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"O Daniel, servant of the living God, is thy God, whom thou servest continually, able to deliver thee from the lions?"-Daniel vi. 20.

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HE empire of Babylonia and Chaldea passed into the hands of a new dynasty, and king Belshazzar was slain in a night-assault upon his capital. On that very night he had clothed Daniel in scarlet, and made him a prince of the realm. This was providential; for had Daniel been in obscurity, he would have been little likely to attract the notice of Darius: but observing him in the palace, clothed in scarlet, Darius would naturally ask who he was, and enquire into his antecedents. The fame of his wisdom would be quickly told, and the fact of his having twice interpreted the dreams of Nebuchadnezzar in former times, and of his having just then, with startling precision, foretold the downfall of Belshazzar, and the capture of the city by the Medes and Persians, would be eagerly related. Hence it was not at all surprising that Darius took great notice of Daniel, weighed his character, observed his conduct, and after a while exalted him to be prime minister of his realm. You see Daniel

thus raised to the highest point of distinction and dignity and dominion; and forthwith his prosperity and his honours excite the envy of the courtiers. Full of sullen spite, brimming over with jealousy, they gnashed their teeth at him. Presidents and princes conspired together to cast him down with calumnious accusations. We are wont to say that any stick will do to beat a dog with; and so they looked about for any charge with which they might assail him. I have no doubt they watched him constantly, waited eagerly for his halting, all the while basely flattering the man they wanted to trip up. Can they discover a flaw in his accounts? Can they question the impartiality of his judgment? Can they detect a lack of loyalty in the administration of his government? Can they find fault with his private life? Nay; but is there nothing against him? Is Daniel such a four-square man that he is more than a match for them? I can well believe that they hunted him here and there till their haughty faces grew haggard in the vain effort to find a cause of complaint; and that they set spies to skulk about his house and mark his movements; and, in fact, they stooped to the meanest stratagems, little heeding how much they compromised themselves, if they might but compass his downfall. But his integrity was proof against their devices. The more closely they observed him, the more clearly they discerned that he was always diligent, discreet, and devout. So con

scientious and so uniformly consistent was Daniel both in his character and his conduct, that every effort to entangle him in the meshes of their conspiracy proved to be vain.

At length the devil, who does not often run short of devices, puts them up to a fresh plot. O Satan, thou art full of all subtlety! "Let us contrive a new law," say they, "that shall bring his piety and his patriotism into conflict. He is a Hebrew by birth, and in one only God he believes with all his heart. Our divinities he despises; towards our temples he shows a silent scorn; he sets no value on the magnificent statues that we venerate; three times in the day he has been accustomed to offer prayer to an invisible Protector whom he calls 'the living God, Jehovah'; surely these peculiarities will supply us with a pretext, and we will pledge ourselves to entrap him." So they hie off to their homes and, full of hope, they reflect on their new scheme. Soon they meet again, lay their evil heads together, and devise as cunning a snare as they could possibly invent; and yet, clever as they were, they perished in the trap they had prepared. They managed to involve the king himself in their iniquitous device, and to entangle him in such a dilemma that he must either sacrifice his favourite courtier, or compromise his own truthfulness, and violate the sacred traditions of the empire. A royal statute was framed, and a decree published, forbidding any petition to be asked of God or man for thirty days. How preposterous!

But when was there ever a despot who was not sooner or later deserted of his wits? The passion for power, when indulged without restraint, will lead a man to the utmost foolishness, and urge him to a madness of vanity. In such a false position did the monarch stand who was easily persuaded to utter the

infamous edict that his subjects should not ask any favour of either God or man, save of his supreme self, for the space of a whole month. In this strait how does Daniel acquit himself? Will he abscond? Will he count it prudent to desert his post, and get out of the way? Nay, but Daniel had a soul above such policy. And yet you might imagine that if he must pray, he would go down into the cellar, or offer his supplications to God in some retired place where he need not challenge notice. His petitions will be heard in heaven without respect to the place from which they are presented. Or it might have been expedient to suspend the vocal utterance of prayer, and breathe out his supplications with a silent tongue. Daniel, however, was a servant of the living God, and therefore he scorned thus to temporize and play the coward. Well does one of the old writers call him Cœur de Lion. He had the heart of a lion. Into that cage of lions he went, a lion-like man-not cruel, like the beasts of the forest, but more courageous than they all. His conscience toward God was clean, and the course he pursued before his fellow-creatures was clear. His sense of truth would not suffer him to be a trimmer. He does not change his habit, but goes upstairs, though he might have known that it was like climbing the gallows; he drops upon his knees, puts his hands together, with the window open, in the presence of all his adversaries, and there he prays three times a day towards Jerusalem, as he had done aforetime. Brave old man! Remember, this was not the sudden impulse of one who felt the flush of youth; but it was the calm decision of one who was venerable with age, having

already fulfilled threescore years and ten of life's pilgrimage, and performed deeds of public service that might have well entitled him to do garrison duty for the rest of his days. So much the more do we value the example of Daniel, because with grave decision he taught the captives of Judah, both old and young, to prove their fidelity to the Lord God of hosts. He prays openly, not ostentatiously: in the spirit of a Protestant rather than in the fashion of a Pharisee: he sought no honour, but he shunned no danger. To encounter shame, or to endure reproach, if needful, for the cause of righteousness, had long been his fixed habit, and now that it threatens to bring on him swift death, he swerves not. Hear those quick feet as they patter along the streets of Shushan. How all the counsellors and captains are coming together! What is doing? There is mischief brewing full often when nobles and statesmen meet in council with closed doors; especially was it so in the olden times. They are going to seek an interview with the king. What calls them thither? Noble patriots! They are anxious to inform his majesty that they have caught Daniel committing the horrible crime of prayer. Was not this a new offence? Oh, no! dear friends, the first man that ever died fell a victim to his religion; and so, I suppose, for many and many a century this was one of the foulest offences a man could commit against society. Those who serve the living and the true God are sure to challenge the sneers of the time-servers in any age. There be many now who hate nothing so much as a religious man. All the epithets in the catalogue of scandal are too good for the man who offers homage to God in everything that

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