Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Wright - 2.djvu/405

Rh itself with all kinds of wickedness, lulls prudence asleep. Wherefore, said Quidius, "Wine produces lust if taken too copiously." Oh odious vice of drunkenness! by which the possession of all good things—the security of happiness—is lost for ever and ever. Noah, heated with wine, exposed himself to his children. The most chaste Lot, thrown by wine into sleep, did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord. Herod Antipas had not decapitated the holy John, if he had kept from the feast of surfeiting and drunkenness. Balthasar, king of Babylon, had not been deprived of his life and throne, if he had been sober on the night in which Cyrus and Darius slew him overpowered with wine. (124) On which account the Apostle advises us to be "sober and watch." Let us then pray to the Lord to preserve us in all sobriety, that we may hereafter be invited to a feast in heaven.