates the wicked as “hell that stinks.”
Especially harlotry and blasphemy.
Nothing is hidden from God.
God is the ground of all deeds.
He honours the man that is honest and whole.
But for deeds of shame He destroys the mighty ones.
VIII.
Abraham is sitting before his house-door under a green oak.
He sees three men coming along, and goes toward them.
He entreats them to rest awhile, that he may wash their feet, and bring
them a morsel of bread.
Abraham commands Sarah to make some cakes quickly, and tells his servant
to seethe a tender kid.
Abraham appears bare-headed before his guests.
He casts a clean cloth on the green, and sets before them cakes, butter,
milk, and pottage.
God praises his friend’s feast, and after the meat is removed, He tells
Abraham that Sarah shall bear him a son.
Sarah, who is behind the door, laughs in unbelief.
God tells Abraham that Sarah laughs at His words.
Sarah denies that she laughed.
Abraham’s guests set out towards Sodom, two miles from Mamre.
The patriarch accompanies them.
God determines to reveal to Abraham his secret purposes.
IX.
He informs him of the destruction about to fall upon the cities of
the plain, for their great wickedness, in abusing the gifts bestowed
upon them.
The ordinance of marriage had been made for them, but they foully set it
at nought.
The flame of love.
Therefore shall they be destroyed as an example to all men for ever.
Abraham is full of fear, and asks God whether the “sinful and the
sinless” are to suffer together.
Whether he will spare the cities provided fifty righteous are found
in them?
For the sake of fifty the cities shall be spared.
The patriarch beseeches God to spare the city for the sake of forty-five
righteous.
For the lack of five the cities shall not be destroyed.
For forty the cities shall be spared.
Abraham entreats God’s forbearance for his speech.
Thirty righteous, found in the cities, shall save them from destruction.
For the sake of twenty guiltless ones God will release the rest.
Or if ten only should be found pure.
The patriarch intercedes for Lot.
Beseeches Him to “temper His ire,” and then departs weeping for sorrow.
X.
God’s messengers go to Sodom.
Lot is sitting alone at the “door of his lodge.”
Staring into the street he sees two men.
Beardless chins they had, and hair like raw silk.
Beautifully white were their weeds.
Lot runs to meet them.
Invites them to remain awhile in his house, and in the morning they may
take their way.
Lot invites them so long that at last they comply.
The wife and daughters of Lot welcome their visitors.
Lot admonishes his men to prepare the meat, and to serve no salt
with it.
Lot’s wife disregards the injunction.
The guests are well entertained.
But before they go to rest the city is up in arms.
With “keen clubs” the folk clatter on the walls, and demand that Lot
should deliver up his guests.
The wind yet stinks with their filthy speech.
Lot is in great trouble.
He leaves his guests and addresses the Sodomites.
He offers to give up to them his two daughters.
The rebels raise a great noise, and ask who made him a justice to judge
their deeds, who was but a boy when he came to Sodom.
The young men bring Lot within doors, and smite those outside with
blindness.
In vain they try to find the door of Lot’s house.
XI.
Early in the morning the angels command Lot to depart from Sodom, with
his wife and two daughters, and to look straight before him, for Sodom
and Gomorrah shall be destroyed.
Lot asks what is best to be done, that he may escape.
He is told to choose himself a dwelling which shall be saved from
destruction.
He chooses Zoar.
The angels command Lot to depart quickly.
He wakes his wife and daughters.
All four are hastened on by the angels, who “preach to them the peril”
of delay.
Before daylight Lot comes to a hill.
God aloft raises a storm.
A rain falls thick of fire and sulphur.
Upon the four cities it comes, and frightens all folks therein.
The great bars of the abyss do burst.
Cliffs cleave asunder.
The cities sink to hell.
Such a cry arises that the clouds clatter again.
Lot and his companions are frightened, but continue to follow
their face.
Lot’s wife looks behind her, and is turned to a stiff stone “as salt as
any sea.”
Her companions do not miss her till they reach Zoar.
By this time all were drowned.
The people of Zoar, for dread, rush into the sea and are destroyed.
Only Zoar with three therein (Lot and his daughters) are saved.
Lot’s wife is an image of salt for two faults:
1. She served salt before the Lord at supper.
2. She looked behind her.
Abraham is up full early on the morn.
He looks towards Sodom, now only a pit filled with pitch, from which
rise smoke, ashes and cinders, as from a furnace.
A sea now occupies the place of the four cities.
It is a stinking pool, and is called the Dead Sea.
Nothing may live in it.
Lead floats on its surface.
A feather sinks to the bottom of it.
Lands, watered by this sea, never bear grass or weed.
A man cannot be drowned in it.
The clay clinging to it is corrosive, as alum, alkaran, sulphur, etc.,
which fret the flesh and fester the bones.
On the shores of this lake grow trees bearing fair fruits, which, when
broken or bitten, taste like ashes.
All these are tokens of wickedness and vengeance.
God loves the pure in heart.
Strive to be clean.
Jean de Meun tells how a lady is to be loved.
By doing what pleases her best.
Love thy Lord!
Conform to Christ, who is polished as a pearl.
By how comely a contrivance did he enter the womb of the virgin!
In what purity did he part from her!
No abode was better than his.
The sorrow of childbirth was turned to joy.
Angels solaced the virgin with organs and pipes.
The child Christ was so clean that ox and ass worshipped him.
He hated wickedness, and would never touch ought that was vile.
Yet there came to him lazars and lepers, lame and blind.
Dry and dropsical folk.
He healed all with kind speech.
His handling was so good, that he needed no knife to cut or carve with.
The bread he broke more perfectly than could all the tools of Toulouse.
How can we approach his court except we be clean?
God is merciful.
Through penance we may shine as a pearl.
Why is the pearl so prized?
She becomes none the worse for wear.
If she should become dim, wash her in wine.
She then becomes clearer than before.
So may the sinner polish him by penance.
Beware of returning to sin.
For then God is more displeased than ever.
The reconciled soul God holds as His own.
Ill deeds rob Him of it.
God forbids us to defile any vessels used in His service.
In Belshazzar’s time, the defiling of God’s vessels brought wrath upon
the king.
XII.
Daniel in his prophecies tells of the destruction of the Jews.
For their unfaithfulness in following other gods, God allowed the
heathen to destroy them, in the reign of Zedekiah, who practised
idolatry.
Nebuchadnezzar becomes his foe.
He besieges Jerusalem, and surrounds the walls.
The city is stuffed full of men.
Brisk is the skirmish.
Seven times a day are the gates assailed.
For two years the fight goes on, yet the city is not taken.
The folk within are in want of food.
Meager they become.
For so shut up are they that escape seems impossible.
But on a quiet night they steal out, and rush through the host.
They are discovered by the enemy.
A loud alarm is given.
They are pursued and overtaken.
Their king is made prisoner.
His chief men are presented as prisoners to Nebuchadnezzar.
His sons are slain.
His own eyes are put out.
He is placed in a dungeon in Babylon.
All for his “bad bearing” against the Lord, who might otherwise have
been his friend.
Nebuchadnezzar ceased not until he had destroyed Jerusalem.
Nebuzaradan was “chief of the chivalry.”
The best men were taken out of the city.
Nevertheless Nebuzaradan spared not those left.
Brains of bairns were spilt.
Priests pressed to death.
Wives and wenches foully killed.
All that escaped the sword were taken to Babylon, and were made to drag
the cart or milk the kine.
Nebuzaradan burst open the temple, and slew those therein.
Priests, pulled by the poll, were slain along with deacons, clerks, and
maidens.
The enemy pillages the temple of its pillars of brass, and the golden
candlestick from off the altar.
Goblets, basins, golden dishes, all are taken by Nebuzaradan, and
hampered together.
Solomon had made them with much labour.
The temple he beats down, and returns to Babylon.
Presents the prisoners to the king, among whom were Daniel and his three
companions.
Nebuchadnezzar has great joy, because his enemies are slain.
Great was his wonder when he saw the sacred jewelry.
He praises the God of Israel.
Such vessels never before came to Chaldea.
They are thrust into the treasury.
Nebuchadnezzar reigns as emperor of all the earth, through the “doom of
Daniel,” who gave him good counsel.
Nebuchadnezzar dies and is buried.
Belshazzar succeeds him.
He holds himself the biggest in heaven or on earth.
He honours not God, but worships false phantoms.
He promises them rewards if good fortune befal.
If they vex him he knocks them in pieces.
He has a wife, and many concubines.
The mind of the king was fixed upon new meats and other vain things.
XIII.
Belshazzar, to exhibit his vainglory, proclaims throughout Babylon, that
all the great ones should assemble on a set day, at the Sultan’s feast.
Kings, dukes, and lords were commanded to attend the court.
To do the king honour many nobles came to Babylon.
It would take too long to name the number.
The city of Babylon is broad and big.
It is situated on a plain, surrounded by seven streams, a high wall, and
towers.
The palace was long and large, each side being seven miles in length.
High houses were within the walls.
The time of the feast has come.
Belshazzar sits upon his throne: the hall floor is covered with knights.
When all are seated, service begins.
Trumpets sound everywhere.
Bread is served upon silver dishes.
All sorts of musical instruments are heard in the hall.
The king, surrounded by his loves, drinks copiously of wine.
It gets into his head and stupifies him.
A cursed thought takes possession of him.
He commands his marshal to bring him the vessels taken from the temple
by Nebuchadnezzar, and to fill them with wine.
The marshal opens the chests.
Covers the cupboard with vessels.
The Jewels of Jerusalem deck the sides of the hall.
The altar and crown, blessed by bishop’s hands, and anointed with the
blood of beasts, are set before the bold Belshazzar.
Upon this altar were noble vessels curiously carved, basins of gold,
cups arrayed like castles with battlements, and towers with lofty
pinnacles.
Upon them were pourtrayed branches and leaves, the flowers of which were
white pearls, and the fruit flaming gems.
The goblets were ornamented with flowers of gold.
The candlestick was brought in, with its pillars of brass, and
ornamental boughs, upon which sat birds of various hues.
Lights shone bright from the candlestick, which once stood before the
“Holy of Holies.”
The pollution of the sacred vessels is displeasing to God.
For “a boaster on bench” drinks from them till he is as “drunken as the
devil.”
God is very angry.
Before harming the revellers He sends them a warning.
Belshazzar commands the sacred vessels to be filled with wine.
The cups and bowls are soon filled.
Music of all kind is heard in the hall.
Dukes, princes, concubines, and knights, all are merry.
Drinking of the sweet liquors they ask favours of their gods, who,
although dumb, are as highly praised “as if heaven were theirs.”
A marvel befals the feasters.
The king first saw it.
Upon the plain wall, “a palm with pointel in fingers” is seen writing.
The bold Belshazzar becomes frightened.
His knees knock together.
He roars for dread, still beholding the hand, as it wrote on the
rough wall.
The hand vanishes but the letters remain.
The king recovers his speech and sends for the “book-learned;” but none
of the scholars were wise enough to read it.
Belshazzar is nearly mad.
Commands the city to be searched throughout for the “wise of
witchcraft.”
He who expounds the strange letters, shall be clothed in “gowns of
purple.”
A collar of gold shall encircle his throat.
He shall be the third lord in the realm.
As soon as this cry was upcast, to the hall came clerks out of Chaldea,
witches and diviners, sorcerers and exorcists.
But after looking on the letters they were as ignorant as if they had
looked into the leather of the left boot.
The king curses them all and calls them churls.
He orders the harlots to be hanged.
The queen hears the king chide.
She inquires the cause.
Goes to the king, kneels before him, and asks why he has rent his robes
for grief, when there is one that has the Spirit of God, the counsellor
of Nebuchadnezzar, the interpreter of his dreams, through the holy
Spirit of God.
The name of this man is Daniel, who was brought a captive from Judæa.
The queen tells the king to send for Daniel.
Her counsel is accepted.
Daniel comes before Belshazzar.
The king tells him that he has heard of his wisdom, and his power to
discover hidden things, and that he wants to know the meaning of the
writing on the wall.
Promises him, if he can explain the text of the letters and their
interpretation, to clothe him in purple and pall, and put a ring about
his neck, and to make him “a baron upon bench.”
Daniel addresses the king, and reminds him how that God supported his
father, and gave him power to exalt or abase whomsoever he pleased.
Nebuchadnezzar was established on account of his faith in God.
So long as he remained true, no man was greater.
But at last pride touches his heart.
He forgets the power of God, and blasphemes His name.
He says that he is “god of the ground,” and the builder of Babylon.
Hardly had Nebuchadnezzar spoken, when God’s voice is heard, saying,
“Thy principality is departed.
Thou, removed from men, must abide on the moor, and walk with wild
beasts, eat herbs, and dwell with wolves and asses.”
For his pride he becomes an outcast.
He believes himself to be a bull or an ox.
Goes “on all fours,” like a cow, for seven summers.
His thighs grew thick.
His hair became matted and thick, from the shoulders to the toes.
His beard touched the earth.
His brows were like briars.
His eyes were hollow, and grey as the kite’s.
Eagle-hued he was.
At last he recovered his “wit,” and believed in God.
Then soon was he restored to his seat.
But thou, Belshazzar, hast disregarded these signs, and hast blasphemed
the Lord, defiled his vessels, filling them with wine for thy wenches,
and praising thy lifeless gods.
For this sin God has sent thee this strange sight, the fist with the
fingers writing on the wall.
These are the words: “Mene, Tekel, Peres.
Mene.-- God has counted thy kingdom and finished it.
Tekel.-- Thy reign is weighed and is found wanting in deeds of faith.
Peres.-- Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Persians.
The Medes shall be masters here.”
The king commands Daniel to be clothed in a frock of fine cloth.
Soon is he arrayed in purple, with a chain about his neck.
A decree is made, that all should bow to him, as the third lord that
followed Belshazzar.
The decree was made known, and all were glad.
The day, however, past.
Night came on.
Before another day dawned, Daniel’s words were fulfilled.
The feast lasts till the sun falls.
The skies become dark.
Each noble hies home to his supper.
Belshazzar is carried to bed, but never rises from it, for his foes are
seeking to destroy his land, and are assembled suddenly.
The enemy is Darius, leader of the Medes.
He has legions of armed men.
Under cover of the darkness, they cross the river.
By means of ladders they get upon the walls, and within an hour enter
the city, without disturbing any of the watch.
They run into the palace, and raise a great cry.
Men are slain in their beds.
Belshazzar is beaten to death, and caught by the heels, is foully cast
into a ditch.
Darius is crowned king, and makes peace with the barons.
Thus the land was lost for the king’s sin.
He was cursed for his uncleanness, and deprived of his honour, as well
as of the joys of heaven.
Thus in three ways has it been shown, that uncleanness makes God angry.
Cleanness is His comfort.
The seemly shall see his face.
God give us grace to serve in His sight!
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