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DANIEL: 
 
 Hn lEyposition 
 
 OF THE 
 
 HISTORICAL PORTION OF THE WRITINGS 
 OF THE PROPHET DANIEL. 
 
 BY THE 
 
 VERY REV. R. PAYNE SMITH, D.D. 
 
 DEAN OF CANTERBURY 
 
 LONDON: 
 JAMES NISBET & CO., 21 BERNERS STREET. 
 
 MDCCCLXXXVI. 
 
PREFATORY NOTE. 
 
 The papers of which this work is composed will 
 be recognised by some readers as having already- 
 appeared in a serial form. As they were written 
 at intervals, there is in them a certain amount 
 of repetition, though less than I feared would be 
 the case when they were gathered for publication 
 in a more connected form. They lay claim to no 
 great originality or research, nor do they attempt 
 more than to give a passing glance at some of 
 the difficulties suggested in modern times with 
 regard to a book so marvellous in its contents. 
 They were written rather with a view to edification, 
 and in the hope of drawing from the narrative 
 lessons for our own conduct and guidance in the 
 Christian life. They are reissued at the instance 
 of the Editor of the Homiletic Magazine, who 
 insists that there is in the papers, not only " much 
 information conveyed in a popular form, but many 
 
vi PREFATORY NOTE. 
 
 suggestions such as will be useful to preachers 
 and Christian workers, as yet unreached by that 
 theological periodical." I therefore only yield to 
 his earnest wish in now sending them forth in this 
 volume. 
 
 E. PAYNE SMITH, 
 
 Deanery, Canterbury, 
 Septem}>er 1886. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 I. INTRODUCTORY 
 II. DANIEL AND HIS FRIENDS . 
 
 III. SUCCESSIVE MONARCHIES 
 
 IV. THE DREAM OF NEBUCHADNEZZA! 
 V. A CONSTRAINED CONFESSION 
 
 VI. THE DURA IMAGE . 
 VII. THE ACCUSATION . 
 VIII. CALMNESS AND FURY . 
 IX. THREE JEWISH CONFESSORS . 
 X. HEATHEN RECOGNITION OF GOD 
 XI. A WATCHER AND A HOLY ONE 
 XII. THE ASTONIED INTERPRETER 
 
 XIII. THE ROYAL PENITENT . 
 
 XIV. BELSHAZZAR THE KING 
 
 XV. THE HANDWRITING ON THE WALI 
 XVI. AN UNWELCOME EXPLANATION 
 
 FACE 
 
 I 
 
 19 
 
 37 
 54 
 70 
 
 84 
 
 99 
 118 
 
 133 
 147 
 159 
 
 171 
 185 
 201 
 214 
 
 227 
 
Vlll CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 XVH. MENE, MENE 242 
 
 XVIII. THE FALL AND RISE OF EMPIRES . . . .258 
 
 XIX. THE HOUR OF DANGER 273 
 
 XX. THE NEMESIS OF FLATTERY 286 
 
 XXI. THE RIGHTEOUS DELIVERED 299 
 
 XXII. RIGHTEOUS RETRIBUTION 318 
 
DANIEL. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 fFHE Book of Daniel holds so remarkable a place 
 in the cycle of Holy Scripture that it seems 
 necessary, before using it for homiletic purposes, 
 to point out a few of its distinctive characteristics. 
 First, then, and chief of all, prophecy in the 
 Book of Daniel ceases to be Jewish and becomes 
 Gentile. Up to this time, though the prophets 
 with one consent had declared the catholicity of 
 the religion of the Messiah, yet the outward form, 
 under which they had depicted its universality, 
 had in the main been that of the triumph of 
 Judaism and of the one God over the motley idols 
 of the heathen world. The Messiah was to in- 
 augurate a universal empire of peace, but as the 
 Jew read the flowing metaphors and images under 
 which it was set forth, it seemed to him to fore- 
 show the conquest of the world by a Prince of 
 
2 DANIEL. 
 
 David's line ; and their scribes, holding this as a 
 settled truth, eagerly discussed the further ques- 
 tion as to the continuance of this Prince's reign. 
 Was it to be indefinitely prolonged ? and how 
 in that case was His life to be maintained beyond 
 the age allotted to man ? Naturally this was their 
 interpretation of the words of their prophets. For 
 the ideas, the metaphors, the whole of the outward 
 form, was taken either from the Mosaic dispensa- 
 tion, or from the great development of Judaism in 
 David's time, of which the service and ritual of the 
 Temple was the symbol. But while in the pro- 
 phecies of Daniel the inner core is the same, the 
 outer aspect is completely changed. Still there is 
 a universal empire, but it is a stone cut without 
 hands out of a mountain, and following upon 
 mighty Gentile kingdoms, whose work it does, 
 whereas they had failed. For theirs had been but 
 a temporary rule, while that of the final king- 
 dom would be eternal. As the Jew compared the 
 prophecies of Daniel with those of Isaiah, he must 
 have wondered at the omission in the words of the 
 Babylonian seer of all reference to the part which 
 Israel was to take in the subjugation of the world 
 to God. Isaiah had described his people as being 
 specially the " servant of Jehovah," His prime 
 minister and vizier in the accomplishment of His 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 3 
 
 eternal purpose. In Daniel the Jew falls entirely 
 out of the scene. It was a most necessary lesson, 
 though a hard and painful one for the poor exiles 
 to learn ; but this widening and enlarging of the 
 outlook of prophecy was indispensable, and the 
 time had come when it could be no longer delayed. 
 We probably have but half fathomed the full 
 effects of the Babylonian exile in the preparation 
 for Christ's Advent. But we can easily see that, 
 as a fact, at Babylon prophecy broke through the 
 narrow shell which had previously enclosed it, and 
 took wider and more vast dimensions. And this 
 was the result of providential arrangements — 
 made, we may feel sure, for this very end. The 
 one purpose with which all ancient history was 
 instinct was Christ's coming. It appears dimly 
 but certainly in the histories of Greece and Eome ; 
 more plainly in those of Egypt and the mighty 
 monarchies whose seats were on the Tigris and 
 Euphrates ; with unveiled clearness in the history 
 of the Jews. But we must now confine ourselves 
 to the circumstances which exerted their influence 
 upon Daniel's mind, and enabled him to shake off 
 so completely the narrower feelings natural to 
 those brought up among the exclusive views and 
 tenets which prevailed at Jerusalem. 
 
 We find, then, that Daniel, who was probably of 
 
4 DANIEL. 
 
 the king's seed (ch. i. 3), was carried captive to 
 Babylon in the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim. 
 Jeremiah (ch. xxv. 1) describes it as the fourth 
 year, counting by the dates of the years ; but as 
 three full years had not passed away since Jehoia- 
 kim's accession, there is no real disagreement 
 between the two records. Nebuchadnezzar, who 
 at that time was not the king, but only associated 
 with his father, Nabopolassar, in the government 
 of the Babylonian empire, marched early in the 
 year to meet Pharaoh-Necho, who had invaded his 
 dominions, and defeated him at Carchemish on the 
 river Euphrates. The Egyptian king had started 
 four years previously for this trial of strength, deter- 
 mined, if he could, to crush this rising Babylonian 
 power in its youth, and win for himself universal 
 empire. But Josiah, king of Judah, had felt him- 
 self bound to resist his progress, and though the 
 battle terminated in his defeat and death, yet was 
 the fight so stubborn that Pharaoh had to return 
 to his own land to recruit his strength. What 
 might have been the result had Josiah let the 
 Egyptian army go unmolested on its way we can- 
 not tell ; but certainly the Babylonians would not 
 have had the presence of Nebuchadnezzar, whose 
 genius subsequently won for his country its short- 
 lived empire. As it was, the struggle was delayed 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 5 
 
 for four years, and ended in the disastrous defeat 
 of the Egyptian army. 
 
 Nebuchadnezzar pursued it only as far- as " the 
 river of Egypt," the brook which formed the 
 boundary between the Philistine country and the 
 territory of the Egyptians. For on his way tidings 
 reached him of his father's death ; and, as there 
 were many of the nobles of Babylon ready to con- 
 test with this new dynasty the throne of their 
 country, he hastened back to secure for himself the 
 crown. But on his march homewards he made a 
 short halt at Jerusalem to secure the allegiance of 
 Jehoiakim, who had been placed upon the Jewish 
 throne by Pharaoh-Necho, and regarded himself 
 doubtless as his vassal. Jehoiakim seems even to 
 have made some show of resistance, and was at all 
 events treated as a conquered foe, and had to pay 
 the victor a tribute both of captives and of treasures. 
 For the latter he gave some of the choice vessels 
 of the Temple, precious both for their material, and 
 still more for their archaic workmanship ; for the 
 former, youths chiefly members of the royal family 
 and of noble houses, who would both adorn Nebu- 
 chadnezzar's court, and also serve as hostages for 
 the fidelity of their nation. 
 
 Of these Daniel was one, and being selected on 
 account of his beauty and ability for special train- 
 
6 DANIEL. 
 
 ing, he was brought up not as a Jew, but as a 
 Gentile ; not in the house of any of his own 
 people, but under Chaldean teachers and school- 
 masters. His education was not such as he would 
 have had in one of the schools of the prophets, but 
 was in the Chaldean language and literature, em- 
 bracing no doubt the cuneiform system of writing, 
 and the Accadian as well as the ordinary Semitic 
 language. He would become, of course, deeply 
 versed in their system of divination, both by means 
 of the stars and by traditional rules for the inter- 
 pretation of dreams. Upon this part of Daniel's 
 education Mr. Lenormant has thrown great light 
 by his work on " Magic as Practised by the Chal- 
 deans," published in French at Paris in 1874. He 
 would learn also their venerable liturgies and 
 hymns, addressed to the powers of nature as divine, 
 to the sun, and earth, and sky, the ocean and 
 the wind, and, above all, to fire. Better than all, 
 he would learn astronomy, in the study of which 
 the Chaldeans, blessed with a bright, clear atmos- 
 phere, greatly excelled. All this would be a new 
 and marvellous world to the young Jew, and, with 
 its strange admixture of truth and error, of real 
 knowledge and childish superstition, could not but 
 have a powerful influence upon his mind. 
 
 As far as we can calculate, Daniel was about 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 7 
 
 fourteen or fifteen years old when his education 
 began in knowledge of which so much has in the 
 last few years been recovered for us by the 
 deciphering of the cuneiform inscriptions. From 
 the second chapter we learn that this training 
 began immediately after he had been made a 
 captive, and, as the Jewish monarchy had eighteen 
 years of slow wasting and decay to pass through 
 between that third year of Jehoiakim and the fall 
 of Zedekiah, its last weak king, Daniel must have 
 reached the prime of manhood, and have held a 
 position of great power and influence at Nebuchad- 
 nezzar's court long before Jerusalem perished in 
 the flames. The exiled Ezekiel, in coupling his 
 name with those of Noah and Job (Ezek. xiv. 14), 
 leads us to the conviction that his reputation for 
 goodness and wisdom was spread throughout the 
 whole region wherein the captive Israelites dwelt. 
 It was a merciful provision for them that at the 
 conqueror's court there should be one who could 
 do so much to soften the bitterness of their con- 
 dition, and whose example would strengthen them 
 so greatly in holding firmly to their faith. But 
 our theme relates rather to the influence which 
 this training must have had upon his own mind, 
 and to the different way in which, consequently, he 
 treats the old familiar subjects of Jewish prophecy. 
 
« DANIEL. 
 
 For before very long he attained to a position 
 of great eminence, wherein new influences were 
 brought to bear upon him which could not but 
 help to mould his character. Nebuchadnezzar had 
 a dream which, while it greatly startled him, yet 
 passed away entirely from his memory ; and when 
 the Chaldeans could tell the king neither the 
 interpretation, nor, what was confessedly beyond 
 their art, the dream itself, he ordered all the 
 members of the college of wise men to be put to 
 death. The Jewish children were included in the 
 terms of this savage decree, and when Daniel and 
 his companions were sought for that they might be 
 slain, he found favour with the captain of the 
 guard, obtained an audience with the king, and 
 undertook, if time were given him, to declare to 
 him all he wished. The evening he spent in earnest 
 prayer with his three companions, and in a vision 
 of the night the secret was revealed to him. The 
 result was that Nebuchadnezzar made Daniel, 
 young as he was, " a great man, and gave him 
 many great gifts, and made him ruler over the 
 whole province of Babylon, and chief of the 
 governors over all the wise men of Babylon " (ch. 
 ii. 43). 
 
 Thus at the early age of sixteen or seventeen 
 Daniel began to feel the pressure of the cares of 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 9 
 
 government, and to be brought into daily contact 
 with people of every class. Not that we are to 
 conclude that Daniel attained at one bound to the 
 high position of chief ruler of the province of 
 Babylon. It is the custom of Holy Scripture to 
 include in such a statement as this the ultimate 
 as well as the immediate results of an event. 
 Daniel was at once admitted into the royal service, 
 and given rank among the wise men ; and being 
 thus placed in a position which enabled him to 
 give good proof of his ability and fidelity, his 
 promotion was rapid, and he finally became Nebu- 
 chadnezzar's chief minister and the head of the 
 college of sages. Now Babylon was at that time 
 a place of great trade. It was the emporium to 
 which the produce of India — its precious stones 
 and spices, its muslins and cloths, and the cunning 
 work of its artificers — was brought, and thence 
 dispersed far and wide. It was the place to which 
 every year hordes of men, torn from their homes 
 to people the vast solitudes of Nebuchadnezzar's 
 colossal city, were dragged as prisoners of war. It 
 was the headquarters of his army, and the place 
 which he was labouring earnestly to adorn with 
 magnificent buildings as well as to protect with 
 vast fortifications. What a strange variety of 
 business would occupy Daniel's thoughts! What 
 
1 DANIEL. 
 
 motley races of men would awaken his interest! 
 With what vast designs and purposes would he be 
 made familiar ! And what an influence must the 
 genius of Nebuchadnezzar have exerted upon him ! 
 He would learn something of the vastness of the 
 world, and of the worth and dignity even of 
 heathen men. While still he loved Jerusalem as 
 the city of God, he would think no scorn of the 
 great capital of the mighty empire wherein he was 
 so highly placed. 
 
 Nor was it worldly business alone which occupied 
 him. He was chief ruler of the college of the 
 magi. An alien literature and religion was spread 
 before him, and we may well suppose him en- 
 deavouring to clear away from it novel supersti- 
 tions, and to bring it back to the simple truths 
 which it had received from primeval tradition. 
 Placed as he was at its head, it was his business 
 not to destroy, but to purify ; to root out the evil 
 and expand and strengthen the good. And what- 
 ever there was in it of truth he would know ; for 
 it would keep back none of its esoteric teaching 
 from him. And thus his position was full of 
 anomalies. He was at once a Jewish captive and 
 a Babylonian ruler ; an earnest worshipper of 
 Jehovah and the head of a Chaldean college. 
 Who can wonder if, under such influences, he took 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 1 1 
 
 a larger and wider view of the world's purpose and 
 destiny than he could have done if he had remained 
 an inhabitant of a town so small, but with such 
 strongly-marked features, as Jerusalem ? 
 
 And this seems to have continued to be Daniel's 
 position throughout Nebuchadnezzar's long reign ; 
 but when his son Evil-Merodach was murdered, 
 Daniel withdrew into obscurity. When, some 
 years afterwards, the handwriting came upon the 
 wall, and none could interpret it, the Queen-mother 
 called his long services to mind, and told the 
 degenerate king of the " light and understanding 
 and wisdom " which his father (or rather his grand- 
 father) Nebuchadnezzar had ever found in this 
 faithful Jew. That very night Darius the Mede 
 took the kingdom ; and when the history of that 
 banquet, and of the strange scene which occurred in 
 it, was reported to him, Daniel was at once raised 
 to favour. And soon afterwards, when Darius took 
 measures for the good government of the mighty 
 empire he had won, Daniel was made chief of the 
 presidents, and apparently continued to be the 
 prime minister of the Median and Persian rulers 
 till his death. 
 
 We have, then, in Daniel a man of intense 
 religious feeling and a pure patriot, and one 
 possessed also of great ability and a powerful 
 
 J. 
 
1 2 DANIEL. 
 
 mind, upon which numerous and weighty influences 
 were brought to bear. Can we wonder if he 
 viewed the world with a different eye from that of 
 the exiled priest Ezekiel, living in penury among 
 the poor Jewish colonists planted on the river 
 Chebar ? or from that of Jeremiah, struggling 
 against all the evil influences which were daily 
 dragging the feeble Zedekiah and the decaying 
 people of Jerusalem down to ruin ? or even from 
 that of Isaiah, whose rapt vision, spurning this 
 poor earth, soared aloft to the spiritual glories of 
 Messiah's reign, and sang how the sucker, spring- 
 ing up from Jesse's cut-down lineage, and growing 
 as a root in a dry ground, should by its wounds 
 bring to the world healing, and by its death pur- 
 chase for mankind life ? But each of these had his 
 own office and his special message ; and Daniel's 
 office was to show that the Christian religion was 
 not to be an enlarged Judaism, but a Judaism ful- 
 filled and made free. Its outer husk was to fall 
 away, its inner beauty to reveal itself ; and, instead 
 of a Church for the Jews, there was to be a Church 
 for all mankind. 
 
 In the Book of Daniel we find no trace of that 
 
 ' old contempt for the Gentiles which the Jews had 
 
 grafted upon the feelings, in which they might 
 
 rightly indulge, of gratitude to God for their own 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 13 
 
 many privileges. Babylon to him is the head of 
 gold ; other realms are of silver, or brass, or iron, 
 all precious and enduring substances, though the 
 last was mingled with miry clay. In this colossal 
 image Judea finds no place, because thus far its 
 influence upon the world had been nought. And 
 when God's universal empire grinds to powder these 
 world-powers, though Israel had been God's pre- 
 paration for the reign of Christ, yet that is passed 
 over, and its establishment is spoken of as God's 
 direct doing — a stone cut out of the mountain by 
 no human hands, but by a Divine power. The 
 thought present to the young Jew's mind is that 
 of the one God establishing one kingdom and one 
 religion on earth, and he sees these world-king- 
 doms preparing the way for it, but themselves 
 coming to nought as it grows and spreads over all 
 the world. We know how he loved his nation, 
 and how, even in extreme old age, he still prayed 
 with his face towards Jerusalem ; but he places 
 out of sight the work of his country and of his 
 Church, and sees only the world's history, and the 
 share which it has in preparing for the universal 
 dominion of God. 
 
 As a corrective to the outer form of previous 
 prophecy this was not only most precious, but 
 absolutely necessary. A careless reader up to this 
 
1 4 DANIEL. 
 
 time might have supposed that the Gentiles had 
 no part in God's purposes. True that the old 
 promises in the Book of Genesis included them, 
 but as Judaism developed, the Gentiles were 
 pushed more and more into the background, and 
 became the object of prophecy apparently only 
 in their connection with Judea or as the future 
 subjects of Judah's Messiah. We, as we read the 
 words of the prophets, cannot help finding proofs 
 everywhere that what Daniel taught was no new 
 interpretation, but the true meaning of the whole 
 prophetic choir. The Jew saw no such world- 
 wide purpose, not merely because patriotism and 
 national pride closed the avenues of his mind, but 
 also because the outer form of prophecy was Jewish, 
 and gave a basis to the narrow interpretation put 
 upon the prophetic teaching by the current national 
 thought. But here the outer form is entirely 
 changed, and the man who was the mighty pillar 
 of their strength in their days of disaster sets the 
 world before them in a completely different aspect, 
 ignores their old standards of thought, and declares 
 that their Jehovah was as much the God and 
 Father of the whole Gentile world as He was their 
 own. But clear and plain as was his teaching, the 
 Jews refused to it their assent ; their synagogue 
 did not include Daniel among the prophets, but 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 1 5 
 
 placed his book among the Hagiographa, "the 
 sacred writings," between those of Esther and 
 Ezra. Nor was this place so altogether wrong ; 
 for even now, with its numerous points of resem- 
 blance to the Apocalypse of St. John, it would 
 rightly hold a place beween the Old and the New 
 Testaments. It would be hard indeed to spare 
 Malachi from that position, with his ringing an- 
 nouncement of the nigh coming of the Forerunner. 
 But the Apocalypse holds to the Christian Church 
 the same relation as that held by Daniel to the 
 Church of the Jews. The one raised the veil for 
 the covenant people of old, and gave them an 
 insight into and guidance through the weeks and 
 years that were to elapse before Messiah's first 
 Advent ; the second raises the veil for the Church of 
 Christ, and gives it glimpses of the world's history 
 and of God's work in it until its Lord comes again. 
 A few words remain to be said as to Daniel's 
 method of prophesying. Passing by the opening 
 chapters, in which the imagery is taken from 
 Nebuchadnezzar's dreams, we find him using 
 symbolic figures and symbolic numbers. He dis- 
 continues now the use of the Chaldean language, 
 by which he had previously seemed to indicate 
 that his memorial was not addressed to Jews only, 
 but to all the people of the province of Babylon, 
 
1 6 DANIEL. 
 
 and writes in Hebrew, the holy and sacred language 
 of his people. But how different his method 
 from that of the prophets of old ! Mighty animals 
 devour, and break in pieces, and trample the 
 nations down, till all the thrones of earthly 
 dominion are cast aside, and the Ancient of Days 
 takes the kingdom. So great an influence did 
 this mode of writing exercise upon the imagina- 
 tion of mankind that the books are Legion written 
 by the Jews, especially those of Egypt, in imitation 
 of it. One of the most famous was the Book of 
 Enoch ; another, the Second Book of Esdras, may 
 be found in our own Apocrypha, though not 
 included in it by the Church of Borne. It was 
 written by some Jew early in the second century 
 after Christ, and contains in the eleventh chapter 
 a sketch of the twelve Caesars under the image of 
 an eagle with twelve feathered wings, and may 
 well serve to illustrate the use made in subsequent 
 times of Daniel's method of prophesying. In these 
 visions, and in that of the kings of the north and 
 of the south, the illustration of Gentile history is 
 Daniel's primary object. The Gentiles no longer 
 appear as mere accessories to the Jews ; they are 
 equally the object of the Divine providence, and 
 bear an independent, if not an equal, part in the 
 preparation for Christ. 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 17 
 
 Finally, by symbolic numbers he taught with 
 extraordinary clearness when the Messiah was to 
 come. The day of His Advent is now no longer 
 indefinite or only approximately fixed ; it is 
 exactly declared. But with what bitter revela- 
 tions is it combined ! What must have been the 
 Jew's feelings when, instead of triumph and vic- 
 tory, and an era of glorious conquest and universal 
 empire, he read that Messiah was to be cut off, and 
 that the armies of an alien empire would destroy 
 the city and the sanctuary ! that the daily sacrifice 
 would cease, and that the abomination that maketh 
 desolate would prevail for one thousand three hun- 
 dred and ninety days ! 
 
 This second portion of the Book of Daniel we 
 shall for the present leave untouched ; for it re- 
 quires different and more scholarly treatment than 
 the first. Some of it, indeed, would have to be 
 illustrated by historical and chronological dis- 
 quisitions of considerable length, though, on the 
 other hand, the prophecies relating to the Messiah 
 and to the general resurrection are inferior to no 
 parts of Holy Scripture, either in interest or in the 
 importance of the lessons which they teach. The 
 book, however, definitely falls into two sections, 
 marked by the different languages in which they are 
 written, each complete in itself, and each contribut- 
 
 B 
 
18 DANIEL. 
 
 ing in its own way to that transition from Hebrew 
 prophecy to the ideal of the Christian Church which 
 makes the position in the Bible of the whole so 
 unique. It is, then, upon the first six chapters that 
 we propose to give notes for homiletic purposes, 
 in the hope that the manifold lessons which they 
 contain may be more clearly seen, and that the 
 Book of Daniel, instead of being a mere battlefield 
 for criticism, may take its due place in the main- 
 tenance among us of a holy and devout life. 
 
( 19 ) 
 
 II. 
 
 DANIEL AND HIS FKIENDS. 
 (Daniel i. 1-2 1). 
 
 HHHE facts are as follow : r . Jerusalem is tempo- 
 rarily occupied by a Babylonian army, and some 
 of the treasures of the House of Jehovah are carried 
 away and placed in a heathen temple at Babylon. 
 2. Together with the sacred vessels, some high-born 
 youths are selected for service at Nebuchadnezzar's 
 court. 3. To render them fit for high office, the 
 king orders them to be trained and educated in all 
 the learning of the Chaldees. 4. Among these 
 youths are Daniel and his three friends, Hananiah, 
 Mishael, and Azariah. 5. To denote that hence- 
 forward they are to be regarded as Chaldees, their 
 names are changed. 6. Daniel and his friends 
 refuse to partake of the portion supplied to them 
 of the king's meat, and request leave to have pulse 
 and water given them instead for their main- 
 tenance. 7. Through God's blessing they obtain 
 permission to make trial of this diet for ten days, 
 
20 DANIEL. 
 
 at the end of which time they are found fairer in 
 countenance and fatter in flesh than those who had 
 partaken of the king's meat. 8. By their learning, 
 wisdom, and uprightness they gain the king's 
 favour, and Daniel continues high in rank and 
 powerful in influence until the fall of the Baby- 
 lonian empire. 
 
 I. The temporary capture of Jerusalem by Nebu- 
 chadnezzar was one of those merciful warnings by 
 which God holds back the wicked from rashly pur- 
 suing their own evil ways. God had given Judah 
 a last and most earnest call to repentance in the 
 reign of the good King Josiah ; but it appears that 
 the people had set themselves as determinately 
 against the king's reforms and the prophet Jere- 
 miah's teaching, as previously they had resisted 
 Hezekiah and Isaiah. Now it is a law of God's pro- 
 vidence that when men harden themselves against 
 correction, He gives them up to their own devices ; 
 and so Hezekiah's successor was the fierce perse- 
 cutor Manasseh, and Josiah was followed by the 
 selfish and unrighteous Jehoiakim (Jer. xxii. 17). 
 In both of these the people had a king like them- 
 selves. The failure of Josiah's earnest efforts ap- 
 pears from the immorality rampant at Jerusalem 
 (Jer. vii. 9), at the very time when the inhabitants 
 were glorying in the restoration of the Temple 
 
DANIEL AND HIS FRIENDS. 21 
 
 service (ibid. ver. 4) ; and from the general worship 
 of the Queen of Heaven, the moon-gocldess (ibid. 
 ver. 1 8), to which they were so wedded, that even 
 after the fall of Jerusalem the refugees in Egypt 
 ascribed their misfortunes to the anger of this 
 deity for their supposed neglect of her rites (Jer. 
 xliv. 18). It is thus plain that the king's restora- 
 tion of the Mosaic ritual had not been accompanied 
 either by moral amendment or true allegiance tc 
 Jehovah ; and that the popular approval of Josiah's 
 acts was dictated, not by real piety, but by super- 
 stition. But while the people of Judah were, as a 
 mass, sinking daily deeper in the twin-gulfs of im- 
 morality and idolatry, there was a remnant in whom 
 the Jewish Church was to live on, and grow in piety 
 and usefulness (Jer. xxiv. 5-7). And for their sake 
 it was that God gave Jerusalem solemn warning 
 by the presence before it of the Babylonian army. 
 God's people read the signs of the times, and what 
 to others are the mere outcome of earthly ambition 
 and political schemings are seen by them to be 
 manifestations of His will, who guides all things 
 by His overruling wisdom. And so this temporary 
 capture of Jerusalem would deepen in their minds 
 the conviction, already impressed upon them by 
 Jeremiah's words, that God was about to deal in 
 judgment with their city and nation. It would 
 
22 DANIEL. 
 
 lead also to practical results ; for, first, they would 
 be somewhat prepared for their own removal to 
 Babylon. Like trees made ready for transplanta- 
 tion, they would have all the deep roots that bound 
 them to their homes cut through, and so when 
 their turn for going into exile came, it would not 
 be the violent uprooting of men who had been 
 living in security and unprepared. It would be 
 the fulfilling of expectations sad and painful, but 
 of which they had long seen the certainty. And 
 next, the removal of these youths, comparatively 
 few in number, but chosen for their high birth and 
 great natural gifts, was a merciful act intended for 
 the well-being of the Jews when soon afterwards 
 Babylon became their home. When seven more 
 years had passed, the son of Jehoiakim, with the 
 queen-mother and a numerous array of nobles and 
 choice men and artificers, were forced to depart 
 from Jerusalem and take up their abode in the 
 roomy solitudes which Nebuchadnezzar had en- 
 closed within the walls of his capital ; and already 
 Daniel and his friends were there, high in office, 
 valued and esteemed ; and for their sakes their 
 compatriots would be treated kindly. Under so 
 great a trial, too, when in their misery men's hearts 
 might well give way to despair, the example of 
 Daniel's piety would go far to encourage them. 
 
DANIEL AND HIS FEIENDS. 23 
 
 They would feel that God had not forsaken His 
 people. The conquest of Nebuchadnezzar utterly 
 crushed and obliterated many nations. Judah 
 gained new life from the exile ; and this we must 
 ascribe to the combined teaching of Jeremiah, the 
 prophet of woe, and of Daniel, the prime minister 
 of the conqueror, whose position and example alike 
 inspired them with hope, and with the conviction 
 that, in accordance with Jeremiah's prophecy, they 
 would, at the end of seventy years, be restored to 
 their home and country. 
 
 We see, then, in this capture of the holy city, 
 first, a warning, rejected by the mass of the people, 
 but heeded by the " remnant," God's chosen few ; 
 and, secondly, a preparation for the maintenance 
 of the Church at Babylon, an encouragement to 
 hope, and an alleviation of distress. 
 
 We may notice in ver. i an interesting fact. 
 The capture of Jerusalem is here said to have been 
 in the third year of Jehoiakim ; in Jer. xxv. i it is 
 called his fourth. Both statements are absolutely 
 true ; for Jehoiakim at this time had not been 
 king for full thirty-six months, though he had 
 entered upon the fourth year of his reign by 
 the calendar. But Assyriologers tell us that the 
 custom at Nineveh and Babylon was to continue 
 the name of the dead king in the dating of docu- 
 
24 DANIEL. 
 
 ments till the end of the year, and not to use the 
 name of his successor till New Year's day. Surely 
 it is wonderful how, with increased knowledge, all 
 those little difficulties with which students of the 
 Bible used to be twitted pass away, or even 
 become proof of the genuineness of these holy 
 records. For while Jeremiah at Jerusalem follows 
 the Jewish method of dating, the scribe at Babylon 
 follows the custom prevalent there. 
 
 As regards "the vessels of the house of God," 
 we may notice how things set apart for God's 
 service are rejected by Him when they no longer 
 minister to the Divine honour. Those vessels had 
 been the gifts of piety ; they may have aided in 
 waking up reverent thoughts in the hearts of 
 generations of worshippers, and in impressing 
 them with a sense of God's majesty and glory. 
 But when the outward service of God became 
 separated from true heartfelt piety, they ceased to 
 be of use, and God let them go into captivity. 
 When the ark was captured and placed in an idol 
 temple, the Philistine fish-god was broken before 
 it ( i Sam. v. 4) ; but no miracle happens now. 
 Quietly, without let or hindrance, the solemn pro- 
 cession of Chaldee warriors carries these vessels in 
 triumph to the temple of Bel-Merodach. Nothing 
 occurs to mar their rejoicing. No sign is mani- 
 
DANIEL AND HIS FRIENDS. 25 
 
 fested of Jehovah's displeasure. The vessels have 
 become in God's sight as nothing. Why the 
 difference? Because when the ark was captured 
 men had faith, though feeble ; and the miracle 
 was wrought to strengthen their feebleness under 
 sore trial. No miracle is ever wrought to aid men 
 who have no faith. And if it were wrought they 
 would not heed it (St. Luke xvi. 31). At Babylon 
 miracles were wrought for the sake of the believers 
 there : for these corrupt Jews of Jerusalem none. 
 A miracle for them would have strengthened them 
 in superstition ; just as of old it would have pro- 
 duced the same effect upon the Israelites, if the 
 ark, ministered to by immoral priests, had won 
 for them victory. 
 
 II. With merciful warning and deserved punish- 
 ment for the guilty people of Jerusalem is joined 
 the hard fate of innocent and pious youths. Un- 
 polluted by the wickedness among which they live, 
 they must yet leave their homes and go into 
 captivity. But first, God's judgments fall upon 
 men by the operation of what seem to us to be 
 natural laws, and in plague, or pestilence, or 
 famine, or war, all share the misery alike (Luke 
 xiii. 1-5). Many wholesome results follow from 
 this, and a constant miraculous intervention to 
 rescue the pious from bearing their part in national 
 
26 DANIEL. 
 
 or other trials would only weaken and degrade 
 faith. Moreover, trials have a twofold issue. The 
 bad are punished by them ; the good urged on to 
 higher degrees of holiness. Daniel might have 
 remained a person of ordinary piety at Jerusalem ; 
 he attained to an extraordinary degree of holiness 
 by the purifying and ennobling effects of trouble 
 rightly borne. Again, he was wanted at Babylon. 
 God placed him there to be of use. He was to be 
 the strength and support of all pious Israelites 
 during the seventy years of exile. And God sent 
 others with him — notably his three friends — to be 
 a solace and a comfort to him, as he was for them 
 a defence and protection. When we read Jere- 
 miah's high commendations of the small band of 
 exiles dwelling at Babylon while Jerusalem was 
 still standing, we can well understand the Divine 
 purpose in the removal of Daniel from his home, 
 and how great was the good for others purchased 
 by his personal suffering (Jer. xxiv. 5-7 ; xxix. 
 10-14), and the benefit even to himself. 
 
 III. As regards the selection and training of 
 these youths, we may notice, first, the pride of the 
 conqueror. He commands his chief chamberlain to 
 choose attendants for him, " both from among the 
 king's seed and also from the nobles." In this 
 was fulfilled the mournful prediction made to 
 
DANIEL AND HIS FRIENDS. 27 
 
 Hezekiah, that children of his issue should serve as 
 eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon (Isa. 
 xxxix. 7). For, though we must not place too 
 much confidence in the assertion of Josephus that 
 Daniel was a son of Zedekiah, undoubtedly he was 
 of the royal race. But, secondly, after Nebuchad- 
 nezzar's pride had been satisfied, all the rest is most 
 wise. The children selected, besides their high 
 birth and handsome persons, are to possess both 
 physical and intellectual vigour. "Skilful in all 
 wisdom," means having an aptitude for acquiring 
 and understanding the knowledge taught in books. 
 They were also to be " knowers of knowledge and 
 able to understand thoughts ;" that is, to powerful 
 memories, an important quality in old time when 
 writing was a painful art, they were to add quick- 
 ness of perception. Such youths after three years' 
 training (ver. 5) would be fit to stand, after the 
 manner of officials and ministers, in the court of 
 the king. 
 
 IV. Among those chosen were some whose hearts 
 God had specially touched. Young as they were, 
 the troubles through which they had passed had 
 wrought upon them both for moral and for spiritual 
 good. But how strange are the workings of God's 
 providence! Up to this time they had been 
 trained in that noble learning, which, from the 
 
28 DANIEL. 
 
 time of Samuel, had been the glory of the prophetic 
 schools. Now they were to be trained in that 
 strange heathen learning, so wonderfully disen- 
 tombed in our days. Magic, and the interpre- 
 tation of dreams and omens, formed an important 
 part of this knowledge ; and there were, besides, 
 liturgies, hymns, and histories. Up to this time 
 the documents discovered at Babylon have been 
 mostly of a religious character, while among those 
 found at Nineveh and other Assyrian cities have 
 been historical documents of priceless value. To 
 Jewish youths much of this heathen literature must 
 have been repulsive ; it must have offended their 
 religious ideas, and often shocked their moral 
 sense. It had nevertheless a good side. It taught 
 them how large the world is, and that God's empire 
 extendeth over all, and that all are objects of His 
 care. Possibly coming before them with the charm 
 of novelty, it may have made them pursue their 
 studies with the same eagerness, and zeal, and 
 curiosity which have spurred on scholars to recover 
 the interpretation of the Sanscrit language, and to 
 decipher these very cuneiform inscriptions in which 
 Daniel and his friends were to have their training. 
 And in thus enlarging their mental vision, God 
 was preparing them to do service for His Church at 
 a time when it was no longer hidden away among 
 
DANIEL AND HIS FRIENDS. 29 
 
 the mountains of Judea, but in danger of being 
 trampled under foot in the highway of the nations, 
 and crushed into a shapeless ruin amid the turmoil 
 of uprooted men, and of unsettled thoughts, and of 
 torn-up faiths and convictions, which must have 
 made the social state of Babylon most unhappy, 
 most corrupting, and depressed with the dulness of 
 despair. For what strength for good would men 
 have, dragged from their homes, to be serfs and 
 vassals in the city of those who had destroyed all 
 that they held most dear ? 
 
 V. And as if to show that they had lost all, the 
 chief chamberlain gives the four youths new names. 
 They were probably about fourteen years of age, 
 and after three years' training would be seventeen, 
 the usual period of life at which men were admitted 
 to serve as attendants at Oriental courts. They 
 were thus of an age when they could understand 
 the full measure of their degradation. High-born, 
 and full of that earnest patriotism which dis- 
 tinguished the Jew, they were to lose the names 
 which told them of Judah's God, and to bear titles 
 of idolatrous significance. In this they had no 
 choice. Bat though the king could change their 
 names, he could not change their hearts. Young 
 as they were, deprived of their former religious 
 training and privileges, obliged to study heathen 
 
30 DANIEL. 
 
 lore and have their minds filled with heathen ideas, 
 separated too from Jehovah's worship, and doubt- 
 less compelled to take their part in many a heathen 
 festival, God's grace proved sufficient for them, and 
 in the unkindly soil of Babylon they grew up as 
 trees of Jehovah's planting. 
 
 VI. For, compelled to yield to much that was 
 most painful to them, yet where they had a choice, 
 Daniel and his three friends determined to abide 
 by Jehovah's law. Daniel must have proved 
 himself docile and affectionate ; for otherwise he 
 would not have been brought into "favour and 
 tender love with the prince of the eunuchs " (ver. 
 9). We see, then, God's watchful care for Daniel. 
 He had not forgotten him, but gave him oppor- 
 tunities of winning the affection of his master. 
 We see also Daniel's loving nature. Wronged 
 and injured, he nevertheless showed himself kind 
 and gentle, and ready to do service for those 
 among whom his lot was cast. We note also 
 his prudence. Where he had no choice he made 
 no resistance. He may have hated his heathenish 
 name, may have disliked and grieved over much 
 which he had to learn ; but none of these things 
 were absolutely sinful. It would even be useful 
 for him to understand the nature of the religious 
 ideas and worship of the heathen, provided only 
 
DANIEL AND HIS FRIENDS. 31 
 
 that he was allowed to stand apart from the 
 practice of their impurities. He would have to 
 combat heathenism, and to keep his compatriots 
 pure from it; and he must study it, just as a 
 missionary has to study the religion of those whom 
 he hopes to convert. As regards, however, the 
 food supplied for them, Daniel and his friends had 
 here an opportunity of maintaining their Judaism. 
 The king's command was that the young nobles 
 under training should have an allowance of choice 
 food and wine from his table. Now this had 
 become impure in the eyes of a religious Jew by 
 the custom of offering a portion of the meat and 
 pouring out a libation of the wine to some god. 
 To partake of it, therefore, was in some sort to 
 join in heathen worship. Could a worshipper of 
 the one God thus take part, even indirectly, in 
 idolatry ? We find the same scruples among the 
 early Christians, and St. Paul commanded the 
 Corinthians not to partake of the flesh of any 
 victim offered in sacrifice (i Cor. x. 28), because 
 by so doing they became " partakers of the table 
 of devils." 
 
 We gather that this was the objection of Daniel 
 and his friends from the nature of the food selected 
 by them. No portion was offered to the gods of 
 any vegetable diet; and thus they reject the wine 
 
32 DANIEL. 
 
 permitted by the Levitical law, and will eat only 
 of such, things as were not tainted by idolatry. 
 Now this refusal might have exposed them to 
 death. They were offering insult to the king's 
 gods, and acting as though the food from the 
 royal table were polluted and impure. But God 
 gave them favour in the sight of the chief cham- 
 berlain, and he thought only of their appearance. 
 Regarding their rejection of the food as a boyish 
 scruple, which would soon pass away, and person- 
 ally fond of Daniel, his only fear was lest the 
 king should notice that their faces were meagre 
 and their beauty diminished, and should order 
 him to be beheaded for not taking proper care 
 of those in training for royal service. But what a 
 picture is this of the ways of men where true 
 religion does not exist ! For an act of considerate 
 kindness a faithful officer may lose his life ! It 
 is only where the one God is rightly worshipped 
 that true freedom and equal justice can exist. 
 It is not merely for the future world that religion 
 is good ; all that is best in human society now God 
 bestows with the knowledge of Himself ; and if men 
 reject His reasonable service, with religion all good 
 things will decay and finally come to an end. 
 
 VII. Daniel and his friends acknowledge that the 
 risk is a real one, but pray that a ten days' trial 
 
DANIEL AND HIS FRIENDS. 33 
 
 may be allowed them. Their faith is strong and 
 earnest. Let but the experiment be made, and 
 they doubt not that God will bless it. And the 
 result answers to their expectations. At the end 
 of the appointed time none were so fair, and sound, 
 and healthy as these four abstemious youths. 
 God's blessing had rested upon their faith ; but pro- 
 bably their cheerfulness under trial had also con- 
 tributed to the result. Faith often brings success 
 by, the firmness, security, and peace it gives to the 
 soul. The man who trusts in God faces danger 
 calmly, bears troubles and sorrows with patience, 
 and submits to ill-treatment with resignation. 
 Thus difficulties meet him already half conquered. 
 It is when men kick against the pricks that trial 
 brings anguish. These four pious children, in the 
 midst of cruel wrongs and painful difficulties, were 
 so upheld by faith, that instead of fretting they 
 were peaceful and happy, contented with the heart- 
 felt assurance that in their God they had a friend 
 who would order all things for their good. 
 
 VIII. Finally, after the manner of Jewish his- 
 tory, we have a short summary of the fortunes of 
 these four Jewish children during the continuance 
 of the Babylonian empire. What soothsayer would 
 have, dared to tell the victorious monarch of the 
 mightiest realm upon earth that one at least of the 
 
34 DANIEL. 
 
 children whom he was training for his service 
 would live to see his empire come to an end, and 
 would be the prime minister in the kingdom of his 
 vanquisher ? Still less would one have dared to 
 tell him that he, the head of gold, would be over- 
 thrown, in order that a people few in number, and 
 powerless in earthly strength, might be delivered 
 from Babylon and restored to their land, and that 
 they would found a universal and enduring domi- 
 nion (Dan. ii. 44). But such was the will of Him 
 who rules over all the kingdoms of the earth, and 
 whose servant Nebuchadnezzar was, raised up for 
 special work (Jer. xxv. 9), though he himself knew 
 not of it. 
 
 We see, then, first, God's universal empire, by 
 which He orders the kingdoms of this world for His 
 own high purposes, and raises up rulers and throws 
 them down, not capriciously and without reason, 
 but as the Divine purpose, for which this world 
 was created and constituted such as it is, requires. 
 Next we see His superintending providence watch- 
 ing over His own people. Though they be but 
 a little flock, yet all things are ordered for their 
 sakes, and at one time chastisement, and at another 
 deliverance and mercies, are meted out to them as 
 best may suit their spiritual needs, and the making 
 them fit to be God's messengers to mankind, bear- 
 
DANIEL AND HIS FRIENDS. 35 
 
 ing to a sick world healing, to the fallen recovery, 
 to the fainting hope and strength. Lastly, we see 
 how, amid these general laws, through and by 
 which God works, there is also special care taken 
 of individuals. God's working is so perfect that 
 the government of the world and of nature by 
 general laws does not necessitate individual neglect. 
 There was not only special care for the Jews, as a 
 whole, at Babylon, but special care for Daniel and 
 his three friends. Their faith was not unheeded, 
 nor was their fate left to chance. When Nebu- 
 chadnezzar ordered Jewish youths to be chosen for 
 service at his court, he was probably following a 
 not uncommon practice. As nation after nation 
 lost its freedom before his conquering armies, 
 choice youths of royal and princely rank were 
 probably always selected from among the prisoners 
 of war for the king's employ. In this single case 
 it raises up for a remarkable nation one whose 
 business it will be to strengthen its faith and 
 revive its piety, and prevent its absorption into 
 the mass of heathenism among which its lot was 
 for the time cast. And this nation is remarkable 
 simply because it has a mission, a special work to 
 do for God. This youth and his friends make 
 a noble stand for their religion, and find favour 
 with the officer to whose charge they are intrusted. 
 
36 DANIEL. 
 
 Instead of a rough answer bidding them submit, 
 he grants, at great personal risk, what may have 
 seemed to him a perverse and unwise whim. But 
 they thrive on the poor fare they have chosen, 
 and make such progress in Chaldean learning and 
 science, and are so aided by the direct blessing and 
 intervention of the Deity in their behalf, that they 
 become high officers of state, possessed of great 
 influence and power, and stand even foremost in 
 the management of the affairs of a mighty empire. 
 No doubt that integrity of character which made 
 them true to their religion gained for them also the 
 king's confidence when he found them upright and 
 incorruptible in their management of his affairs. 
 Many a king since those days has endured ministers 
 whose religion he disliked, because he found them 
 faithful ; Daniel's services often won from Nebu- 
 chadnezzar favour even for his religion. But it 
 was not simply to his personal worth and useful- 
 ness that Daniel owed his influence with the king. 
 It was God's blessing which made him find favour ; 
 and this he had because he was a man of faith, of 
 piety, and of prayer. 
 
Ill 
 
 SUCCESSIVE MONARCHIES. 
 
 'THE facts of Nebuchadnezzar's vision are : 
 
 i. He has a dream which he forgers. 2. Ho 
 less for the learned men of Babylon. 
 
 commands them to tell him not only the in 
 pretation. but the dream itself 3. They expostulate 
 with him on the on ness of his require- 
 
 ment, but in vain : minands them to be 
 
 put to death. 4. Daniel and his companions, who 
 included in this cruel : for an 
 
 audience, and | that if time be granted 
 
 them thev will fulfil the king's demands, ~. Affcei 
 prayer the secret is revealed -to Daniel in a night 
 vision. 6. He is 1 nght into the king's —-nee. 
 tells the king his dream and interprets it, d 1 
 
 nnpanions is raised to high rank in the king- 
 dom of Babylon. 
 
 I. The dream of Nebuchadnezzar happened in 
 " the second year of his reign " as sole monarch, 
 after the death of his father Nal I ssar, and thus 
 
38 DANIEL. 
 
 about four years after Daniel and his friends had 
 commenced their training. As this was to last 
 three years (chap. i. 5), they would have been 
 initiated in all the secrets of the wise men, and 
 admitted into their college about twelve months 
 before this crisis came, and would thus be ready to 
 occupy, as the result of their success, a position 
 wherein they would be able to render most im- 
 portant services to their countrymen when brought 
 captives to Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar, moreover, 
 would be now fully established upon the throne, 
 with all rivals crushed, and be able to take to heart 
 the lessons of the dream. Thus at the very begin- 
 ning of his reign he would be favourably affected 
 towards the Jews and the God whom they wor- 
 shipped. 
 
 As soon, then, as he was in assured possession of 
 the kingdom, he has a dream sent him by God ; 
 that is, being still a heathen, and a man of violent 
 and cruel temperament, he is- made the means of 
 a communication from Heaven to earth ; and is 
 not only the subject of prophecy, as in Jer. xxv., 
 but has a revelation made to himself, embracing 
 within it not the fortunes only of earthly empires, 
 but also of Christ's kingdom. But prophecy is 
 a gift from without, and is not dependent upon 
 human character. The worldly-minded Balaam 
 
SUCCESSIVE MONARCHIES. 39 
 
 may bring God's message and utter it as clearly as 
 the unselfish and devoted Jeremiah. As a message 
 
 o 
 
 to the heart, its influence will largely depend upon 
 the character of the bearer, and God's prophets 
 have, as a rule, been " men of whom the world was 
 not worthy." But there are times when God uses 
 the unrighteous for righteous purposes ; and thus 
 He employed the tyrant king of Babylon to teach 
 men a great lesson concerning earthly empire. 
 
 And so as regards His word now. When the 
 holy message is brought by an unholy man, it is 
 still God's message, and will do God's work. But 
 there can be no fit bringing of that message unless 
 the bearer be one after God's own heart : nor will 
 there be any blessing for the bearer himself. He 
 speaks most powerfully for God who speaks from 
 the heart to the heart. Without this, there is 
 heavy responsibility for the preacher, and many 
 will even be set against the message because 
 of the un worthiness of him who brings it, and 
 the contrast between the pure words sent from 
 Heaven and the speaker's impure lips. But against 
 this we should be upon our guard. The word of 
 God is a message of life to our soul, whatever may 
 be the means used for sending it to us : and we 
 may well believe that during the exile thousands 
 of Jewish hearts were strengthened and their 
 
40 DANIEL. 
 
 sorrows alleviated by the revelation made to a 
 heathen, and one who was their cruel conqueror. 
 For they learned by it that the kingdom of their 
 Messiah was finally to prevail, to extend over all 
 the earth, and to endure for ever. 
 
 And this revelation came in the form of a dream, 
 and it is remarkable that this is generally the 
 manner in which revelations are made to the heathen. 
 Thus in the Book of Genesis it was in a dream that 
 God spake to Abimelech and to Pharaoh. So too 
 in the Book of Judges the onslaught of Gideon 
 upon the camp of the Midianites was foreseen by 
 one of that heathen host in a dream. To his own 
 people, also, God, among many ways, speaks some- 
 times in dreams, as to Joseph and Solomon : but 
 it is not difficult to understand why this method 
 of communication is the one peculiarly fitting for 
 heathen men and unbelievers. For it does not 
 bring the person communicated with into any 
 direct connection with the Deity. Dreamland is 
 a confused and shadowy region, and what passes 
 there is but faint and indistinct. But in this con- 
 fused state of thought conscience is often very 
 active, and thus there is frequently a religious 
 character about dreams which made the heathen 
 regard them as Divine. But it was the subse- 
 quent interpretation which gave them their value. 
 
SUCCESSIVE MONARCHIES. 41 
 
 Pharaoh's dreams about the kine and the ears of corn 
 would have passed away after a few hours' wonder 
 but for Joseph's interpretation. They were for 
 Joseph's sake, and served to introduce him to the 
 king, and give his person and his word value in 
 Pharaoh's eyes. And so here. These dreams did not 
 come for Nebuchadnezzar's sake. They came for 
 the sake of God's people Israel, and through them for 
 the good of His whole Church. But it was necessary 
 that Nebuchadnezzar should be brought into kindly 
 relations with the Jews, and especially that Daniel 
 should gain influence over him, and that he and 
 other exiles should have places of trust and power 
 which would enable them to protect their country- 
 men. Liable as they were now to persecution, be- 
 cause in religion they stood alone and refused to 
 take part in the rites of any worship but their own, 
 it was of primary importance that the king should 
 be well affected towards them and their God. And 
 this was naturally the result of the communications 
 made to him, and of the remarkable manner in 
 which Daniel, and he alone, interpreted them. 
 
 II. The dream startled the king. He had seen 
 a mighty colossus of bright metals, which suddenly 
 had been smitten by a stone, and had fallen to 
 pieces, while the stone had grown into a mountain. 
 Yet strange as the vision had been, it had left no 
 
42 DANIEL. 
 
 clear impression upon his mind, but only a vague 
 sense of great terror ; and so " his spirit was 
 troubled, and his sleep brake from him." The 
 whole was so ordered as violently to agitate Ne- 
 buchadnezzar's feelings. He knew that he was in 
 the presence of extraordinary events ; that it was 
 no mere working of his own mind that distressed 
 him : and yet he could recall nothing. Again and 
 again, no doubt, he endeavoured to summon back 
 to memory the visions which had caused his agita- 
 tion, but they fled from him. It was like the 
 tossing of the sea after a storm. Waves of terror 
 w^ere still surging in his heart ; thoughts were 
 chafing one against another ; but the cause of all 
 his inward turmoil had passed away, and he could 
 remember nothing of it. And so, wearied with the 
 fruitless inward search, he sent for the wise men of 
 his kingdom, and they came. Confidently perhaps, 
 for they had settled rules by which to interpret 
 dreams, and long experience in the art ; and they 
 doubted not but that rich gifts, and high honours, 
 and increased influence over the king's mind would 
 be the reward of the skilful use which they would 
 make of his excitement. 
 
 But he had forgotten the dream, and for such a 
 dilemma their art provided them with no expedient. 
 Let the king tell the dream, and they are ready 
 
SUCCESSIVE MONARCHIES. 43 
 
 with the interpretation. They had interpreted 
 many a dream before, and sometimes their inter- 
 pretation had come true, sometimes it had failed, 
 and often had been such as to be capable of more 
 than one explanation. All that was needed was to 
 satisfy the king's mind at the time and quiet his 
 feelings ; let a few days pass, and the matter would 
 have lost its importance. But here their claims 
 were subjected to a test, unreasonable if their art 
 was human, reasonable only if they were inspired 
 of God. And when the king urges upon them his 
 demand, accuses them angrily of only wanting to 
 gain time, and threatens them and their families 
 with death unless they make known to him his 
 dream as well as its interpretation, they acknow- 
 ledge that no magician, or astrologer, or Chaldean 
 could show him what he desired, and that such 
 knowledge belongs to God only. 
 
 III. In anger at this opposition to his will, the 
 king commands that all the wise men of Babylon 
 shall be put to death. They formed an important 
 order in the state, and probably as " star-gazers " 
 possessed considerable real knowledge. We find 
 among the cuneiform inscriptions tables of astro- 
 nomical and astrological observations made in very 
 early times, and constantly added to. The great 
 text-book on these matters, called " The Illumina- 
 
44 DANIEL. 
 
 tion of Bel," and consisting of seventy-two chapters, 
 was made at least a thousand years before the time 
 of Nebuchadnezzar, and was apparently translated 
 by Berosus into Greek. No doubt there was in 
 it much valuable knowledge : thousands of obser- 
 vations upon the motions of stars and comets, 
 and upon eclipses and strange appearances in the 
 heavens, which would be most precious to our 
 astronomers now. But mixed up with valuable 
 scientific truth was a strange medley of fortune- 
 telling and conjuring. Now it was the large amount 
 of real scientific knowledge possessed by the magi 
 which gave their office its value, and covered their 
 vain pretensions to a knowledge which they did 
 not possess. But at length their empty claims had 
 brought trouble upon them. They had asserted 
 that by their knowledge of the motions of the stars 
 they could foretell the future, and explain dreams 
 and the like. The king had demanded a thing 
 difficult and hard, wherein there was no room for 
 trickery or clever evasion, or answer of dubious 
 meaning. Their knowledge and skill and expe- 
 rience were unequal to the test, and they were 
 condemned to death. Sooner or later, false pre- 
 tensions are sure to be found out, and to bring 
 trouble on those who have made them. 
 
 The decree extended only to the college at 
 
SUCCESSIVE MONARCHIES. 45 
 
 Babylon. There were distinct colleges at Bor- 
 sippa and elsewhere, but this at Babylon was the 
 head and chief of all. Its members probably were 
 numerous, and many of them had held high rank 
 and enjoyed great favour at court in the days of 
 Nabopolassar. It was a stern and cruel decree. 
 Impostors, as to a great extent they were, yet they 
 did not deserve so harsh a sentence ; nor did they 
 even profess to be able to do what the king de- 
 manded of them. Still, they had sacrificed truth 
 to falsehood ; had claimed for themselves an in- 
 spiration which they did not possess ; and the time 
 had come when falsehood had failed them, and the 
 emptiness of their professions stood revealed. De- 
 ceit never succeeds for more than a limited time. 
 It gains the start, but truth follows upon its track, 
 surely though slowly; and at last deceit finds 
 some obstacle in its way at which it breaks down, 
 and its end is exposure and shame. 
 
 IV. But among these impostors were men who 
 were innocent. Daniel and his companions had 
 been trained in Chaldean knowledge ; and while 
 rejoicing in much which they learned, had doubtless 
 often grieved over the folly and falsehood which 
 formed the very centre and core of Babylonian 
 astrology. On the one hand, they had been admitted 
 into the vast and general knowledge of men and 
 
46 DANIEL. 
 
 things which these ancient colleges possessed. In 
 Juclea their learning in the prophetic schools had 
 been narrow, but it was true : an intense and 
 earnest doctrine concerning the unity of the nature 
 of God ; His universal empire ; the emptiness of 
 all claims of idol gods to share His power ; the 
 greatness of His love to man ; His truth, and 
 justice, and mercy ; and His purpose of sending a 
 Messiah for the restoration of mankind, created to 
 be happy in Jehovah's service, but fallen from his 
 high estate, — this was the noble cycle of Jewish 
 knowledge ; and, counting this as their true riches 
 the Jews troubled little about the history of hea- 
 then nations, or about earthly science and mere 
 secular knowledge. But now Daniel and his com- 
 panions had been taught much of the history of 
 those mighty kingdoms on the Tigris and Euphrates, 
 which were the first to aspire to universal empire. 
 They had also been taught much science, and espe- 
 cially as to the motions of the planets and the 
 secrets of the star- world ; much human knowledge, 
 too, of laws, and manners, and the ways of men 
 had also been communicated to them. On the 
 other hand, their pure minds must have revolted 
 from the unchaste stories of gods and goddesses 
 guilty of flagrant crime ; they must have seen with 
 horror licentiousness in its worst forms enshrined 
 
SUCCESSIVE MONARCHIES. 47 
 
 in this unholy pantheon of deities devoid of virtue 
 and of shame, and using their power for sins at 
 which men stood aghast. With strangely mingled 
 feelings must they have pursued their studies 
 during their three years' apprenticeship. But their 
 initiation was now over ; for some months, possibly, 
 they had even had duties to perform as Chaldeans 
 and soothsayers. God no doubt had spared them 
 from everything that would have degraded them 
 and debased their consciences. We know that He 
 was keeping them for high and holy purposes, and 
 He would guard them from all evil. 
 
 Probably they lived much apart. They belonged 
 to a nation accused in old time of being unsocial, 
 and not caring to enjoy the company of their fel- 
 low-men. They had too little in common with the 
 members of the college into which they had been 
 admitted ; too much that was their own for them 
 to care to mingle much with them. We find that 
 they had not gone with the magi into the king's 
 palace ; for we read that " they sought Daniel and 
 his fellows to be slain.'' They were included in the 
 decree because their training was over; but pro- 
 bably only those who were of foremost rank were 
 summoned to stand before the king. It was hard 
 that they, so young and innocent, should share the 
 fate of those who for so long had enjoyed rank and 
 
48 DANIEL. 
 
 wealth by the unrighteous use which they made of 
 the weakness and credulity of others. But it was 
 ordered for their good. There must be this deep 
 descent before their rising. There must be fear 
 and terror all around : violent anger on the king's 
 part : clanger menacing the wise men : the people 
 excited at the fate which threatened a class whom 
 they regarded as the interpreters of the gods. So 
 would it be clearly shown which was the true God 
 and who was His prophet. And Daniel lost neither 
 his faith nor his presence of mind. For when the 
 news reached him, " he answered with counsel and 
 wisdom/ 5 and instead of being hurried to the prison 
 wherein the wise men were collected, as we may 
 suppose, before their execution took place, he is 
 taken into the king's presence, and time is granted 
 him, and a respite for the rest, upon his promising 
 to show the king on the day following his dream 
 and its interpretation. 
 
 Y. Daniel, we may feel sure, was moved by God 
 to undertake this dangerous office ; for dangerous 
 he knew it to be. But he had a resource which 
 these magi did not possess. He believed in the 
 efficacy of prayer. The magi had certain mutter- 
 ings and repeatings of formal phrases : with Daniel 
 and his companions prayer was the outpouring 
 of the heart to a personal God, the Almighty in 
 
SUCCESSIVE MONARCHIES. 49 
 
 heaven. He goes then " to his house," some apart- 
 ment in the college at Babylon occupied by him in 
 common with the wise men. But while they have 
 only human wisdom and skill, he has an open way 
 to the Giver of all knowledge, and kneeling down 
 with his three friends, they " desire mercies of the 
 God of heaven." When, long afterwards, he was 
 forbidden to pray, we may feel sure that he recalled 
 to mind how prayer in his previous difficulties had 
 saved him. But for prayer he would have been 
 put to death in his early manhood ; it had been his 
 strength and comfort throughout a long life beset 
 with countless difficulties and trials. Was he in 
 old age to forego that privilege which in his youth 
 had been the pillar of his safety? No. Yet we 
 may well believe that Daniel prayed upon no cal- 
 culation : he would equally have prayed had death 
 been its certain result. It was a duty too holy, a 
 privilege too precious, a blessing too transcendent 
 to be lightly abandoned. And at this early date 
 he had probably experienced no other answers to 
 his prayers than such as any believer may receive 
 now. Prayer had not saved him from being dragged 
 away from his home into captivity. It had not 
 rescued him from a mode of life galling and irksome 
 to him. God does not answer prayer in our way 
 It would be dangerous to ourselves and ruinous 
 
50 DANIEL. 
 
 to others if there were no other element in the 
 answering of prayer than simply the faith of 
 those who pray. A believer would cease to be 
 a man and become a demi-god and a worker of 
 miracles, and the whole constitution of this world 
 be changed, if all that he asked in faith were 
 granted him. 
 
 God always answers prayers for the spiritual 
 good of those who pray to Him ; but He changes 
 the order of material things and guides the laws 
 of the universe to new results only when a suffi- 
 cient cause exists for His interference. At Babylon 
 there was such a crisis in the affairs of the Church 
 as made the special manifestation of God's personal 
 presence almost a necessity, if the faith of Israel 
 was to be generally maintained, and the Jewish 
 people return to their land in such a state of mind 
 and in such numbers as would make the restoration 
 of the temporal kingdom possible. And without 
 this our Lord's ministry upon earth would have 
 had no suitable place for its exercise. And thus 
 while Jeremiah wrought no miracles, and while 
 Josiah's pious efforts were strengthened by no 
 supernatural aid, at Babylon miracles were wrought, 
 and God's people there in the fiery furnace of afflic- 
 tion received the heavenly comfort and encourage- 
 ment which was necessary for them. 
 
SUCCESSIVE MONARCHIES. 51 
 
 And this was the first manifestation of Gods 
 presence. Daniel had no reason to expect more 
 help than Jeremiah had received. But he prayed ; 
 and he asked others to join him in his prayers. 
 He anticipated the words of our Master where He 
 says, " If two of you shall agree on earth as 
 touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be 
 done for them of My Father which is in heaven." 
 There is a mighty efficacy in united prayer ; and 
 when these four youths, lying under sentence of 
 death, joined in supplication, they exercised a 
 power which stormed the battlements of heaven, 
 and obtained for them all they asked. 
 
 They prayed " concerning the secret," and " then 
 was the secret revealed to Daniel in a night vision," 
 and he praised and blessed the name of God. In 
 his thanksgiving the leading thought is that God 
 is the real spring and fountain, not only of power 
 but of wisdom. He is not only almighty, but all- 
 wise, a " God of knowledges," as Hannah calls Him 
 (i Sam. ii. 3), not of one limited and special kind 
 of knowledge, but of knowledge of all and every 
 kind. And, therefore, times and seasons, kings 
 and kingdoms, are in His hand ; for His almighty 
 power enables Him to execute all that His wisdom 
 approves. 
 
 YI. And now, in full possession of the secret, 
 
52 DANIEL. 
 
 Daniel goes to Arioch, and demands an immediate 
 audience of the king. What all their treasures of 
 knowledge could not enable the wise men to 
 unravel had been made plain and easy to this 
 youth. They had stored up treasures of centuries 
 of knowledge. From their lofty observatory in 
 Babylon they had watched every motion of the 
 stars, but no combination of the planets had fore- 
 warned them of their danger or suggested a way 
 of escape ; and no denizen of the starry world 
 had descended to tell them the dream and its 
 interpretation. They had read, perhaps, and 
 studied " The Illumination of Bel," but had gained 
 thence no light. Twenty-four hours had passed 
 since Nebuchadnezzar had sprung from his startled 
 sleep and summoned them into his council-chamber. 
 They had listened to his demand, had remonstrated 
 and protested, but in vain. And they had given 
 the matter up, and in silent despair awaited the 
 hour of their execution. They knew nothing of 
 prayer ; had no loving God to address and obtain 
 help from. Their art had failed them ; and their 
 art was all they had. 
 
 It is a grand and noble speech which Daniel 
 addresses to the king. " The secret which the 
 kino; hath demanded cannot the wise men, the 
 astrologers, the magicians, the soothsayers, show 
 
SUCCESSIVE MONARCHIES. 53 
 
 unto the king ; but there is a God in heaven that 
 revealeth secrets, and maketh known to the king 
 Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days." 
 He claims no special skill ; it is no human wisdom, 
 no illumination from any earthly source, that has 
 taught him what had troubled the king upon his 
 bed in night visions. It was a higher power ; a 
 God, not on earth, but in heaven, that had sent 
 the vision, and its object was to reveal what shall 
 be in the latter days. 
 
 The vision itself and its interpretation we must 
 reserve for our next paper. Thus far we have had 
 only the preparation for it, but such a preparation 
 as manifests its great importance, and also marks 
 out Daniel as a man greatly beloved of God, and 
 destined to fill a high place among men, and to 
 hold a still higher place in the things that concern 
 God's kingdom upon earth. 
 
( 54 ) 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE DKEAM OP NEBUCHADNEZZAR. 
 (Daniel ii. 31-47.) 
 
 WONDEBFULLY had the telling of this dream 
 been prepared for. The intense agitation of 
 the king's mind, the sleepless night, the conviction 
 that his dream portended events of no common im- 
 portance, and nevertheless the complete oblivion of 
 that which had so excited him : all this seems to have 
 irritated Nebuchadnezzar till he could endure no 
 delay, nor bear to wait till calmer moments brought 
 back to his memory the visions that had disturbed 
 his rest. He had tried resolutely again and again 
 to recall and give shape to the vague images that 
 still floated in his mind, but in vain ; and the more 
 he failed himself, the more determined he was that 
 the wise men of his kingdom should unravel his 
 enigma for him. For what reason did they enjoy 
 wealth, rank, power, except because of their in- 
 fluence with the immortals ? and they must now 
 make good their claims. And when they would 
 
THE DREAM OF NEBUCHADNEZZAR. 55 
 
 not even make the attempt, his rage knew no 
 bounds, and he determined to massacre the whole 
 of a class of men of great weight in the state, looked 
 upon by the people almost with awe, and who had 
 often ministered to his ambition, his glory, and his 
 pleasures. Hitherto he had greatly honoured them ; 
 but Nebuchadnezzar was not a scrupulous nor a 
 merciful man, and he was now in a state of frenzy. 
 Woe to those who could not quiet the spirit and 
 gratify the demand of an Oriental despot ! 
 
 But when all his usual resources had failed him, 
 the gratification of his demand came from an unex- 
 pected quarter. A handsome Jewish boy steps for- 
 ward, and modestly disclaiming all personal merit, 
 declares that his God will, for the king's sake, that 
 he may know the things that shall come to pass, 
 disclose to him the thoughts that had come into his 
 mind upon his bed. Now the Jewish God was not 
 like other gods. They were patient, much-enduring 
 beings, who, as long as their own prerogatives were 
 not interfered with, cared not how many rivals 
 were admitted into their Pantheon. In the cunei- 
 form inscriptions the worshipper delights in string- 
 ing together a long catalogue of the names of 
 deities, who are pleased rather than offended at 
 finding themselves forming part of so numerous 
 an assembly. His fear is lest he should omit 
 
56 DANIEL. 
 
 some one who would be angry at the neglect. 
 Such a thought as that they would dispute one 
 another's claims lay entirely outside the circle of 
 his ideas. The God of the Jews was a "jealous" 
 God. His prophets taught that these motley gods 
 were nonentities, and that their worship, so impure 
 and unholy in itself, was also an offence to true and 
 real religion, because it gave to idols, the work of 
 men's hands, the honour due to the One Almighty, 
 who had made heaven and earth, and all things 
 and beings that are therein. 
 
 Naturally this one exclusive God was the object 
 of heathen dislike ; and hence the pride of the 
 king when he plundered the Temple of Jehovah at 
 Jerusalem, and brought the holy vessels away in 
 triumph to "the treasure-house of his own god." 
 But now from this unlikely quarter came the allay- 
 ing of his irritation. We know that in after-time 
 the king often came in contact with the prophet 
 Jeremiah, and learnt from him that he was Jehovah's 
 chosen servant to make many nations drink of the 
 cup of the Divine justice (Jer. xxv. 9). At present 
 he knew of Jehovah only as a conquered Deity, 
 and Daniel and his friends only as captive youths 
 that were to minister to the pride and pomp of his 
 court. He was soon to learn more true ideas of 
 them both. 
 
THE DREAM OF NEBUCHADNEZZAR. 57 
 
 And when the dream was told him, how strange 
 must his oblivion of it have seemed ! It was so 
 strongly marked, so extraordinary, and yet so 
 natural, that he must have wondered how he could 
 have forgotten it. Colossal statues, such as that 
 which he himself set up in the plain of Dura, were 
 common at Babylon. In his great buildings he must 
 himself have erected many-; but this one was remark- 
 able, because it seemed as if the artist had attempted 
 much more than he could accomplish. The con- 
 ception was grand, the form masterly and awful ; 
 but, beginning with the most costly materials, the 
 designer had ended with miry clay. An image so 
 strangely composed ought to have impressed itself 
 upon the king's memory. And its fate was as 
 wonderful as was its fashion. A stone cut out 
 without hands, self-originated and self- moving, 
 strikes this mighty colossus. No visible force im- 
 pels it ; no human agency causes its activity. Yet 
 it wars against the image, smites it, and grinds it 
 to powder. Now there were no stones in Babylonia ; 
 all Nebuchadnezzar's buildings were of brick ; for 
 the soil of the country is alluvial, brought down 
 from Armenia by the action of the rivers Tigris 
 and Euphrates. The foreign stone therefore indi- 
 cated external influence, but not human influence, 
 nor one of a natural kind. It was something self- 
 
58 DANIEL. 
 
 originating, and therefore must come from a being 
 endowed with free-will. And as it was impelled by 
 no human or natural power, the author of it must 
 be Divine. And he saw that it went on calmly, 
 quietly, and irresistibly till every other influence 
 was crushed and broken, and itself as a mighty 
 " mountain filled the whole earth." 
 
 Let us take, first, the general aspect of the image, 
 and next its several parts. 
 
 Vek. 31. — The image was of an excellent bright- 
 ness and its form terrible. This is the aspect of 
 earthly dominion. Surrounded by every form of 
 majesty and splendour, it shines as with magic 
 brilliancy ; but this external beauty gilds and adorns 
 the crushing strength of despotic power. This 
 power may be used for good. It may give peace 
 and security to the subject, and enable even the 
 meanest to enjoy the fruit of his own toil. Too 
 often in those old world-powers, built up by military 
 skill, and resting upon no basis but force, the might 
 of empire was used only to gratify the pride, the 
 lust, and the caprice of the ruler. The subject had 
 no legal rights ; and even well-meaning men, who 
 at the beginning of their reigns started well, soon 
 found arbitrary power too strong for their virtues, 
 and ended by becoming the scourge of their sub- 
 
THE DREAM OF NEBUCHADNEZZAR. 59 
 
 jects. In spite, then, of its excellent brightness, the 
 form thereof was terrible. 
 
 And yet one more reason for this terror. The 
 empires symbolised in this image were not the 
 native legitimate governments of races and peoples. 
 They were the great military monarchies which 
 endeavoured by force of arms to make the whole 
 world as then known subject to them. Force was 
 their weapon, and with it they crushed the rights 
 and freedom of others. Hence the colossal size of 
 the image ; hence it was that it stood alone. These 
 attempts at universal empire indirectly wrought 
 some good. The conquests of Alexander carried 
 with them trade and civilisation ; those of Eome 
 taught people the value of law. Even the Assyrian 
 and Persian monarchies broke down barriers of 
 -exclusiveness, and brought men into contact with 
 one another, and so aided in the development and 
 education of mankind. But the process involved 
 a vast amount of human suffering ; and if in this 
 vision these empires seemed bright and majestic in 
 the eyes of the Assyrian, to Daniel they appeared 
 afterwards as cruel and ferocious wild beasts. 
 
 Vers. 32, 37, 38. — But let us consider the 
 several parts of the image. The head was of gold. 
 By this was symbolised the Babylonian monarchy, 
 
GO DANIEL. 
 
 and virtually Nebuchadnezzar himself; for with 
 him it began, and with him its vigour ended. 
 There intervened only a short period of internal 
 decay between his death and the allotted period of 
 its duration. By the description of it as of " fine 
 gold " is not meant that absolutely the Babylonian 
 monarchy was good : but, first of all, the represen- 
 tation of the image is as it appeared to the king 
 himself; and secondly, we are taught that each 
 monarchy was inferior to the preceding. The 
 Jewish prophets looked forward to better times. 
 The Messiah was to bring them their golden age. 
 Greek and Eoman poets thought that the golden 
 age had passed, and that each succeeding age would 
 be worse and more unhappy than that which had 
 gone before. Nebuchadnezzar shared in this hea- 
 then view, only he could conceive of no better 
 age than his own. He, his empire, and his times 
 were the world's era of gold ; slowly but surely 
 there would come decay and corruption. For gold 
 there would be silver, and for silver would come 
 brass, and for brass iron and clay. A true religion 
 gives men hope ; makes them look forward with 
 confidence to the future ; and because of that hope 
 they labour to make things better. For the God 
 whom they love and worship governs all things, 
 and will order the course of events for man's real 
 
THE DREAM OF NEBUCHADNEZZAR. 61 
 
 and final good. And when men in the present 
 day bid us work for the regeneration of mankind, 
 and tell us that we must try to raise the species, 
 and so on, the belief in human improvement, and in 
 the duty of labouring for it, are thoughts that have 
 been learnt from the religion which they exhort 
 us to discard. Their teaching would take away 
 all motive for so labouring, and destroy the con- 
 victions upon which the belief in the possibility of 
 human improvement rests. The victory that over- 
 comes the world and the selfishness of our narrow 
 hearts is not a vague theory about the perfectibility 
 of the human race, but a belief in God's govern- 
 ment of the world, and in His purposes of mercy 
 and grace for the creatures whom He made, and 
 whom now He invites to be the recipients of His 
 love. 
 
 After magnifying the grandeur of Nebuchadnez- 
 zar's kingdom in terms appropriate to a universal 
 monarchy, Daniel next describes the breast and 
 arms of silver as being the symbol of an empire 
 inferior to that of Babylon. The old commentators 
 all consider this to have been a prophecy of the 
 Medo-Persian empire, which succeeded the Baby- 
 lonian. The new critics attempt diverse explana- 
 tions, because they start with the assumption 
 that there is no such thing as prophecy, and that 
 
6 2 DANIEL. 
 
 what we assert to have been predictions were 
 really the description of events written after 
 they had taken place. Now as they cannot 
 put the date of the book later than the reign 
 of Antiochus Epiphanes, they have to find four 
 empires prior to that period to which they may 
 refer the symbols both here and in the prophecy 
 of the four beasts (chap, vii.) Abiding by the 
 old and perfectly satisfactory explanation, which 
 alone gives a reasonable interpretation of the 
 " stone cut out without hands," we have no doubt 
 that this kingdom was that of the Medes and 
 Persians, which was really one, though at its head 
 were two nations represented by the two arms. 
 It was not inferior in extent or duration, unless 
 we consider that the first empire included the 
 Ninevite as well as the Babylonian monarchies ; 
 and Cyrus was a far nobler character than Nebu- 
 chadnezzar. But it sank into effeminacy, and 
 perished from the feebleness that resulted from the 
 general decay caused by the immorality of its court. 
 The third kingdom is of brass, but it " bears 
 rule over all the earth." Brass or bronze, an alloy 
 of copper and tin, was the metal used for weapons, 
 and the Greeks were not merely brave soldiers, but 
 were thoroughly well armed. Countries unknown to 
 the Babylonians were conquered by Alexander ; and 
 
THE DREAM OF NEBUCHADNEZZAR. 63 
 
 Greece, which had stood the shock of the invading 
 hosts of Persia, acknowledged his sway. And so 
 far from being inferior to Babylon, Greece was in 
 every way the nobler power, and the Macedonian 
 conquests were the cause of infinite good. But 
 the founder's life was cut short by intemperance, 
 and his empire was broken into fragments before 
 it had even been consolidated into an orderly 
 whole. 
 
 " The fourth kingdom is strong as iron," strong 
 chiefly to break in pieces and subdue. For many 
 centuries Borne was ever fighting and winning 
 battles. It was at first but a single town of no 
 great size, but war was its pastime and its trade. 
 Irresistible in the battlefield, within there was 
 internal weakness, the struggle of fierce factions, 
 civil dissensions, and finally an oligarchy of rich 
 men, before whom all manliness vanished away, 
 and Italy became the property of a class who culti- 
 vated it by gangs of slaves. To save itself it had 
 to bow to the yoke of absolute power, and at 
 length, from the necessities of administration, was 
 divided into the Western and Eastern empires, 
 symbolised by the two legs, in which there was 
 still vast strength, but also much weakness, the ex- 
 tremities of the Boman dominions being constantly 
 harassed by incursions of the barbarians, who 
 
64 DANIEL. 
 
 often even carried their raids into the very heart of 
 the empire. It was thus " partly strong and partly 
 brittle " (see margin), because, while its armies of 
 mercenaries were irresistible, its own subjects were 
 too feeble to defend themselves ; and its toes were 
 of iron if protected by fortresses and regular 
 armies, but of clay if these aids were withdrawn. 
 As, finally, the government of this vast realm was 
 ever the prize of revolt, of artifice, and of crime, 
 the emperors were always trying to strengthen 
 themselves by " mingling with the seed of men," 
 by marriages with members of rival families ; but 
 in vain. Ambition was not quenched thereby, 
 and many an intermarriage meant for peace only 
 widened the hostile breach. 
 
 The dream carries the description of the Eoman 
 empire down to a period long subsequent to the 
 founding of the Messiah's kingdom ; and the ten 
 toes may be identical with the ten horns of chap, 
 vii. 7. And of Messiah's kingdom itself we have 
 not merely the beginning, but the growth, until 
 it had crushed and taken the place of all these 
 empires. For it is important to observe that this 
 is a vision of universal empires ; and while the 
 four which form the image all fail, the last becomes 
 " a great mountain, and fills the whole earth," and 
 " shall stand for ever." 
 
THE DREAM OF NEBUCHADNEZZAR. 65 
 
 Vers. 33, 44. — This fifth monarchy is not of 
 human origin. It is a " stone cut out without 
 hands," which Daniel explains as meaning that 
 " the God of heaven shall set up a kingdom." 
 Some great battle or series of battles had estab- 
 lished the empires of this world, subject of course 
 to God's general providence, but making them 
 seem to man the direct result of human effort. 
 
 God's empire is set up by One who did "not 
 strive, nor cry, nor was His voice heard in the 
 streets" (Matt. xii. 19). No conquering armies 
 carried the creed of Jesus of Nazareth on to victory, 
 as the Arabs won disciples for their prophet by the 
 sword. It wrought and still works silently, by 
 persuasion, by reaching the conscience of the indi- 
 vidual, by speaking to the sad, the contrite, and 
 the humble with a still small voice. So it wrought 
 in that strong empire of resistless Borne. Its vic- 
 tories were noiseless, unsung by poets, celebrated by 
 no triumphal arches or processions ; and while the 
 rulers were thinking of Christianity as the supersti- 
 tion of a feeble and powerless sect, to be extirpated 
 by one imperial decree, it was filling their armies, 
 their market-places, their fleets, their palaces, the 
 work-houses of their slaves. Christians were every- 
 where ; every place was full of them, and heathenism 
 crumbled, to pieces, ground to dust before an unseen 
 
GO DANIEL. 
 
 power. Twelve fishermen, without military skill, 
 or human influence, or eloquence, or learning, set 
 up a kingdom which strives after universal domi- 
 nion and has the promise of ultimate success. 
 
 It was from Mount Zion that this stone was 
 launched (Isa. ii. 3) ; for upon it there died a meek 
 and lowly sufferer, condemned by human injustice 
 to a malefactor's death. But that malefactor is the 
 king of a world-wide empire. A crown of thorns 
 girt His brow : before that crown all the emblems 
 of earthly sovereignty have bowed down, and the 
 cross on which that sufferer died has been elevated 
 to be the symbol which holds the topmost place in 
 the diadems of the chief earthly monarchs of man- 
 kind. A rude soldiery arrayed Him in robes of 
 purple. Never has monarch reigned clad in more 
 royal glory than the calm and patient victim of 
 those rough -mercenaries. Eighteen centuries and 
 more have passed away, but no throne is so secure 
 as the throne of Jesus ; for He reigns in the willing- 
 hearts of His people, and they have a warm devo- 
 tion and a loving allegiance to Him which would 
 make them, were troubled times to arise, as ready 
 now for the pains of martyrdom as were the faithful 
 of old. For " His kingdom shall never be de- 
 stroyed, nor shall it be left to other people.'" The 
 Persians robbed Assyria of the sceptre, the Greeks 
 
THE DREAM OF NEBUCHADNEZZAR. G7 
 
 tore it from the Persians, the Romans from the 
 Greeks. Christ is an eternal King, and His people 
 will have none to take their place ; for the very 
 gates of hell will be powerless against the kingdom 
 of our God and of His Christ. 
 
 And it has still battles to fight — spiritual battles, 
 and victories to win, but victories of peace and 
 love. For though the faith of Christ has grown into 
 a mountain, it does not yet fill all the earth. And 
 of this the reason is, that though the stone is cut 
 out without hands, yet God has deigned to asso- 
 ciate man with Him in the task of establishing the 
 empire of His dear Son. Not because such human 
 aid is necessary, but because man attains to the 
 purpose of his own existence and is ennobled by 
 being a fellow-worker with Gocl. He who gains a 
 victory for Christ fulfils thereby the object for 
 which he was born into this world. We are placed 
 here in the midst of trouble and sorrow, of tempta- 
 tion and sin, of struggle and effort, in order that 
 we may through these very trials win our heaven- 
 ward way to joy and perfectness ; and amid all our 
 difficulties we are supported by the conviction that 
 the sufferings of this present time are not worthy 
 to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed 
 hereafter. In earnestly endeavouring, therefore, to 
 win the world for Christ, to alleviate its pains, re- 
 
68 DANIEL. 
 
 dress its wrongs, obtain for it purity, peace, love, 
 holiness, we are also fulfilling the Divine purpose 
 for which God constituted this world such as it is, 
 and placed us here upon it. 
 
 And thus, then, the captive Jewish youth un- 
 rolled before the eyes of the tyrant that had crushed 
 his country, his home, and the temple of his God, 
 the course of the five universal empires. Four rise 
 one after another, each to fall. For a while they 
 beat down and destroy, and fill the fair surface of 
 the earth with tears and misery ; for their weapons 
 are force, violence, and cruelty ; and scarcely has 
 one seized the sceptre before another rises to wrench 
 it from his loosening grasp. At length, ushered in 
 by no trumpet-blast, with no clashing of arms nor 
 banners fluttering in the breeze, but by a still, 
 calm, unseen influence, the fifth empire begins to 
 arise. Its armies are recruited from the poor, the 
 outcast, the slave. Those whom men despise are 
 summoned to its standard ; and that standard is one 
 of suffering. It is a cross, telling of shame and of a 
 malefactor's death. But " with this for thy symbol 
 thou shalt conquer." It has its heroes ; they are 
 martyrs, who bear the utmost cruelty that debased 
 man can invent, and bear it with joy, for their love 
 of Him who gave His life for them. It has its 
 warriors — men who give up all worldly pleasures, 
 
THE DREAM OF NEBUCHADNEZZAR. 69 
 
 and honours, and gain that they may carry far and 
 wide the good tidings of there being salvation for 
 mankind. It has its armies — myriads whose joy it 
 is to do good and bear evil for their Master's sake. 
 And the regeneration of mankind will come when 
 this host, struggling for love, and purity, and holi- 
 ness, has won the world for its Lord. 
 
 It was but a dim outline that Daniel unfolded 
 before the king. In long vista he saw empire 
 succeeding empire, until one arose that would stand 
 for ever. And the king knew that his dream had 
 been such as the youthful seer before him had 
 declared ; he felt, too, that its meaning had been 
 rightly interpreted ; and, awe-struck, " he fell upon 
 his face and worshipped Daniel, and commanded 
 that they should offer an oblation and sweet odours 
 unto him." Daniel was to him the interpreter of 
 the God of heaven, and as such seemed to him to 
 be Divine. We may be sure that Daniel would 
 allow of no idolatrous adoration, and the words of 
 the next verse show that he quickly led the king's 
 mind into a more true channel. For " the king 
 answered unto Daniel, and said, Of a truth it is, 
 that your God is a God of gods, and a Lord of 
 kings, and a revealer of secrets." 
 
( 70 ) 
 
 V. 
 
 A CONSTRAINED CONFESSION. 
 (Daniel ii. 46-49.) 
 
 TN our previous chapter we have seen the 
 king's mind so agitated by the troubled 
 thoughts which followed upon his dream, that, 
 losing all self-control, he ordered the wise men, 
 who had failed to satisfy an unreasonable com- 
 mand, to be put to death and their colleges razed 
 to the ground. And by this we can measure his 
 feelings as he listened to the youthful stripling 
 before him, first recalling to his memory the 
 strange images which had flitted before his mind 
 in his broken slumbers, and then explaining to 
 him their meaning. It was a mighty panorama, 
 unfolding the course of the world's history, reveal- 
 ing to him a succession of claimants for universal 
 empire, and finally asserting that God would 
 set up a kingdom for Himself, which would 
 extend over all lands, and rule them with a 
 
A CONSTRAINED CONFESSION. 71 
 
 sceptre which time should never weaken nor 
 external force destroy. Secure from outward 
 violence and internal decay, it would break in 
 pieces all earthly kingdoms and itself stand for 
 ever. 
 
 Now if it was gratifying to Nebuchadnezzar to 
 know that he was the head of gold, there was also 
 humiliation in the announcement that his empire 
 was so soon to pass away, and that it was merely 
 one of several empires which were in succession to 
 prepare the way for a kingdom which was not to 
 be of human founding. And it is a lesson equally 
 unwelcome to rulers now. The stone cut out with- 
 out hands has become a mighty power, ruling over 
 the hearts and consciences of men. Side by side 
 with it stand the empires of this world, wielding 
 all earthly authority, with armies and fleets at 
 their disposal, and invested with that majesty and 
 splendour which made " the brightness of this 
 image excellent, and the form thereof terrible." 
 Now we believe that these earthly empires all have 
 their work to do for Christ ; and that they have 
 it assigned to them under the same condition of 
 free will counterbalanced by responsibility, which 
 regulates all human working. If they do their 
 work for Christ He will acknowledge them, and give 
 them strength and continuance. If they refuse, 
 
72 DANIEL. 
 
 then must they give place to others. Of Churches 
 we are expressly taught that Christ walks among 
 the golden candlesticks to see and judge and reward 
 and punish ; and that a Church which does not 
 labour for Him will have its candlestick removed 
 out of its place (Kev. ii. 1,5). We learn the same 
 truth here of earthly kingdoms. They have each 
 their place and order and duty ; but their time 
 and duration and greatness depend upon their work 
 for God. 
 
 And God rules over and among them, but so, 
 nevertheless, as to have made it a universal law 
 that His work has to be done by man. The stone 
 is indeed " cut out without hands ; " for the gospel 
 is no human scheme, nor was it founded for human 
 ends, by man's device, or craft, or forethought. 
 Like its Founder, Christ's kingdom is a plant that 
 has grown out of a dry ground, where earthly 
 vegetation there was none. But as its purpose is 
 to raise and ennoble man, very much is left to 
 man. It aids, assists, encourages, strengthens him, 
 but it does not dispense with him. It summons 
 him to work, enables him by Divine help to do 
 that which is far above his natural powers, and by 
 noble service it elevates, perfects, and blesses him. 
 And the man who has made his heart the temple 
 of the Holy Ghost is by His indwelling rendered 
 
A CONSTRAINED CONFESSION. 73 
 
 fit for the higher service which doubtless awaits 
 the redeemed in heaven. 
 
 But we must not so interpret the doctrine of 
 God's overruling providence as to suppose that 
 His work on earth goes on just the same whether 
 man obey or whether he resist. Doubtless at the 
 last day we shall find that God has done all things 
 well ; and that His work has moved onward 
 steadily, " breaking to pieces the iron, the clay, 
 the brass, the silver, and the gold, and making all 
 alike as the chaff of the summer threshing-floors ; 
 but this is so when we look down upon earth as 
 God looks down upon it from the height of His 
 Divine majesty. It is not so when we look at 
 earthly things through the medium of human 
 thought, and from our own level. Then we see 
 God's work delayed, from the absence in Churches 
 of missionary effort. We see religion declining 
 from want of earnestness in its professors. We 
 see kingdoms falling from their high place, and 
 crumbling in long decay, because rulers and people 
 have not recognised their duty to God, and done 
 the work to which He called them. And other 
 kingdoms and Churches we see rising in power and 
 prospering because they are earnestly trying to 
 labour for God, and to spend and be spent for 
 Him. 
 
74 DANIEL. 
 
 Looked at in its true light, it is a great privilege 
 for man thus to be made a fellow-worker with God. 
 And the delay, and even the apparent frustration 
 of the Divine purpose is permitted, because the 
 present constitution of things is for man's good 
 and upward progress. God, the all-perfect, needs 
 not this chequered earthly state of things for His 
 own happiness : it is a purpose of benevolence and 
 love intended for man's restoration. Thus man is 
 left free, because only in a state of freedom can He 
 render to God true service and do His will. And 
 by serving God and bowing his human will to the 
 Divine good pleasure he attains to a regenerate 
 life and to a fitness for the perfect service and 
 diviner life to be enjoyed in God's presence. 
 
 Now as Nebuchadnezzar listened to Daniel, and 
 heard for the first time of the existence upon earth 
 of a kingdom of the God of heaven, and saw un- 
 folded before him this map of empires rising and 
 falling, but all alike preparing for a kingdom that 
 should never fall, awe took possession of his heart, 
 and the youthful seer seemed to him, not as some 
 magician or astrologer that had rightly read the 
 message of the stars, but as one moved by the 
 Spirit of God ; and falling down before him, he 
 recognised him in his true greatness as the repre- 
 sentative of the Deity. Nebuchadnezzar knew as 
 
A CONSTRAINED CONFESSION. 75 
 
 yet but little of God. This was the first of the 
 many lessons vouchsafed to him. It roused up 
 new perceptions, gave him fresh ideas ; but at the 
 end of it he had only advanced a very little way in 
 his knowledge of heavenly things. For Daniel's 
 God was to him still only one of many gods ; but 
 at least he felt that He was a very real and true 
 God, and that Daniel had been His spokesman. 
 
 We read, therefore (ver. 46), " Then the king- 
 Nebuchadnezzar fell upon his face, and worshipped 
 Daniel, and commanded that they should offer an 
 oblation and sweet odours unto him." Now when 
 the people of Lystra wished to offer sacrifice to 
 Paul and Barnabas, because of the great miracle 
 that they had wrought, the apostles were shocked 
 beyond measure, and indignantly rejected the 
 bestowal on them of that homage which belonged 
 to God only. Here Daniel accepted the sweet 
 odours and oblation. Whence came conduct ap- 
 parently so different ? But, first, the people of 
 Lystra supposed that their false gods had assumed 
 human form ; and they would therefore have 
 been confirmed in their heathenish superstition 
 had Paul and Barnabas accepted the proffered 
 sacrifice. Here the honour is done to the true 
 God, and Nebuchadnezzar was rising above the 
 level of his old creed, though he had not yet 
 
7 6 DANIEL. 
 
 attained to the full light of truth. And next, the 
 sacrifice at Lystra was to be offered absolutely to 
 Paul and Barnabas as themselves Divine beings. 
 
 o 
 
 Now Nebuchadnezzar made no such mistake. His 
 view was that " the Spirit of the Holy Gods " rested 
 upon Daniel ; and in the words which he spake he 
 clearly distinguished between Daniel and Daniel's 
 God. And therefore Daniel did not reject an 
 honour which he probably felt to be excessive and 
 even superstitious. The king was on the right road 
 to truth, and he did nothing to call away his atten- 
 tion from the main point to that which was of lesser 
 value. 
 
 The word worshipped means indeed no more 
 than that the king prostrated himself before Daniel. 
 But this was an extraordinary act. For Nebuchad- 
 nezzar was an absolute monarch, a despot, who by 
 his military skill and genius for government had 
 made himself the most powerful sovereign of his 
 time ; and the man before whom he thus bowed to 
 the ground was a youth, a captive, with no earthly 
 power or greatness. Nor was he content with 
 prostrating himself before him, but commanded 
 that an oblation — an offering, that is, of food and 
 wine — should be made to him, and incense burnt 
 before him. But though there was excess and 
 somewhat of heathenish superstition in the com- 
 
A CONSTRAINED CONFESSION. 77 
 
 mand, yet Nebuchadnezzar did not confound Daniel 
 with God. He had spoken too plainly of the God 
 of heaven for such confusion to be possible, and 
 Daniel was thus honoured because that heavenly 
 Deity had spoken by his mouth. 
 
 This plainly appears from the words that follow ; 
 for Nebuchadnezzar says, " Of a truth it is that 
 your God is a God of gods, and a Lord of kings, 
 and a revealer of secrets, seeing thou couldst reveal 
 this secret." 
 
 Now sometimes, as in chap. xi. 36, this title 
 " God of gods " means the only true God. God's 
 own people meant by it that Jehovah was the one 
 sole and only Deity among all those who arrogated 
 to themselves this title. But Nebuchadnezzar meant 
 far less. Natural as seems to us the doctrine of 
 their being only one God, it was not so with the 
 heathen. Their deities were beings but little higher 
 than themselves ; and thus their fancy filled earth 
 and air and sea with a motley variety of gods and 
 demigods, whose powers and attributes often clashed 
 one with another. They had not, and could not 
 grasp, that belief which is the great comfort and 
 joy of the Christian, that one Supreme Being fills 
 all things with His presence, governs all things by 
 His almighty will, and guides all things by His 
 omniscient wisdom. No such grand central truth 
 
70 DANIEL. 
 
 gave stability to the life of a heathen ; no such 
 conviction comforted him under the changing aspect 
 of his earthly fortunes and sustained him in trial 
 and sorrow. Yet what Nebuchadnezzar acknow- 
 ledged was something far in advance of his former 
 tenets. For not only did he confess that the God 
 of this captive Jew was mightier than his own 
 deities, but he declared that He was supreme. For 
 " God of gods" meant that He was over all others, 
 and that they must obey Him. His own idols 
 still seemed to him to be real powers, but subor- 
 dinate ; he did not disbelieve in Bel and Nebo, but 
 he felt that there was a God above and beyond them, 
 whom they must serve. As he was himself " king 
 of kings," one as high above other kings as they 
 were above their subjects, so was Daniel's God as 
 high above other gods as they were high above 
 men. 
 
 It was Nebuchadnezzar's first lesson, valuable, 
 but not perfect ; an introduction to truth, but not 
 the full truth itself. And even the heathen some- 
 times ascended thus high by the mere light of 
 reason. We find the Greeks often acknowledging 
 that behind and above the deities whom the people 
 worshipped there must be some controlling power 
 which even the gods must obey. In this, as in 
 much besides, they were groping in the dark after 
 
A CONSTRAINED CONFESSION. 79 
 
 truth ; and as truth was what they sought, God 
 granted them some measure of it. But the Bible 
 at its very beginning rises to truth more perfect, 
 more complete, more satisfying to heart and mind 
 than the best conclusions of Greek wisdom ; for it 
 tells us of one God, the sole Creator of the universe, 
 who by His word made all things, and from whom 
 all things in heaven and in earth have their being 
 and proceed. 
 
 The truth to which Nebuchadnezzar had attained 
 was far less than this ; for he did not as yet see 
 God as the one sole power who had called all other 
 things into existence for His own glory. But it 
 led to practical results ; for he also acknowledged 
 that Daniel's God was a " Lord of kings," one to 
 whom kings were responsible, and whom they must 
 obey. His views probably were confused and indis- 
 tinct ; nor was he one who would let any sense of 
 his obligations to an unseen power interfere with 
 his own despotic will. But it was this sense, pro- 
 bably, of his responsibility to Daniel's God which 
 made him so honour the prophet ; and as thus the 
 oblation and incense were rightly meant, they were 
 not rejected. 
 
 Two points still remain : the first, Daniel's eleva- 
 tion to power ; the second, his affection for his 
 friends. 
 
80 DANIEL 
 
 Just as twelve centuries before Pharaoh had 
 raised Joseph to power because he had revealed to 
 him the secret of his dreams, so was it at Babylon 
 with Daniel. Now the heroes of the world rise to 
 eminence and authority by earthly qualities. It is 
 by eloquence, or military skill, or some startling 
 piece of statesmanship that they leave their obscurity 
 and attain to splendour ; too often even by flatter- 
 ing the vanity or by gratifying the caprice or 
 the passion of some monarch or of the populace. 
 The heroes of the Bible rise by God's blessing, and 
 generally by its being made manifest that they are 
 near to God and possess His favour and protection. 
 It was his saintliness which commended Daniel to 
 Nebuchadnezzar, and he made him ruler, first of 
 all, over the city of Babylon and the country in 
 its immediate neighbourhood ; and, secondly, he 
 appointed him to be chief over those colleges of 
 wise men, by whom he had just been trained, and 
 among whom before he had held so humble a posi- 
 tion. 
 
 And here we recognise the hand of God's pro- 
 vidence clearly revealed. Just as in Egypt the 
 family of Jacob were to be formed into a nation, 
 and Joseph was raised to power and high dignity 
 that he might protect them ; so at Babylon they 
 were to be reformed, and made fit to be Christ's 
 
A CONSTRAINED CONFESSION. 81 
 
 apostles and missionaries at His coming, and Daniel 
 was made governor that lie might be their friend 
 and comforter. We read of God's high purpose in 
 sending them into exile in Jer. xxiv. 5, 6, xxix. 
 10-14. What a blessing must Daniel have been 
 to them ! How greatly must he have lightened the 
 heavy burden of their captivity ! And how power- 
 fully must his example have strengthened their 
 faith, and encouraged them to love and serve their 
 God ! To Daniel must have been largely due that 
 fervent piety and ardent patriotism which shone so 
 brightly in Ezra and Nehemiah and the returning 
 Jews. 
 
 Lastly, in his hour of elevation Daniel did not 
 forget his three friends. He had joined them with 
 him in his prayers (ver. 17); together had their 
 petitions mounted up to God ; and now the first 
 petition which he offers to the king is that they 
 may be associated with him in the responsibilities 
 of his office. It was granted, and he had the hap- 
 piness of feeling that those whose duty it would be 
 to cany out his orders were dear friends whom he 
 could trust. For himself there was even higher 
 rank ; for he " sat in the gate of the king ; " in 
 other words, he was his confidential adviser and 
 chief minister, whose duty it was to be in constant 
 attendance upon the sovereign. 
 
82 DANIEL. 
 
 At the opening of the book we saw Daniel and 
 his three friends in the depth of their misery. 
 Torn from their homes, and separated from those 
 whom they held most dear, they had been con- 
 demned to slavery and galling service under a 
 despotic king. Selected next for special training 
 m a kind of learning that must often have grated 
 upon their consciences, they gave evidence of an 
 earnest self-denying faith, and by God's blessing 
 were rescued from contamination. But scarcely 
 was their training complete before the decree went 
 forth thafc they must be put to death, because their 
 masters had failed to declare a dream which the 
 king had himself forgotten ; and again their faith 
 gained the victory. In answer to their prayers 
 God revealed to them the secret, and now they are 
 raised to a position of great power and usefulness ; 
 but one wherein they must again be tried, to the 
 end that their faith, perfected by victory, may 
 enable them to be foremost in the great work of 
 regenerating at Babylon God's preparatory Church. 
 It was their grand office to summon the Jews back 
 to renewed earnestness and fresh and vigorous life, 
 in place of the long decay, and faithlessness, and 
 immorality which, in spite of the reforms of Heze- 
 kiah and Josiah, had made them unworthy to bear 
 witness for God during the last two centuries of 
 
A CONSTRAINED CONFESSION. 83 
 
 their existence in the promised land. The Jewish 
 Church had fallen, and must needs be brought back 
 to a better life. Chastisement and exile alone 
 would not have availed to work the change ; it was 
 wrought by the piety and zeal of Jeremiah at home, 
 and of Daniel and his friends in the land of their 
 captivity. 
 
( 84 ) 
 
 VI. 
 
 THE DURA IMAGE. 
 
 (Daniel iii. 1-7.) 
 
 OT. JAMES tells us that "the rich should rejoice in 
 that he is made low," and God mercifully sent 
 Daniel and his friends such trial as was necessary 
 for their spiritual advancement. They had en- 
 joyed temporal success and exaltation. Daniel had 
 entered the king's presence as a captive lad, who had 
 been selected to study the language and learning 
 of his conquerors, not from any feeling of kindness 
 to himself, but that he might be trained to stand 
 among the numerous slaves who ministered to the 
 pride and pomp of an Oriental despot. He had 
 entered there, too, under sentence of death, but he 
 had displayed such wisdom, such extraordinary 
 skill in interpreting the king s dream, such modest 
 courage and fortitude and truthfulness, that the 
 king had recognised in him something more than 
 mere human gifts, and had therefore made obeis- 
 ance to him, had treated him as a demi-god, and 
 
THE DURA IMAGE. 85 
 
 had even made him ruler of the home province of 
 Babylon, and at his request had given high place 
 to his three friends in the government under him. 
 
 An advance so rapid might have led to moral 
 declension on the part of these young men. Al- 
 ready their lives had been most eventful, and the 
 piety that had grown in the shade might have 
 withered in the sunshine of prosperity. In mercy, 
 therefore, to them, and for the good of the Jewish 
 exiles, there was still a terrible trial for them to 
 undergo ; and their faith again won the victory, 
 and thereby became so strong and massive that 
 henceforth no storm could overthrow them from 
 their firm foundations. And with them the whole 
 nation grew strong, and learned to trust in the 
 Lord God of their fathers. 
 
 Their trial came in this wise : " Nebuchadnezzar 
 the king made an image of gold." We have seen 
 even in his treatment of Daniel that he was still 
 an untutored heathen ; for he paid him something 
 like Divine honours, and while acknowledging 
 Daniel's God as a " God of gods," he was very far 
 from knowing that there is and can be but one sole 
 God. We find in the cuneiform inscriptions men- 
 tion of a whole pantheon of gods and goddesses 
 worshipped in Chaldea. Among these Nebuchad- 
 nezzar had doubtless some patron deity. It may 
 
86 DANIEL. 
 
 have been Nebo ; for his own name means " Nebo 
 protects from trouble." His father, Nabopolassar, 
 also bore a name compounded with that of the 
 same deity ; and as Nebuchadnezzar rebuilt his 
 temple at Borsippa, and also dedicated to him the 
 seaport which he formed on the Persian Gulf, we 
 may conclude that he was the king's tutelary god. 
 His name is the same as the Hebrew word Nabi, 
 prophet, and he was regarded as the god of 
 knowledge and eloquence, of learning and litera- 
 ture. They represented him, further, as the eldest 
 son of Ishtar, the planet Venus as the evening 
 star, herself the daughter of the moon-god. All 
 these absurdities never grated upon the reason 
 of the Babylonian wise men ; possibly they never 
 seriously reflected upon them. For after all, their 
 gods were not spiritual beings, who loved truth 
 and holiness ; they were but the powerful, pleasure- 
 loving, capricious inhabitants of another sphere, 
 capable of doing endless mischief, delighted to 
 receive honour from their worshippers, vindictive 
 if it were withheld. Polytheism is a thing most 
 degrading to men morally and mentally ; and 
 probably Nebuchadnezzar's view of his tutelary 
 god was that he was a powerful servitor, bound to 
 make him a handsome recompense for his worship 
 of him, but one who would never trouble himself 
 
THE DURA IMAGE. 87 
 
 about such things as the cruelty which was so 
 marked a characteristic of the king's conduct. 
 
 In honour, then, of thifi deity Nebuchadnezzar 
 set up a colossal statue, shaped in the form of a 
 man — for so the Hebrew word signifies — of sold, 
 but not necessarily solid. The word more pro- 
 bably means that it was overlaid with gold : and 
 it was perhaps raised upon a pedestal of some baser 
 material, as the reason of its vast size seems to 
 have been to make it visible throughout the whole 
 plain of Dura at sunrise, the hour of prayer. We 
 read in the " Speaker's Com." on this passage that 
 "during the trigonometrical survey of Mesopotamia, 
 Captain Selby ascertained that in the level plain of 
 Dura the dip of the horizon at twelve miles is 
 fifty-three feet." Now this image was sixty cubits, "^ 
 that is, seventy-five feet, in height, and seven and 
 a half feet in breadth. When then the sun struck 
 upon the shining metal in the morning it would be 
 visible all round Babylon to a distance of from 
 fifteen to twenty miles. We are not told the date 
 at which these occurrences took place, but it is 
 reasonable to suppose that it was soon after the 
 conquest of Egypt. Nebuchadnezzar would see 
 there the colossal statues erected near the lake 
 Moeris in honour of the kings of the twelfth 
 dynasty, represented each in a sitting posture, and 
 
8 8 DANIEL. 
 
 placed every one upon the summit of its own 
 pyramid. It was probably the sight of these vast 
 figures, visible in level Egypt to a great distance, 
 which suggested the idea to the Babylonian king ; 
 and the statue was probably a memorial and 
 thank-offering for the success which in Egypt and 
 elsewhere had crowned his arms, and was made of 
 the gold which he had plundered from the Egyptian 
 temples. He had probably long ago forgotten the 
 interview between himself and Daniel, and was 
 elated and made haughty and self-confident by a 
 long career of victory. 
 
 There had probably been long preparation for 
 the eventful day. The army of veteran warriors 
 had returned and paraded the country, displaying 
 their spoils. The king at its head had been re- 
 ceived with humble prostrations, and all that self- 
 abasement and degradation with which an Oriental 
 bows before the representative, not of law and right- 
 eousness, but of force. The most famous artists had 
 been gathered to decide upon the attitude and fea- 
 tures of the god, the size and shape had been care- 
 fully modelled, the plates of gold skilfully laid over 
 the frame, and at last all was ready for the feast of 
 dedication. And so finally the command goes forth 
 that all the great officials of the realm shall gather 
 round the king for the setting up of the image. 
 
THE DURA IMAGE. 89 
 
 This gathering of the chiefs would take some 
 months ; for messengers, runners on foot, would be 
 sent out, with proper credentials and commands to 
 the governors to forward them with all speed upon 
 their way; and when the royal despatches had 
 been received, each noble would make his prepara- 
 tions according to his rank, and would at last start 
 on his journey with a numerous retinue, all taking 
 with them tents and everything they would need 
 upon their travels. The list of officials gives us 
 a high idea, not only of the pomp of Nebuchad- 
 nezzar's court, but also of the efficiency of his 
 government. Those first mentioned are the 
 " 'Chashdarfana," whence our word " satrap," 
 shortened from " chashdraf." They were the 
 governors of provinces, where they reigned in well- 
 nigh regal splendour. We read of them also in 
 Esther iii. 1 2, where they are called in our version 
 " the king's lieutenants," which is a more correct 
 rendering than " princes," because their dignity was 
 solely derived from the king's appointment, and 
 not from birth or hereditary right. Next to the 
 satraps came the Sagans, translated "governors" 
 here and in chap. ii. 48. They were the lieutenants 
 of the satraps, just as the satraps were the king's 
 vicegerents. In chap. ii. 48 they are similarly those 
 next in rank to the chief ruler, but not, as here, in 
 
90 DANIEL. 
 
 military matters, but in the college of the wise 
 men. Next come the Pachwata, or pashas, in- 
 ferior governors ; and next the Adar-gazraya. 
 Adar means chief, and is used like our word 
 "arch ;" while gazer was the title of some class of 
 wise men (see chap. ii. 27 ; iv. 7). Interpreted by 
 the help of these passages it probably means 
 " chief soothsayers," who would be the archbishops 
 of the Chaldean realm. The Gedabraya, who came 
 next, were treasurers who had charge of the 
 revenues of the various satrapies. The Detabraya, 
 or counsellors, were the jurisprudents, men who 
 interpreted the law, and would answer to our 
 judges. The Tiftaya, the root of which word 
 appears in Mufti, were probably inferior judges, 
 but as the word occurs only here, its meaning is 
 uncertain. Finally, all the rulers of each province, 
 all the officials of the various districts, were to 
 accompany their chiefs. 
 
 And having thus provided for a large and glori- 
 ous concourse of high nobles at this grand cere- 
 mony in honour of so many victories, and of the 
 establishment of so vast an empire, as they stood 
 marshalled in order, according to their rank, a 
 herald made proclamation as follows : — 
 
 " To you it is commanded, people, nations, 
 and languages," &c. 
 
THE DURA IMAGE. 9 1 
 
 Now God has probably appointed a diversity of 
 languages to be a means for breaking up mankind 
 into separate nations. In the eleventh chapter of 
 Genesis we find that the effect of all men using one 
 tongue was the fostering of human arrogance ; and 
 the very purpose of the tower of Babel appears to 
 have been the establishment and maintenance of a 
 universal monarchy. When on the day of Pente- 
 cost the universal kingdom of our Lord was set up 
 on earth, this confusion of tongues was for the 
 time healed by a miracle, in token that in God's 
 realm of love there should be but one language. 
 And towards this noble consummation things seem 
 now to be tending ; for every year the number of 
 those who speak the English tongue is increasing 
 in large excess of those who speak any other 
 language, and the central bond of those who thus 
 speak our language is undoubtedly the English 
 Bible. If the increase of the English-speaking race 
 proceeds in the same proportion during the next 
 half century as has prevailed during the last fifty 
 years, it will not only be foremost, as it is already 
 in power and influence, but it will be absolutely 
 the largest in respect of actual numbers. And we 
 may even venture to say that the reason why God 
 has given to this race its rapid increase, its domi- 
 nance in both hemispheres, and its vast influence, 
 
92 DANIEL. 
 
 is because God has appointed it to be His instru- 
 ment for the setting up throughout the world of 
 that universal monarchy " which shall never be 
 destroyed, and of which the rule shall not be left 
 to another people." Already England and America 
 are foremost in missionary effort, and in the print- 
 ing and circulation of the Word of God. But as 
 yet it is but a feeble effort, and when the whole 
 English-speaking population awakens to a sense of 
 its greatness, and of the high purpose for which 
 God has bestowed upon it so large an extension 
 and so high a place, the kingdoms of the earth will 
 rapidly be made the kingdoms of our God, and 
 upon the ground, now being with so great toil pre- 
 pared for it, will rise " the great mountain which 
 shall fill all the earth." 
 
 Nebuchadnezzar's universal empire, with its 
 pompous address to the " peoples, nations, and 
 languages," was but a poor counterfeit of God's 
 universal empire ; but it is a fact worth reflecting 
 upon, that man is ever attempting to compass in 
 some way of his own that which God also purposes 
 to accomplish in His perfect way. God has given 
 to Christ the kingdoms of this world, and of His 
 dominion there shall be no end, and He shall reign 
 for ever and ever. But it is a kingdom of love 
 and truth, which by the weapons of persuasion shall 
 
THE DURA IMAGE. 93 
 
 gain its victories to bless and comfort and ennoble 
 all who are vanquished by it. But man is made 
 in God's image, after His likeness, and many of 
 the noblest minds have dreamed of a universal 
 empire to be set up by force of arms, and main- 
 tained by mechanical and intellectual supremacy. 
 This would not really be for man's good ; nay, it 
 would work only for evil. As it is, each language 
 has its own peculiarities, which are at once the 
 result and perpetuating cause of a varied mental 
 development. What a loss it would have been to 
 the world if the Greek or the Latin language had 
 never existed ! How greatly are our minds en- 
 riched by the masterpieces produced in the many 
 languages of modern Europe ! And so in science 
 and art and commerce each portion of mankind 
 has its special gifts, and works for the common 
 good. Nor is the contribution of each kingdom 
 in proportion to its size or population. The greater 
 effort required to maintain their well-being often 
 calls forth higher qualities in the inhabitants of 
 some nation whose political importance is but small. 
 No greater misfortune could happen to mankind 
 than for one kingdom to dominate over the rest. 
 Often has the attempt been made, but always the 
 providence of God has brought it to nought. And 
 in His own universal empire the common bond 
 
94 DANIEL. 
 
 will be a common faith, and the worship of the 
 same Father in heaven, and of Jesus Christ our 
 Lord. But it will not crush out the rights of 
 peoples or of individuals, and the nations without 
 distrust or fear will all of them keep " the bounds 
 of their habitation determined for them " (Acts 
 xvii. 26). 
 
 The musical instruments mentioned in the fifth 
 verse have led to much controversy, it having been 
 asserted that they are mostly of Greek origin ; and 
 from this assumption the conclusion has been in- 
 ferred that the Book of Daniel was written in the 
 time of the Maccabees, when the Greek language 
 had been made dominant by the conquests of 
 Alexander. But modern investigations have shown 
 that Greek trade with the continent of Asia is of 
 vast antiquity. Caravans carried Greek goods far 
 and wide, and their native names went with 
 them. No philologer is now surprised at finding 
 the Greek name for a knife in a document so old 
 as the last words of Jacob ; nor at translating, 
 " instruments of cruelty are their knives " (Gen. 
 xlix. 5). The pastoral tribes of Palestine knew 
 nothing about metallurgy, and their cutting instru- 
 ments were all imported from Greece. Those of 
 Jacob's sons were probably knives of bronze. 
 
 But the assertion that the names of these instru- 
 
THE DURA IMAGE. 95 
 
 ments are Greek is a rash one. The names of the 
 horn and of the flute — literally whistler, and prob- 
 ably, therefore, some sort of pipe — are confessedly 
 Semitic. The harp is literally the cither, or 
 guitar, probably the oldest musical instrument in 
 the world. The usual Hebrew and Syriac name 
 is chinnor, which also found its way as kinur into 
 the Greek language. Alike in ancient and modern 
 times the name is most widely spread, being found 
 in almost every tongue, and it is formed, as our 
 ears tell us, from the sound made by the vibration 
 of the strings. But though found in Greek, it is 
 not a Greek word, but belongs to some primeval 
 tongue. The next instrument has been translated 
 " sackbut," not from any idea that this was the 
 true meaning of the word, but because there is a 
 similarity of sound between the two names. The 
 sackbut is a sort of bagpipe, while the sabcha was 
 a stringed instrument of a triangular shape, pro- 
 ducing sounds so sharp as to be disagreeable. It 
 also found its way into Greece and Eome, carrying 
 its Oriental name with it, slightly altered into scun- 
 buca. The next instrument is the psanterin, which 
 looks like the Greek word psalterion, but there are 
 many difficulties, as Dr. Pusey pointed out in his 
 " Lectures on Daniel," in this identification. 
 
 There is nothing, however, surprising in Greek 
 
9 6 DANIEL. 
 
 musical instruments being found at such an em- 
 porium of commerce as Babylon, and at the court 
 of a great kino;. But when we come to the last 
 name, " symphonia," translated dulcimer, we are 
 compelled to hesitate at the conclusion that any of 
 these words are really Greek. For here we have 
 undoubtedly a Greek word, while the thing is as 
 certainly Oriental. We have, in fact, here an illus- 
 tration of the well-known principle that people 
 always endeavour to give a meaning to foreign 
 words admitted into their language. Thus the 
 French chaussee is altered by us into " causeway," 
 because it thus seems to become intelligible to those 
 who only understand their native tongue. The 
 instrument itself is the Oriental sephonya, called 
 by the Italians zampogna, and in old French 
 chifonie. It seems to have been a sort of reed- 
 pipe, and the Greek word " symphony," that is, 
 " unison of sound," gave no better idea of the 
 instrument than " causeway " does of the French 
 chaussee. Meier derives the word from a root 
 signifying to draw together, as if it too was a kind 
 of bagpipe ; but really the names of musical instru- 
 ments are some of the oldest of all existent words, 
 and their general prevalence is one of the many 
 arguments in proof of a common origin for Ian- 
 
THE DURA IMAGE. 97 
 
 guages finally so remote as the Semitic and the 
 Aryan families of tongues. 
 
 But though thus proclaimed to the sound of 
 sweet music, it was a stern command that went 
 forth. Nebuchadnezzar would allow no doubt or 
 uncertainty as regards the homage to be paid to 
 his god. As harp and horn and flute breathed 
 forth their notes, all that vast assemblage of men, 
 of the highest rank and famous for learning, were 
 to throw themselves prostrate on the ground and 
 offer worship. There were men there professing 
 every form of belief : fire-worshippers who regarded 
 all idols with abomination ; men who worshipped 
 two opposing principles, one good, one evil ; others 
 who had their own national gods, and who hated 
 the gods of their conquerors as beings that had 
 wronged them. It did not matter. In an empire 
 of force, no man has any rights, and were any one 
 daring enough to think and act for himself, his fate 
 would be to " be cast that same hour into the 
 midst of a burning fiery furnace." 
 
 What strange resistance was offered to the royal 
 mandate we shall soon see, and we shall find that 
 a true religion alone claims for its followers, and 
 concedes even to those who reject it, freedom for 
 the conscience. False religions and infidelity con- 
 spire in suppressing the rights of conscience. The 
 
 G 
 
98 DANIEL. 
 
 infidel would crush religion by main force ; a false 
 religion will allow no questioning of its creed. 
 A true religion is a religion of love to otherjS, and 
 of holy boldness on the part of those who pro- 
 fess it. Its weapons are " love, joy, peace, long- 
 suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meek- 
 ness." But gentle though it be, it is strong to 
 bear and suffer ; and no heroes have been so firm 
 and steadfast as the martyrs of the Jewish and 
 the Christian Church. 
 
( 09 ) 
 
 VII. 
 
 THE ACCUSATION. 
 
 (Daniel iii. 8-15.) 
 
 T17E have seen that the setting up of the colossal 
 image in the plain of Dura was really an act 
 01 self-glorification. Nebuchadnezzar had no pur- 
 pose of thanking God for his victories. It is one 
 of the many beneficent results of Christianity that 
 it humbles the victor in . the hour of his pride. 
 That greaft conquering race of old, the Komans, felt 
 the necessity of this. Many a brave soldier pro- 
 bably had come home so elated by success, and 
 hardened by the possession of absolute power, that 
 his fellow-citizens could ill endure him. On the 
 solemn day, therefore, when he entered their city in 
 triumph, they placed behind him on the car on 
 which he rode a slave, whose business it was to bend 
 forward from time to time and whisper in his ear, 
 " Look behind thee ; remember that thou too art a 
 man." Christianity acts in a far different way. It 
 bids the victor look upward to God, and see in Him 
 
100 DANIEL. 
 
 the giver of all good gifts ; and thus it reminds 
 him that it is God who has given him the victory, 
 and that he is God's minister, and must use all he 
 has and is for God's glory. 
 
 Now the prophet Jeremiah tells us (chap. xxv. 
 9) that Nebuchadnezzar was in an especial sense 
 Jehovah's minister, raised up to perform certain 
 definite duties. But the king thought that his 
 great success, the wonderful victories that he had 
 gained, and the vast empire which he had welded 
 together by force of arms, were all the result of his 
 own bravery, and skill, and vigour. And so on his 
 return, from Egypt he celebrated his conquests by 
 setting up this image, and gathering together all 
 the magnates of his realm to participate in the 
 pomp of its dedication. Nominally he dedicated 
 the image to Nebo ; but Nebo was nothing more 
 than the deity whose business it was to take care 
 of him, and see that his wishes were accomplished. 
 In the Babylonian inscriptions there is a great 
 show of respect for a crowd of deities. They are 
 all mentioned in due order, with flattering words 
 of courtesy, and the respectful invocation of their 
 aid. Most careful were even kings to do them 
 all honour, because they were very capricious and 
 easily offended and revengeful. But there was no 
 submission to them of the will ; no recognition 
 
THE ACCUSATION. 101 
 
 in them of anything better or holier than human 
 qualities ; no obedience to them as the givers of 
 law. They were powerful, mischievous, changeable ; 
 and so they must be kept in good-humour. There 
 was no acknowledgment on the part of the heathen 
 that God was just, and good, and true ; and the 
 favour of the Deity was, they supposed, to be won 
 by the costliness of the gift, and not by the holy 
 life of the worshipper. 
 
 And at length the day of Nebuchadnezzar's 
 triumph had arrived. Marshalled upon a vast 
 plain which extended itself in unbroken sameness 
 to the verge of the horizon, stood all the pomp and 
 strength and prowess of the Babylonian empire. 
 The hour was probably the early morning. When 
 the first rays of the rising sun lit up the head of 
 the golden image, and made it visible far and wide, 
 the music was to sound, and the whole concourse 
 was to prostrate itself upon the ground. It would 
 be a wonderful sight, such as no one present could 
 ever forget. There is little twilight in those 
 latitudes, and the transition from the deep dark 
 blue of the sky, illumined by constellations which 
 shine with brilliancy far exceeding that of the stars 
 in our northern regions, to the splendour of a 
 tropical day is rapid in the extreme. And as the 
 sun shone forth, this colossus of gold would break 
 
102 DANIEL. 
 
 upon the sight in dazzling radiance, and it would 
 seem as if some god had indeed come down to 
 earth. 
 
 But, as we have said, this concourse was not 
 intended to do God honour. The thought of 
 living and dying for God's glory is Christian, and 
 not heathen. Even Judaism fell short of this 
 elevation of thought, and only the religion of 
 Christ teaches us without thought of self to refer 
 all to God. If the Bible opens with the grand 
 truth that one God created all things, it is in the 
 last book of the New Testament that the words are 
 added "And for thy pleasure they are and were 
 created " (Eev. iv. 1 1 ). 
 
 Now heathenism attained to neither of these 
 ennobling truths. It knew of no Creator, and 
 understood, therefore, nothing of the relation 
 which exists between man as God's workmanship 
 and God as the maker, the owner, the preserver of 
 the things He had created for His glory. The 
 heathen had no idea of any relationship between 
 him and his god, except that he was his patron 
 and could help him occasionally, and always do 
 him a great deal of harm. He had to treat him, 
 therefore, with a great deal of deference and much 
 show of outward respect. But it was not the 
 honour of his god that was the first thought with 
 
THE ACCUSATION. 103 
 
 Nebuchadnezzar in summoning this vast gathering. 
 It was pride in himself, elation at his victories, 
 boastfulness and arrogance, that made him dedicate 
 this mighty image, and summon all his chieftains 
 together to witness the ceremony. There was 
 policy too ; for he wished them to go back im- 
 pressed with the greatness of his power ; and if 
 any grieved at the loss of their national independ- 
 ence, he would make them understand how hope- 
 less was resistance. What possibility could there 
 be of shaking off the yoke of so mighty a con- 
 queror ! We may imagine him, therefore, casting 
 his eyes all around, himself elated with the vast- 
 ness of the concourse, of which every man repre- 
 sented some province or town, whose one despotic 
 ruler was himself. Far and wide, throughout 
 realms which but a short while ago had their own 
 laws and native government, one will alone pre- 
 vailed, one voice alone gave the law ; and be it 
 but the veriest whim or trifle, all those powerful 
 satraps, and the provinces where they dwelt as 
 kings, must bow their wills, and bend even their 
 laws to gratify the mere passing fancy of their 
 lord. There must be no hesitation, no questioning 
 whether the command were just and right. It 
 might be wrong and abominable, but that trained 
 army, which that day celebrated its triumph, 
 
104 DANIEL. 
 
 would enforce obedience. Where one man has 
 despotic power, his subjects must not think that 
 there are rights of conscience. Conscience grows 
 and develops only where it is protected by equal 
 laws ; but it never attains to its full power except 
 where there is a true religion, and men learn and 
 feel that they must obey God rather than man. 
 
 But in the very hour of his exaltation, when to 
 himself and to most of those who formed that 
 mighty crowd, the sole thought was of the pride 
 and majesty of the victorious king, strange news 
 is brought to him. Some of his courtiers drew 
 near, Chaldeans, men belonging to the dominant 
 class at Babylon, and who therefore regarded 
 Nebuchadnezzar's grandeur as reflecting splendour 
 upon themselves ; yet probably moved by meaner 
 feelings. For the elevation of Jews to foremost 
 rank was the bestowal upon aliens of what they 
 regarded as belonging to themselves. Partly then 
 as claiming to be especially loyal, and partly through 
 grudge at the promotion of Daniel and his com- 
 panions, they approached the king. They saluted 
 him with the usual but extravagant wish of 
 never-ending life, and after reciting his decree re- 
 quiring universal prostration, and threatening all 
 who refused with a most cruel death, they said, 
 " There are certain Jews whom thou hast set 
 
THE ACCUSATION. 105 
 
 over the affairs of the province of Babylon, 
 Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego ; these men, 
 king, have not regarded thee : they serve not thy 
 gods, nor worship the golden image which thou 
 hast set up" (ver. 12). 
 
 Now it is probable that more than twenty years 
 had passed since Daniel and his companions had 
 been placed in a position of great influence ; and 
 during those twenty years Nebuchadnezzar had 
 been establishing that first universal monarchy 
 which Daniel had characterised as the head of 
 gold. That dream and its interpretation had 
 occurred about the year 603 B.C., while the date 
 assigned to the setting up of the image is 580 B.C. 
 We gather, therefore, that Daniel and his friends 
 had long been faithfully discharging their duties to 
 the king, keeping matters right at home while he 
 was far away at the head of the army, governing 
 the people justly and mercifully ; but even by 
 their upright administration making many enemies, 
 who would gladly have seen men more manageable 
 and more accessible to bribes and other corrupt 
 influences at the head of affairs. And now these 
 firm, righteous governors were in their power. 
 They had disobeyed the king's command, and 
 while all besides had prostrated themselves on the 
 ground, they stubbornly had stood erect. 
 
106 DANIEL. 
 
 Every point in the accusation is put with telling 
 force. They were officers in authority, and there- 
 fore bound to set an example of obedience. They 
 owed their preferment to the royal favour, and 
 were thereby, for very gratitude's sake, such as 
 should have been foremost to do the king honour. 
 They were aliens set over the nation, and it was 
 their duty not to offend national prejudices. 
 Nevertheless, they had shown no respect to the 
 king ; for they had not served his gods, nor 
 prostrated themselves before the image he had 
 set up. 
 
 No doubt this was the very view that Nebuchad- 
 nezzar would take, that it was an act of disrespect, 
 and even of insult, to himself. For the image was 
 but a symbol of his own glory, and the god was to 
 be honoured because he had done his duty by his 
 haughty worshipper. And as the day and the 
 occasion was thus one of personal pride and boast- 
 ing, it seemed to the king an act of treason and 
 utterly unendurable that these officers, who owed 
 everything to his favour, should dare to disregard 
 his orders. 
 
 But what was it that made these three noble 
 men risk life and all they had rather than bow 
 themselves for a few moments upon the ground ? 
 It was from no disrespect to the king. Probably 
 
THE ACCUSATION. 107 
 
 those many years of warfare had produced a 
 hardening effect upon Nebuchadnezzar, and done 
 much to make him that cruel and blood-stained 
 tyrant which is the character given to him in 
 history. But it was no protest against the king's 
 degeneracy which made the Jewish young men 
 disobey his command. They would have yielded 
 a ready obedience if it had been possible. It 
 was impossible. And why ? Because it was not 
 right. 
 
 Here we have one of the most precious results of 
 a true religion. In false religions the character of 
 God is so debased that His worship is of a feeble 
 and temporising character. Only a true religion 
 makes the uncompromising demand, " Thou shalt 
 love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and Him 
 only shalt thou serve." It was no business of 
 these Jews to judge Nebuchadnezzar and say, 
 " Long possession of dictatorial power has done 
 injury to thy moral character, and we will not 
 obey a bad man." "We find the apostles inculcating 
 obedience to " the powers that be " at a time when 
 a Nero was Emperor at Borne. And yet the 
 Christians, while yielding a ready obedience, even 
 to a Nero, refused apparently so slight a concession 
 as burning a few grains of incense before the 
 emperors bust, and died rather than obey. The 
 
108 DANIEL. 
 
 command was often urged upon them from motives 
 of compassion, and their compliance made as easy 
 as possible ; but all in vain. They preferred death 
 to submission ; and Christendom has ever since 
 crowned them with honour and regarded them as 
 men worthy of endless praise. The Christian rule 
 of conduct is obedience in all things innocent and 
 lawful ; but obedience to God first of all, and 
 wherever earthly rulers command anything con- 
 trary to God's will, then " we ought to obey God 
 rather than men" (Acts v. 29).. 
 
 It is a painful question whether we nationally 
 act up to this high standard. For the purpose of 
 propitiating our heathen or Mohammedan fellow- 
 subjects, our troops, or others whom we employ, 
 are sometimes required to take part in processions 
 and ceremonies in honour of false gods. Often it 
 sorely tries the conscience of many a brave man, 
 and he feels that his allegiance to his God is 
 compromised by the command given to him by his 
 officers. He feels that he, a Christian, is required 
 to do that which these three noble Jews were 
 willing to die rather than consent to do. Ought 
 Christian rulers thus to violate the consciences of 
 their subjects 1 Can that political expediency be 
 right which humiliates those who worship the true 
 God in order to conciliate men who worship idols ? 
 
THE ACCUSATION. 109 
 
 Even if it did conciliate them, it would be to their 
 real injury, because it would only bind more firmly 
 around them the bonds of impure and unholy and 
 debasing superstitions. But does it conciliate 
 them ? Does it not rather make them despise a 
 nation which affects to give outward honour to 
 that which it at the same time rejects as irra- 
 tional and false ? 
 
 There was a more manly firmness about these 
 three Jews. They asserted that there was a differ- 
 ence between truth and falsehood, between right 
 and wrong. And they acted in accordance with 
 their professions. 
 
 They were Nebuchadnezzar's officers, and would 
 gladly have obeyed his lawful commands. But he 
 required them to do that which the law of God 
 forbade. Jehovah had given His people in the 
 Ten Commandments clear rules for their conduct. 
 At the time when He spake them the laws of 
 morality were but ill understood. Mercifully, God 
 gave by the voice of inspiration a plain summary 
 of duty, and the conscience of man has for more 
 than three thousand years bowed before their 
 might, and accepted them as a true embodiment 
 of the laws of right and wrong. But for Shadrach, 
 Meshach, and Abed-nego it was enough that they 
 were the inspired declaration of the will of God, 
 
110 DANIEL. 
 
 and as being His will, they were ready to obey at 
 all hazards. Now two of these commandments 
 forbade compliance with the king's orders. True 
 that a thousand years had passed since they were 
 enacted, and that circumstances had greatly 
 changed. Were they, captives at Babylon, to 
 give up positions of great usefulness, which God 
 had given them providentially in order that they 
 mio-ht soften the treatment of their brethren in 
 exile — were they to abandon all this rather than 
 bend their bodies for a minute with thousands 
 of other men ? They might have argued that they 
 did not worship the image, but merely paid due 
 respect to the king. They might have said that 
 though they prostrated the body, the mind stood 
 erect, and with it they worshipped only Jehovah. 
 But they had recourse to no casuistry. Casuistry 
 is too often only the art of finding excuses for 
 evading the laws of God. These steadfast Jews 
 
 o 
 
 felt that they must obey the laws of God in their 
 simple and primary sense. They might have to 
 die a painful and horrible death, but even so 
 they felt that it was right to obey God rather 
 than man. 
 
 There was no delay in pronouncing their doom ; 
 for we thus read, " Then Nebuchadnezzar in his 
 rage and fury commanded to bring Shadrach, 
 
THE ACCUSATION. Ill 
 
 Meshach, and Abed-nedo. Then they brought 
 these men before the king" (ver. 13). 
 
 Fierce was the conqueror's wrath ; for their dis- 
 obedience was an offence against himself. Still 
 there was some degree of moderation in his conduct. 
 He asks, "Is it true ? Do not ye serve my gods ? " 
 More exactly the words mean, " Is it of set purpose, 
 Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, that ye 
 serve not my gods, nor worship the golden image 
 which I have set up ? " (ver. 14.) 
 
 The king probably called to mind their long and 
 faithful service ; he may even have remembered 
 Daniel's interpretation of his dream, and that he 
 had promoted these men because of the extraordi- 
 nary events at that time. But he may also have 
 simply doubted whether such disobedience were 
 possible. It may have seemed to him incredible 
 that at such a time any one should dare to beard 
 him, and disregard a command given under so ter- 
 rible a penalty. There must be some mistake. 
 They must have misunderstood his order ; and so 
 he repeats it to them. The varied strains of music 
 shall again resound, and all shall stand about them 
 and witness their obedience. " If ye fall down and 
 worship the image which I have made ; well : but 
 if ye worship not, ye shall be cast the same hour 
 into the midst of a burning fiery furnace ; and 
 
112 DANIEL. 
 
 who is that God that shall deliver you out of my 
 hand?" (ver. 15). 
 
 These last defiant impious words show that the 
 king had a suspicion that after all the act was a 
 wilful one, and done for a religious reason. He 
 "knew that the Jews were unlike all other people. 
 There was something about them very unbending 
 and uncompromising, especially in matters of reli- 
 gion. They did not patronise their Deity as he 
 patronised Nebo and Merodach, but obeyed Him, 
 and were ready to suffer for His sake. For their 
 God was the One God, holy, just, and true, who, 
 though He will not clear the guilty, is merciful and 
 compassionate ; yet is He also supreme, and claims 
 empire over all the earth. No people on earth 
 besides held such views about their God. 
 
 Wonderful is the power of faith in one God, if 
 that faith be no mere pantheistic fancy of a blind 
 agency pervading nature, or of God being a uni- 
 versal spirit, of whom we ourselves are part, and 
 into whose broad bosom we and all things return. 
 The faith that has power is a belief in a personal 
 God, who rewards and punishes (Heb. xi. 6). Of 
 such a God Nebuchadnezzar had no idea, and in 
 his arrogant challenge there was probably no con- 
 scious blasphemy. His gods were his servitors ; 
 and what could the Jewish Jehovah do more than 
 
THE ACCUSATION. 113 
 
 Nebo and Merodach ? The words express his proud 
 conviction of his thorough superiority. And such 
 a feeling was not without some justification. Nebu- 
 chadnezzar was more powerful than his gods. No 
 doubt he supposed that they had some sort of 
 power somewhere or other ; but power over him 
 they had little. They might help him, and ought 
 to do so. If they neglected him, he might order 
 their temples to be levelled to the ground, and 
 forbid men henceforth ever to worship them. And 
 if he thus acted, their priests would soon represent 
 their gods as very humble and contrite, and would 
 patch up a peace between them and their too- 
 powerful votary. No heathen can really respect 
 his gods, or care to imitate or obey them. 
 
 In our next study we will consider the noble 
 answer of these three men. Let me now, in con- 
 clusion, say a few words upon the importance of 
 right views of the nature of God. The degradation 
 of the heathen world was greatly caused by the 
 base and silly tenets of their religions. In Greece 
 the gods were poetic beings, mere creatures of the 
 fancy, and naturally, therefore, were pleasure-loving, 
 licentious, and impure. Their worship was but a 
 cloak for sin, and their festivals were but an occa- 
 sion of shameless riot and wanton revelry. The 
 gods of Eome were embodiments of the strong 
 
 H 
 
114 DANIEL. 
 
 elements of the national character, and did nothing 
 to repress cruelty and violence or check the fierce- 
 ness of their passions, but rather served to excuse 
 or gild their lust for war. When subsequently 
 they had attained to empire, their beliefs, if any 
 remained, were but incentives to voluptuousness, 
 the reaction from which was a stoical repression of 
 all healthy and natural feeling. And in the East, 
 with its deep under-current of melancholy and 
 despair, religion was a blood-stained superstition, 
 which did but deepen the gloom, and cause the 
 worshipper in his misery to seek by the sacrifice of 
 all he held most dear to propitiate cruel and insa- 
 tiate demons. The religion of these three Jews 
 was one that told them of God's universal empire, 
 of His justice, and yet of His love. What comfort 
 for these poor exiles at Babylon to know that even 
 there the God whom they served was the sole 
 King, without whose will nothing could happen in 
 heaven or in earth. There can be no security on 
 earth, no firm confidence in hours of difficulty and 
 danger, unless there be above us one sovereign, 
 almighty, eternal Lord, whose will is calmly and 
 persistently carrying onwards His purposes of mercy 
 and love. 
 
 These men too were suffering chastisement. Now, 
 punishment usually hardens. The fear of it may 
 
THE ACCUSATION, 1 1 5 
 
 deter from crime ; but the offender who has been 
 detected and punished generally loses all sense of 
 shame, and is made fit for worse offences. But in 
 God's dealings with His people in chastisement 
 there is that which makes it healthful, and the 
 spring of a regenerate life. The Jews in exile were 
 made to feel that God was dealing with them in 
 love. It was no blazing furnace of destruction into 
 which they were cast ; but they had been placed in 
 the refiner's fire, in order that they might come 
 forth all glorious and pure. It was not the hard 
 scourge of tyrant or slave-owner that was giving 
 them temporary pain ; it was the gentle hand of 
 a loving father : and so at Babylon the God who 
 was punishing them was also their comfort and 
 strength, and the sure rock of their confidence. 
 Their thought was, that "like as a father pitieth 
 his children, so Jehovah pitieth them that fear 
 Him" (Ps. ciii. 13); and the whole nation turned 
 in humility and penitence back to God, because 
 they were sure that He loved them. And so was 
 it with these three. They were sure that Jehovah 
 loved them, and therefore even death was sweet if 
 borne for His sake. 
 
 But, finally, there was that which gave strength 
 and stability to their conduct. The pathway of 
 life is not always strewn with rose-leaves ; if it 
 
116 DANIEL. 
 
 were, men should soon deteriorate into effeminate 
 lovers of softness. There was a firm, stern centre 
 to the faith of these Jews. God was loving and 
 kind ; but He was also just, and One who claims 
 obedience. It is no true faith which is devoid of 
 a deep sense of duty to God. There is nothing 
 nobler in man than this sense of duty, and the 
 determination firmly and manfully to obey God's 
 law, and do what is right. The thought that made 
 them bold and resolute was not so much the con- 
 viction that God is the universal King, as that He 
 was their King. Come what would, in weal and 
 woe, in the sunshine of prosperity and in the dark 
 hours of imminent and painful death, they must 
 obey God. He might save them ; He might let 
 them bring Him glory by their martyrdom. With 
 this they had no concern. They must not be 
 guided by regard to consequences. These they 
 must leave to God. Their duty was to obey Him, 
 and bear all that might follow, and brave danger, 
 and pain, and death. 
 
 It was their firm faith that supported them in 
 their trial. But it held them up because their reli- 
 gion was true, and gave them right and adequate 
 ideas about God. And in this lies the importance 
 of a true religion, that it raises and elevates men, 
 and gives strength and nobleness to their lives. 
 
THE ACCUSATION. 117 
 
 Every corruption of our creed, every erroneous 
 doctrine and perversion of view, is a distinct loss. 
 As far as it goes it depresses our spiritual standard, 
 enfeebles our conscience, takes away the inner bone 
 from our characters, and makes us unequal to a 
 firm and consistent walk with God. But a true 
 and scriptural belief will not by itself suffice. 
 There must be a living faith in the God which it 
 sets before us. Many a Jew, it may be, prostrated 
 himself before the image. These three did not, 
 because to true doctrine there was added a firm 
 real faith in the God whom their inspired Scriptures 
 had made known to them. 
 
( US ) 
 
 VIII. 
 
 CALMNESS AND FURY. 
 
 (Daniel iii. 16-23.) 
 
 " A NEBUCHADNEZZAK, we are not careful to 
 answer thee in this matter." In the answer 
 of the three Jewish young men to Nebuchadnezzar 
 there is the same firm ring as in that given by 
 St. Peter to the Jewish Sanhedrim, " We ought 
 to obey God rather than men." In neither 
 case was there any defiance or rudeness, though 
 the king might regard any and all resistance to 
 his orders as an act of rebellion. But there was 
 the fearless statement that a higher authority 
 existed than that of either king or sanhedrim, with 
 the unflinching determination to yield obedience 
 where it was due. If the king's command had 
 not clashed with the law of God, the three Jewish 
 officers would have obeyed it ; for in all earthly 
 matters the king's authority was real. But he had 
 passed beyond the bounds of his legitimate rights 
 and trespassed on those of God ; and it was their 
 
CALMNESS AND FURY. 119 
 
 duty, as it is the duty of all men, to " obey God 
 and not men " wherever the two powers stand 
 opposed to one another. 
 
 In our Version there is an appearance of rude- 
 ness, but it is because the word careful has changed 
 its meaning. "To be careful " means now to take 
 pains in a matter, and to be prudent and cautious. 
 Now it would have been wrong to have been in- 
 different as to the form of their answer, or to have 
 replied lightly, and so as to have irritated Nebu- 
 chadnezzar without reason. But when our Version 
 was made, careful meant full of care, anxious ; and 
 so the words then rightly rendered, " Be careful 
 for nothing " (Phil. iv. 6), are in the Revised 
 Version now rightly rendered, " In nothing be 
 anxious," because the meaning of the word has 
 changed. So when Isaiah addresses the " careless 
 daughters " of Jerusalem, no blame is intended in 
 the word used by the prophet. Really it is equi- 
 valent to the " being at ease/' and the persons 
 addressed are the women of the wealthier classes, 
 whose life was raised above anxiety for their daily 
 wants. 
 
 Our translators therefore meant. " We are not 
 anxious or distressed about our answer, but leave 
 the matter calmly to God." This is not, however, 
 the exact sense of the Chaldee in this place, which 
 
120 DANIEL. 
 
 more accurately means, " It is not our business to 
 answer thee, king." It is not we on whom the 
 matter rests. Eeally it belongs to God. And this 
 sense is brought out more clearly by the correct 
 translation of vers. 17, 18, " If our God, whom we 
 serve, is able to deliver us from the furnace, He 
 will deliver us ; but if not, we still cannot obey 
 thee, but prefer death to idolatry." This trans- 
 lation has probably been avoided, because it seems 
 to imply a doubt in their minds as regards God's 
 power to save ; but such is not really the meaning. 
 There is no wavering in their hearts, but the form 
 of their language was settled by the opening words, 
 that it was not . their business to answer. They 
 felt that faith in the existence of God was at stake. 
 It was not a controversy between three Jewish 
 captives and the mighty king whose slaves they 
 were. The controversy was between belief in one 
 supreme Almighty God and idolatry. It was thus 
 God's matter, and He would settle it for Himself 
 in His own way. They do not boast, and assert 
 that necessarily their God could and would deliver 
 them, but were willing that it should be put to the 
 proof. Nevertheless they knew that God does not 
 often interfere with human beings by direct in- 
 tervention. From time to time His people have 
 to honour Him by suffering for Him ; and for this 
 
CALMNESS AND FURY. 121 
 
 they were prepared. " But if not, that is, if God 
 do not deliver us out of thy hands, then we are 
 content to die." There was no doubt in their minds 
 that God could save them ; but they were not 
 equally sure that He would. That must depend 
 upon His good will and pleasure. And if He did 
 not deliver them, they were ready to attest their 
 allegiance to Him and their hatred of idolatry by 
 dying rather than worship the image which the 
 king had set up. 
 
 There was, then, in the words no determination 
 to force God, as it were, to save them by a miracle. 
 But there was, first of all, the exercise of free-will 
 and choice. This is what St. Paul enjoins upon 
 all Christians when he bids them " prove all things " 
 ( i Thess. v. 2 1 ). And it is both a very noble and 
 also a very serious thing. It is noble, because we 
 exercise in it our gift of reason, that high faculty 
 which distinguishes man from all other denizens of 
 this world. But reason alone does not choose for 
 us. Perhaps even it seldom chooses, but is em- 
 ployed to find causes, excuses, and pretences for 
 conclusions arrived at without any careful examina- 
 tion whether they are right and true. What really 
 chooses for us is our will. "We decide according to 
 our affections, our passions, our desires, and the 
 influence of past actions and of habits already 
 
122 DANIEL. 
 
 formed. And herein lies the serious side of our 
 duty of making choice. Our happiness or misery 
 in life, our peace or our ruin in eternity, depend 
 upon the manner in which we here decide what 
 shall be the motives on which we act, and what 
 our conduct shall be. 
 
 It is in our thus having the power to decide for 
 ourselves and choose as we will that our likeness 
 to God and our being fashioned in His image 
 consists. Our likeness to Him who is the great 
 First Cause does not consist in our being endowed 
 with reason, though reason is a Divine gift to aid 
 us in making our choice aright. Nevertheless 
 when Eve committed the first sin done upon earth 
 she made use of her reason. She took the for- 
 bidden thing not idly, but because she " saw that 
 the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant 
 to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one 
 wise" (Gen. iii. 6). Every one of these three 
 points was weighty. Not much weight perhaps 
 in the matter of the supply of food for material 
 wants, but much in its adding to the pleasure and 
 refinement of life, and most of all in its leading to 
 growth of knowledge and intellectual activity. 
 Yet the taking of the fruit was a sin and the 
 cause of terrible misery. For reason served her 
 just as it serves us. It gave her a one-sided repre- 
 
CALMNESS AND FURY. 123 
 
 sentation, and adduced only arguments and motives 
 in favour of taking. The arguments for refraining 
 it omitted. And this is ever the case. Eeason is 
 an advocate which makes the best of its own side. 
 It does not choose its side, but is retained by other 
 powers, and argues for a foregone conclusion. Eve 
 wished for the fruit, and her reason gave her three 
 good arguments in justification of taking it. So 
 with us. In the hour of temptation and trial 
 reason will not save us. We shall stand or fall 
 according as our will decides for us, and reason 
 will be the ready advocate to justify whatever 
 we do. 
 
 What then can save us ? Only the power of 
 faith acting upon our will, and enabling us firmly 
 to choose a life of duty. If there be no spiritual 
 life in the soul, nothing there to sanctify the will, 
 the brightest and clearest intellect may be humbled 
 unto the service of sin and Satan. Now these 
 three Jews were men who knew the power of faith, 
 and they came into the king's presence with their 
 minds fully made up upon the most momentous 
 question which can occupy the heart of man. It 
 is, in fact, the great alternative to be settled by us 
 all. The purpose of this life plainly seems to be 
 that we should in it choose between present pleasure 
 and future happiness ; between the life that now 
 
 
124 DANIEL. 
 
 is and that which is to come ; between God and 
 the devil. And no man can make this choice 
 aright except upon the motive of faith. No man 
 can come to God unless he believe in the two 
 primary articles of natural and all religion — first, 
 that there is a God, and secondly, that God rewards 
 and punishes human actions (Heb. xi. 6) ; and that 
 consequently there is a right and a wrong in human 
 conduct, and a future judgment, where the right 
 will be rewarded and the wrong be punished. 
 
 Now Shadrach and his friends had long made up 
 their minds upon this point. When quite young 
 they had had the grace given them to choose the 
 right and to reject whatever is contrary to God's 
 will. They had lived long in the exercise of faith, 
 both in there being a God, and also in His practi- 
 cal interference with the concerns of men. And 
 hitherto, after one short trial, it had worked for 
 their earthly good and happiness, as is the usual 
 rule with the service of God. For " godliness," we 
 are told, "has the promise of the life that now is, as 
 well as of that which is to come" (i Tim. iv. 8). 
 They had enjoyed also the inward peace and 
 happiness of believing, and of feeling that God was 
 near them; but at length a change had come. 
 Every man's work must be tried, and the hour of 
 their trial had arrived ; and its manner was most 
 
CALMNESS AND FURY. 125 
 
 severe and terrible. But were the convictions of a 
 life to be carelessly laid aside ? Ob, no ! The 
 hour of trial, when a man is put into the refiner's 
 fire, does not make him good metal, but it shows 
 of what metal he is made, and separates in him 
 the pure gold from the worthless dross. 
 
 And herein lies the importance of a true creed. 
 Why is it that men like these Jews under the Old 
 Testament dispensation, and Christians now and at 
 all times, are ready to give up life and everything 
 for God ? Of all that vast concourse, representing 
 the foremost nations of earth, only Jews were 
 found willing to stake their lives upon their reli- 
 gion. But for Jews to do so was a matter of course. 
 But why so ? It is because a true religion is the 
 sole thing which enlightens the conscience, and so 
 trains and strengthens it as to invest it with real 
 power in the guidance of our lives. We have seen 
 that it is our will which decides for us, and we 
 have in our natures such fierce passions, such lust 
 after pleasure, and vanity, and gain, and in our 
 wills such weakness and readiness to give way, 
 that with St. Paul we cry out, " wretched man 
 that I am ! who shall deliver me from the body of 
 this death ?" (Rom. vii. 24) ; for "in this tabernacle 
 we do groan, being burdened, not for that we 
 would be unclothed, and get rid of our bodies, but 
 
126 DANIEL. 
 
 clothed upon, and invested with new and spiritual 
 power, that what is mortal may be swallowed up 
 of life" (2 Cor. v. 4). But when men have felt 
 themselves thus "clothed upon," their will en- 
 lightened by Divine knowledge and sanctified by 
 the Holy Spirit's indwelling, they then choose 
 God's service so firmly and joyfully that no earthly 
 terrors can shake or move them from their sure 
 foundation. 
 
 This, then, is what religion does for us. It 
 clothes us with power. Under false religions the 
 conscience remains in a rudimentary state, and 
 though it does approve or condemn, and say this 
 is right and that wrong, it acts but weakly and 
 ignorantly, and is a very feeble monitor. And 
 with so little help men's lives sink down into mean 
 baseness. But a true faith and the Holy Spirit's 
 aid build up the conscience, and give it, first, 
 light, whereby it distinguishes right and wrong 
 clearly ; and secondly, power, so that it speaks to 
 the will with all authority, and says, " This thou 
 shaft do, and this thou shaft leave undone." 
 And thus Shadrach and his companions came into 
 the king's presence as men who had long ago 
 made their choice between duty and disobedience, 
 between the service of God and a life of sin. 
 They had never anticipated such a trial, nor 
 
CALMNESS AND FURY. 127 
 
 supposed that their faith would be put to so severe 
 a proof. Probably they would gladly have escaped 
 from it could they have done so honourably, and 
 without violating their conscience or abandoning 
 their faith. This could not be, and therefore with 
 calm sure trust in God they reply, " We have no 
 need to answer thee in this matter. It is a matter 
 belonging to God. If He be able, in accordance 
 with the laws of His righteous governing, He will 
 deliver us from this fiery death. But if He do not 
 deliver us, we cannot and will not serve idols. 
 For by so doing we should violate our convictions 
 of what is right and wrong." Conscience had long 
 ago decided for them what their lives were to be. 
 And under its influence they could not abandon 
 the faith which had enlightened the conscience and 
 given it this power ; nor could they be false to that 
 God who had been their peace and happiness, and 
 whom they knew to be the sole Almighty Gover- 
 nor both in heaven above and in earth below. 
 
 Calm as was their answer, yet there was in it 
 that which enraged the king to madness. There 
 was the assertion of the existence of a power higher 
 than his own, the claim to act according to the con 
 science, and the resolute determination to obey the 
 law of God rather than that of man. To Nebu- 
 chadnezzar Jehovah was one of the many gods 
 
128 DANIEL. 
 
 whom lie had vanquished. Like Sennacherib of 
 old, his boast was that " his hand had taken king- 
 doms whose idols were far superior to any deity 
 worshipped at Jerusalem, and that he had done to 
 Jerusalem and her idols as he had done to those of 
 other conquered towns" (Isa. x. 10, u). And yet 
 these captive Jews, the vessels of whose God were 
 exhibited in the temple of Bel as trophies of 
 Jehovah's defeat, were resolutely declaring their 
 determination to obey Him rather than pay even a 
 passing homage to the god of the victor. Such 
 audacity must be signally punished, and therefore 
 the furnace must be heated seven times more than 
 usual, and the most mighty men of his army must 
 bind the offenders and cast them into the flames. 
 
 " Seven times more than it was wont to be 
 heated." There is a dreadful significance about 
 these words. They show that this was the ordi- 
 nary form of capital punishment when the king 
 was displeased. And this is confirmed by what 
 we read in the Book of Jeremiah, that it became a 
 form of curse at Babylon to say, " The Lord make 
 thee like Zedekiah and like Ahab, whom the king 
 of Babylon roasted in the fire " (Jer. xxix. 22). It 
 was a cruel and barbarous method of destroying 
 life, and happily now, if life has to be taken, the 
 manner is made as little painful as possible. But 
 
CALMNESS AND FURY. 129 
 
 Christian martyrs have suffered even greater cruel- 
 ties, and the rage shown against them down to the 
 fires of Smithfield has been even more heartless 
 and diabolical. 
 
 But the king's command was obeyed. The most 
 famous of Nebuchadnezzar's warriors seized and 
 bound the unresisting Jews. Probably they were 
 chosen for this office because the day was one in 
 honour of the king's conquests, and the refusal of 
 these Jews to do homage to the idol was regarded 
 as an insult to the army. Men, therefore, " mighty 
 of strength," who by their prowess and vast phy- 
 sical powers had contributed to many a victory, 
 were just the persons to punish this disrespect to 
 themselves and their fellow-warriors. Probably, 
 too, they entered with zest upon their office, and 
 rejoiced in thus crushing these audacious con- 
 temners of their deeds. 
 
 At once they seize upon them. The king's 
 commandment was urgent. There is no time for 
 delay, or for clothing them in funereal garments. 
 They bind them in their ordinary dress, of which 
 the chief article was a loose flowing linen robe, and 
 therefore of a highly inflammable nature. The 
 furnace had to it a door or mouth (vers. 26), 
 probably above, through which the victims were 
 thrown down into the flames. Usually this could 
 
130 DANIEL. 
 
 be done without danger, but at the king's order 
 large quantities of fuel had been cast into the fur- 
 nace, and it was burning with the utmost violence. 
 Probably, even, to make it seven times hotter than 
 usual, oil and naphtha had been poured upon the 
 flames ; and when the mighty men carried their 
 victims to the mouth of the oven the fumes suffo- 
 cated them. It would be a painless death ; for 
 smoke and even blazing vapour admitted into the 
 lungs immediately destroy all sensation. And 
 that which destroyed the executioners would also 
 naturally, with equal suddenness, have destroyed 
 their victims. But the power of God was present 
 to save. It was His matter, and He there gave to 
 the heathen king a proof of His omnipotence. 
 
 But the miracle was not wrought for Nebuchad- 
 nezzar's sake. There is in the Bible a very sparing 
 use of miracles until He came who was Himself the 
 Incarnate God. There was no interference to save 
 the Maccabean martyrs from the fury of Antiochus 
 Epiphanes, but here Shadrach and his friends were 
 saved. Neither was their faith stronger, nor their 
 conduct more noble, than that of Samona and 
 Eleazar ; but they were saved, and saved miracu- 
 lously, because the occasion made it, if we may 
 reverently so speak, necessary. With Jerusalem 
 in ruins, the temple burnt with fire, the people in 
 
CALMNESS AND FURY. 131 
 
 exile and wasted to a remnant, it was essential to 
 the continuance of the Church upon earth, and to 
 the belief in a personal God, that the faith of the 
 Jews at Babylon should be confirmed. And God 
 did confirm it by rescuing His servants from the 
 violence of the king. 
 
 But with what terror must the poor exiles have 
 watched the proceedings, and how deep must have 
 been their despair as they saw the Chaldean warriors 
 bind for execution the men who had for so many 
 years been their friends and protectors ! And pro- 
 bably many a prayer went up to heaven in their 
 behalf ; but here and there, it may be, some scoffer, 
 false to his faith, said derisively, " See to what 
 an end faith brings them ! " Just one prostration 
 among thousands of prostrate forms, and they 
 would have retained their high offices, have saved 
 their lives, and been able still to work for their 
 nation. But faith does not judge by human 
 standards of action. It raises men up so high that 
 their vision extends far and wide to things that 
 worldly men see not. And therefore their judg- 
 ment is more true because more falls within the 
 range of their sight. The man who sees this eartli 
 alone, this life alone, the body only, he sees but 
 the smaller and less worthy half. How can he 
 judge aright to whom the soul, with all its hopes 
 
1 32 DANIEL. 
 
 and aspirations, its longings for immortality, and 
 for the heavenly life promised to it, counts for 
 nothing ? Compared with us these Jews lived but 
 in the twilight. The Sun of Eighteousness had 
 not arisen to shine on them in its meridian splen- 
 dour. But they had the light of dawn, and it 
 showed them the pathway of safety. 
 
 They set to us a bright example. In the fulness 
 of their powers, in the vigour of manhood, in the 
 possession of high office, and with so much to make 
 the life even of an exile happy, they deliberately 
 placed their duty to God first. And God accepted 
 their devotion to His service, and raised them to a 
 position of even greater earthly usefulness and of 
 more exalted spirituality. The lamp of their faith, 
 cleared of all earthly impurity by their devotion in 
 the hour of trial, burned ever more brightly, and 
 their light affliction wrought for them an exceeding 
 weight of glory. And these things are written 
 for our instruction, that we may in our measure 
 imitate and follow the example of God's honoured 
 saints of old. 
 
( 133 ) 
 
 IX. 
 
 THREE JEWISH CONFESSORS. 
 (Daniel iii. 24-30.) 
 
 TN the previous narrative we have seen the brave 
 spirit of these holy martyrs, ready to yield 
 their bodies to a cruel death rather than be false in 
 their allegiance to their God. We have seen, too, 
 what strength there is in the belief in one God. 
 There can be no confidence nor firm trust where 
 men suppose that there is a multitude of gods. 
 For one god may have to yield to another, or may 
 find his power limited by another's dominion. The 
 Greeks of old believed that there were quarrels and 
 feuds and divisions among the inhabitants of their 
 Olympus, and that one deity might have to sacrifice 
 the interests of his devotees in order to obtain some 
 concession for other favourites. Happy was Israel 
 of old in the belief in one God, and many were the 
 deeds of heroism wrought in the strength of this 
 conviction. 
 
 Nor can there be peace of mind and calm forti- 
 
1 34 DANIEL. 
 
 tude where the one god is the mere sum of the 
 being of the universe. To the pantheist God is 
 not a Person, omniscient, omnipresent, almighty, 
 who sees and knows and takes interest in all he 
 does. To him God is a blind power, the mere 
 aggregate of the working of nature and man, of 
 whom he is himself part, and into whom he will 
 finally be absorbed. Such a deity has no separate 
 existence, no separate action, no separate knowledge, 
 no personal will, no special sphere of duty. The 
 man may see, but the god, who is the mere sum 
 of all human and animal seeing, himself sees not. 
 Man may work, and nature may employ her phy- 
 sical and vegetative energies, but the sum of all 
 this working can do nothing. Whatever it be, it 
 has not even an existence for and in itself, and can 
 inspire no hope, can give man no courage in danger, 
 no consolation in sorrow, no strength for right action. 
 Such a god is a name, and not a being, and there 
 is no such thing as responsibility to him. And 
 absorption into him at death simply means the 
 ceasing to have a separate existence. In life we 
 are the acting, thinking, energising part of the 
 pantheistic god ; to be absorbed into him at death 
 is to fall into unconsciousness. 
 
 In neither polytheism nor pantheism is there 
 any nobleness of thought, or anything to make man 
 
THREE JEWISH CONFESSORS. 135 
 
 better and aid him in becoming godlike on earth. 
 It is responsibility to an almighty, omniscient, and 
 just Judge which raises man to the true height of his 
 dignity, as a being endowed by God with free will 
 and a conscience ; and the answer to the question 
 why God has made this world such as it is, and 
 placed man in a position so full of difficulty, is to 
 be found in the thought, that only by bearing the 
 burden of responsibility can man be made fit for 
 God's service in heaven. Here, on earth, men rise 
 in moral worth and social influence by responsibility 
 riohtly borne ; and the whole doctrine of a future 
 judgment, and of eternal rewards and punishments, 
 has for one great purpose the impressing the minds 
 of men with a sense that they are responsible to 
 a righteous Judge for all they think and say 
 and do. 
 
 It was this sense of responsibility to a personal 
 God which gave these three Jewish martyrs their 
 high courage, their strength to resist a despotic 
 monarch, their calmness and joy in the hour of 
 suffering. And on the other side we see the king, 
 possessed of every earthly splendour and greatness, 
 a warrior crowned with constant victory, a statesman 
 who had built up a mighty empire, the absolute 
 master of every then known country, without a 
 rival upon earth, but with no sense of responsibility 
 
 ^ 
 
136 DANIEL. 
 
 either to God or man ; and his history shows us 
 that there was little happiness for one so situated. 
 We shall see him, hereafter, the victim of a strange 
 mental malady, caused by excessive pride and pas- 
 sions unrestrained. In this chapter we see him 
 given over to vanity. He celebrates his triumph 
 by making an image, destitute, apparently, of all 
 beauty, and remarkable only for its size and cost- 
 liness. And all men must come and worship this 
 image, not for the honour of God, but to minister 
 to the pride of man. And vanity is succeeded by 
 rage and ill-temper. He finds among his officers 
 three who will not bow the knee. Thousands of 
 men, of whom many were far higher in rank and 
 dignity, were content to bow ; were ready to sub- 
 mit to any degradation in order to please their 
 despotic master. But what was that as long as 
 there was found upon earth one man who had a will 
 of his own, and who dared to say that anything 
 whatsoever that was commanded was sinful, and 
 that he would obey God rather than the king ? 
 And so cruelty followed upon vanity and anger. 
 The furnace must be heated seven times more 
 fiercely than usual ; his mightiest men must throw 
 these rebels into the flames ; and the king, in his 
 chair of state, sits opposite the furnace, that he 
 may see his wrath wreaked upon the offenders. 
 
THREE JEWISH CONFESSORS. 137 
 
 There could be no happiness, no inward content 
 and peace of mind, for a man whose heart was the 
 den wherein such fierce passions dwelt. The base, 
 unholy monsters kennelled there would sooner or 
 later tear him to pieces, like another Actseon, hunted 
 and pulled down by his own hounds. 
 
 But what does the king see ? First, his own 
 favourite officers slain by the heat of the fire. 
 That, probably, gave but a momentary vexation, 
 and only made him more wrathful against the 
 offending Jews. But soon he sees another sight. 
 " Then Nebuchadnezzar the king was astoniecl, and 
 rose up in haste, and spake, and said unto his 
 counsellors, Did not we cast three men bound into 
 the midst of the fire ? They answered and said 
 unto the king, True, king. He answered and 
 said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst 
 of the fire, and they have no hurt ; and the form 
 of the fourth is like the Son of God." 
 
 He had seated himself upon his throne to see his 
 sentence put into execution. Around him stood 
 his senators and the great officers of state. The 
 three martyrs had spoken about their God being 
 able to deliver them out of the king's hand ; but 
 their words had seemed to him but as insolence, 
 and as the defiant words of rebels. Little did 
 he dream of there being any deliverance for them. 
 
138 DANIEL. 
 
 They stood alone, powerless, without earthly aid 
 or helper ; and even this may have increased the 
 king's anger at what seemed such empty bravado 
 of his royal dignity. But a strange sight now 
 meets his eye. The three offenders remain unhurt, 
 though the heat had slain his officers. They had 
 been cast into the furnace bound ; now some unseen 
 power has loosed their bands. They are free ; are 
 walking unhurt in the midst of the flames, and 
 with them is a Divine companion. The words of 
 Nebuchadnezzar literally mean " a son of the gods." 
 He knew nothing of the doctrine of a Messiah, or 
 of the Divine Son coming down to earth to bear 
 our nature. But he saw in the furnace a fourth 
 being, of a grand and noble presence, who seemed 
 to him evidently more than man. He may even 
 have thought that it was the tutelary deity of fire, 
 who had manifested himself in the midst of the 
 flames. For the Babylonians worshipped fire as 
 a god, and celebrated him as born of the ocean, 
 whence he raises himself on high, to illumine the 
 darkness and to chase evil away. 
 
 But more probably the king meant only that 
 this fourth person seen in the midst of the fire was 
 a grand and glorious being, whose presence filled 
 him with awe. Had the three Jewish youths merely 
 escaped, that would have been marvellous ; but the 
 
THEEE JEWISH CONFESSORS. 139 
 
 presence of this fourth person proved that their 
 deliverance was Divine. And as he gazed, Nebu- 
 chadnezzar remembered their words. They had 
 cast scorn on his gods, and declared that their God 
 was able to deliver them. And He had delivered 
 them. And the kino; felt that there was a mightier 
 power at work, ordering things on earth, than he 
 had imagined. He might be the greatest of earthly 
 kings, but the god in whose honour he had set up 
 his colossal image was not the greatest of all gods, 
 for the God of the Jews had vanquished him. And 
 Nebuchadnezzar frankly acknowledges the defeat. 
 With all his faults, there was much about him that 
 was admirable, and made him not altogether un- 
 worthy to be, in the words of Jeremiah, Jehovah's 
 servant. He descends therefore from his throne, 
 and goes to the mouth of the furnace, and cries, 
 " Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, ye servants 
 of the most high God, come forth and come hither." 
 It does not follow that he recognised Jehovah as 
 his own God. The minds of the heathen were in 
 strange confusion as to the Godhead. Doctrines 
 that to us seem elementary, and are understood 
 and regarded as necessary truths even by children, 
 were above their comprehension. For idolatry de- 
 bases the mind, and so does any system which 
 places saints or human mediators in the place of 
 
140 DANIEL. 
 
 deity. If they can hear the prayers of their 
 worshippers, they must be omnipresent, and to be 
 omnipresent they must each be God. It was this 
 multitude of gods which made heathen worship 
 minister only to human weakness and folly, and even 
 to sin. And Nebuchadnezzar, brought up in this 
 insensate system, acknowledged no more than that 
 the God of the three martyrs was one of surpassing 
 majesty. There was many a long road to be tra- 
 versed before he could attain to a belief so noble 
 and sublime as that God is one. 
 
 And now in wonder they all examine these men. 
 On one side the dead bodies of the officers who had 
 cast them into the furnace, scorched and withered 
 by the heat, testified that the flames had not lost 
 their power. On the other side stood " these men, 
 upon whose bodies the fire had no power, nor was 
 an hair of their head singed, neither were their coats 
 changed, nor the smell of fire had passed on them." 
 Again and again they examine them. First and 
 chief the king ; but the rest with eager curiosity 
 press around. So strange is the sight that they 
 cannot satisfy their eyes with looking. They feel 
 their bodies, touch their clothes, examine their very 
 hair, and smell their garments, and can trace no 
 influence upon them of fire. Then they turned to 
 the dead bodies. Why are these alive and unhurt, 
 
THREE JEWISH CONFESSORS. 141 
 
 and those slain ? What had made the difference ? 
 What was it that had so changed the power of 
 the fire ? 
 
 Throughout it had been a religious ordeal. The 
 three Jewish youths had stood alone against the 
 king's command, and they had dared to disobey, 
 not as disloyal to the king, but because they would 
 not serve the king's god. From first to last it had 
 been clearly shown that it was duty, duty and 
 obedience to their own Jehovah, that had moved 
 and forced them to the deed. And their God had 
 interfered for them and delivered them. But mar- 
 tyrs usually have to die for their religion. Why 
 had God rescued these ? 
 
 A miracle is never wrought without some neces- 
 sary reason. It would be contrary to God's wisdom 
 to interfere with the ordinary course of nature and 
 with natural laws unless the occasion justified the 
 interference. Here we seem to see reasons which 
 did justify it. For the Jews were the depositaries 
 of revealed religion. To them had been intrusted 
 the oracles of God. And usually they had been 
 protected by a special providence. But now all 
 care of them seemed gone. Their temple was 
 burnt, their kings slain, their priests and people 
 carried into captivity. If they had proved un- 
 worthy of their trust before, great was the 
 
142 DANIEL. 
 
 danger lest they should now fall quite away, and 
 revealed religion cease to have a local home and 
 guardians. But God wonderfully interfered in 
 their behalf. They saw Daniel and the three 
 Jewish youths placed in high office, and not 
 only had they friends in them, but examples 
 to strengthen their faith and encourage them in 
 keeping true allegiance to Jehovah. And now 
 their God had miraculously delivered their three 
 protectors from imminent danger, and from the 
 wrath of the king. We know from history that 
 the exile at Babylon was a time of revival of true 
 religion. Great had been the sins, and greater 
 still the indifference of the nation in past time to 
 the preciousness of the great trust committed to its 
 keeping. At Babylon it awoke from its apathy, 
 shook off its old coldness, and Israel became a 
 nation strongly impressed with the sense of its 
 high calling;, earnest in its own faith and trust in 
 its God, and eager to spend itself in His service. 
 
 Great and widespread was the influence of this 
 miracle in working this mighty change ; for the 
 knowledge of it was not confined to the vast assem- 
 blage gathered on the plain of Dura. Even they 
 would have carried the news home to every part of 
 the empire. But the king was not content with 
 this. By a solemn decree he made it known pub- 
 
THREE JEWISH CONFESSORS. 143 
 
 licly and authentically to all his subjects. For so 
 we read : " Then Nebuchadnezzar spake, and said, 
 Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and 
 Abed-nego, who hath sent His angel and delivered 
 His servants that trusted in Him, and have changed 
 the king's word, and yielded their bodies, that they 
 might not serve nor worship any god except their 
 own God. Therefore make a decree, That every 
 people, nation, and language, which speak anything 
 amiss against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and 
 Abed-nego, shall be cut in pieces, and their houses 
 shall be made a dunghill : because there is no other 
 God that can deliver after this sort." 
 
 The decree goes no further than to declare that 
 the God of Israel had displayed a power and a 
 regard for His worshippers such as no other god 
 could have done. It is the decree of one who still 
 remained a worshipper of many gods. But with 
 what delight must the words have been read in 
 the homes of many a poor exile ! He had seemed 
 to have lost all ; country, city, temple, freedom, 
 national existence, religion, all seemed gone. But 
 no ! Eeligion, the best of all, was not gone. The 
 king himself testified to their God being greater 
 and better than his gods. Yea, God Himself had 
 proved it. For when the three martyrs, trusting 
 in Him, had disobeyed the king's command and 
 
144 DANIEL. 
 
 prepared to die rather than swerve from their 
 allegiance to Jehovah, He had sent His angel and 
 delivered His servants. 
 
 It must have been great happiness to them to 
 know that those who so often before had helped 
 and protected them were " promoted," raised to 
 greater dignity and influence " in the province of 
 Babylon." But their chief joy would lie in their 
 greater trust in God ; for they would see in the 
 miracle far more than the king had seen. Beligion 
 is the mainstay of daily life. Other feelings, which 
 powerfully influence men, are called forth occa- 
 sionally, and only from time to time, perhaps at 
 distant intervals, do they agitate and move us to 
 action. Eeligion is a daily and hourly influence. 
 Like the air we breathe, we need it each minute. 
 We rise in the morning to an unblessed life, unless 
 we begin with the prayer for God's guidance, and 
 go forth to our duties as work to be done for Him. 
 We meet the trials and difficulties of the day 
 calmly if only we feel that God is at our side. 
 We lie down to rest cheerful and at peace, if we 
 can look upward with quiet assurance, as knowing 
 that He who has led us by day will guard our 
 sleeping hours. Now it was this home influence 
 of religion that would derive strength and vigour 
 from the king's decree. The exiles would not 
 
THREE JEWISH CONFESSORS. 145 
 
 expect miracles to be wrought for them, but they 
 would feel sure that the watchful Providence of 
 God was keeping guard over them. Their outward 
 lot was sad enough ; but there was comfort in their 
 hearts. They had not lost everything as long as 
 their God was with them. Did not the king him- 
 self say " that no other god could deliver after this 
 sort " ? And would He not show them mercy ? 
 Mercy for their own selves and for those whom 
 they loved ? Mercy also for their nation, and 
 restoration, in due time, to their dear land ? 
 
 This miracle, then, was one of the many causes 
 which wrought so great a change in the moral and 
 religious state of the people of Israel. And it is 
 recorded for our instruction. No word of Holy 
 Scripture is of mere temporary efficacy. Some 
 parts of God's Word work more actively at one 
 time, and other parts spring into new force and 
 vigour at another. But it is all of it eternal, like 
 the Giver. And God, who manifested His power 
 so marvellously at Babylon, is equally ready to 
 aid and strengthen and bless now. He suits His 
 working to the time ; but in every hour of need 
 He will help all and each of His faithful servants. 
 And He aided these three Jewish martyrs because 
 their faith in Him was real. They were ready 
 even to die for their God. There may be faith as 
 
146 DANIEL. 
 
 firm and true now, and if so, it will assuredly be 
 equally blest ; or faith may be feeble and unsteady. 
 If so, God may send trial and difficulty to sift and 
 prove it. Happy are those who read Holy Scrip- 
 ture for the perfecting of their faith, and draw 
 from each narrative its proper lesson. And if such 
 feel that their faith is still feeble and unworthy to 
 be compared with that of the saints of old, let 
 them bring it to God's footstool and pray for 
 greater strength, firmer courage, and for power to 
 work for God because they love God ; and their 
 prayers will be heard, and they will be " promoted " 
 in the service of the King of Heaven. 
 
( 147 ) 
 
 HEATHEN BECOGNITION OF GOD. 
 
 (Daniel iv. 1-9.) 
 
 ^yE have in this chapter a remarkable confession 
 made by the greatest of the Babylonian 
 monarchy and interesting, not merely on account 
 of the high qualities of the person who humbles 
 himself in it, but also because it is the record 
 of God's providence specially manifesting itself 
 to a heathen. There have been theologians who 
 have regarded the heathen world as lying out- 
 side the direct influences of God's Spirit, and as 
 having a claim to nothing more than that general 
 care which God bestows upon the realm of Nature 
 as the Creator. We find in Nebuchadnezzar a 
 heathen to whom special revelations were made ; 
 and in this present narrative the object was per- 
 sonal. Elsewhere the good of God's people, or the 
 preparation for the kingdom of the Messiah, was 
 the object for which the revelation was made ; and 
 there is in the Bible a wonderful diversity in the 
 
148 DANIEL. 
 
 outward form and manner in which the one purpose 
 of God was steadily carried forward, until " the 
 fulness of time had come." But here we have a 
 special interposition of God's Providence, and a 
 revelation made in a dream, for the sake of a 
 / heathen. A man outside the privileged pale of the 
 Church is found not to be outside the pale either 
 of God's ordinary mercies or of exceptional privi- 
 leges. 
 
 Apparently an interval of several years had 
 elapsed between the deliverance of the three Jewish 
 youths from the flames, recorded in chapter iii., 
 and the king's humiliation narrated in this chapter. 
 For the setting up of the image in the plain of 
 Dura was the conqueror's thanksgiving to his gods 
 for his many victories, and his act of self-glori- 
 fication for success in war. Here we find him 
 equally triumphant in the arts of peace. Babylon 
 had for centuries been oppressed by the kings of 
 its rival, Nineveh. It had attained to freedom 
 under Nabopolassar, the father of Nebuchadnezzar, 
 and for the limited period of seventy years was 
 to be the golden head of the world. And Nebu- 
 chadnezzar made it worthy of its pre-eminence. 
 After a wonderful career of rapid victory, he was 
 dwelling " at rest in his house," with every enemy 
 and rival vanquished ; and during this interval of 
 
HEATHEN RECOGNITION OF GOD. 149 
 
 peace he had turned the whole power of his genius 
 to the fortifying and embellishing of his capital. 
 In the cuneiform inscriptions we find numerous 
 references made to his buildings, and even hymns 
 of praise used at their dedication. And this is 
 especially the case with the royal palace, which 
 surpassed all other edifices in extent and grandeur, 
 and in the costliness of its decorations. The Arabs 
 now call it Mujalibe, " the overturned ; " and all 
 that remains of its magnificence is a heap of un- 
 sightly ruins. 
 
 It was then in its first glory, and Nebuchad- 
 nezzar had dwelt for several years in peace in his 
 kingdom. During this period Daniel had been the 
 king's vizier (Dan. v. 1 1), and in the transaction of 
 business had necessarily been often brought into 
 close contact with the sovereign. It is in this 
 intercourse of many years that we find the ex- 
 planation of the more advanced views and riper 
 knowledge of the nature of God, manifested in this 
 document. We have often before pointed out that 
 Nebuchadnezzar, even in his most pious moments, 
 still thought and spake as a heathen. Nor has he 
 altogether outgrown his heathenism even now. He 
 describes Daniel as called Belteshazzar, after the 
 name of his god, and as having within him the 
 spirit of the holy gods (vers. 8, 9, 18). "The 
 
150 DANIEL. 
 
 sentence, also, is by the decree of the watchers and 
 the matter by the word of the holy ones" (ver 
 17), in accordance with the Babylonian mythology 
 which gave to inferior gods the right to sit in 
 council, and advise those who alone had the power 
 to will and do. 
 
 But though he has not escaped from the meshes 
 of heathenism, the king's heart is opening to higher 
 truths. He has caught a glimpse of the unity of 
 the Divine nature, and sees one God enthroned 
 high above his gods, and ruling with supreme 
 authority over all the kingdoms of the earth. We 
 have seen before that the king felt himself to be 
 more powerful than his deities, and regarded them 
 as servitors who must do his bidding. If a god 
 disobeyed him, could he not put his priests to 
 death, and level his temples to the ground ? Aye ! 
 that was a thing he had more than once com- 
 manded, and who could disobey him ? But now 
 he acknowledges that far above all watchers and 
 holy ones is the " Most High, who ruleth in the 
 kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He 
 will, and setteth up over it the meanest of men." 
 There is a ring, too, of inspired truth in the ascrip- 
 tion of praise in verse 34, where the king " blesses 
 the Most High, and praises and honours Him that 
 liveth for ever, whose dominion is an everlasting 
 
HEATHEN RECOGNITION OF GOD. 151 
 
 dominion, and His kingdom from generation to 
 generation." This admixture is just what we 
 should expect to find in a man who was moving 
 up into higher and purer realms of thought. He 
 was leaving his old and debased notions, but he 
 had not shaken himself free from them. There are 
 commentators who have discussed at weary length 
 the question of the authorship of Nebuchad- 
 nezzar's proclamation. Its doctrines are not so 
 strictly monotheistic as for it to have been written 
 by Daniel. There is too near an approach to 
 monotheism for it to have had a heathen for its 
 author. But Nebuchadnezzar was no mere heathen. 
 He had been taught in a very wonderful way, and 
 had learned very strange lessons. Surely it is 
 blindness not to see in the narrative a most in- 
 teresting study and disclosure of the state of 
 Nebuchadnezzar's mind, after his reason had re- 
 turned to him and he had reflected upon the chas- 
 tisement which had befallen him. The Nebuchad- 
 nezzar of this chapter is not the fierce young king 
 who, in all the pride of victory, was ready to burn 
 men alive, and throw into a furnace any who dared 
 resist him. It is an old man, whose reason has 
 been obscured, who has been driven from men, and 
 who has drank the cup of humiliation to the last 
 dregs. But not in vain. He is a better man, 
 
152 DANIEL. 
 
 more modest, more thoughtful ; and if he has not 
 passed over the threshold and entered God's temple 
 of light, he is very near it, and sees something of 
 the brightness of the truth revealed within. Let 
 us hope that he did pass over it, and learned 
 that the Most High was a God of love and 
 mercy as well as of might and power and chas- 
 tisement. 
 
 Addressing then all peoples, nations, and lan- 
 guages, that dwell in all the earth — for he supposed 
 that his kingdom was conterminous with the whole 
 inhabited world — he commences, as is usual in all 
 Oriental proclamations, with a good wish : that 
 peace might he multiplied, or increased richly, unto 
 them. And then proceeds (ver. 2) : "I thought 
 it good to show the signs and wonders that the 
 High God hath wrought toward me." Probably we 
 must not press upon signs, as used here, the mean- 
 ing which the word generally bears in the Bible, 
 where it is equivalent to our modern word miracle. 
 Even so it strictly signifies the sign which God 
 gives of His presence in the affairs of men, and 
 especially with reference to His great purpose of 
 bestowing upon them a Saviour. Here it means a 
 warning that some event of especial importance is 
 about to happen ; and such signs naturally are 
 wonders. Whenever God draws near to man, the 
 
HEATHEN RECOGNITION OF GOD. 153 
 
 contrast between the finite and the Infinite, the 
 All-powerful and human feebleness, necessarily fills 
 man with awe. 
 
 The doxology, therefore, which follows in verse 3, 
 is a natural outburst of praise. But in this case 
 it is more than natural. The king had just been 
 himself the object both of the chastising hand and 
 of the love of the Most High. It was the con- 
 fession, therefore, of a great truth, which nothing 
 less than a Divine interposition had wrung from 
 him. 
 
 He goes on to tell what especially were the signs 
 and wonders which had thus forced him to confess 
 the universal rule of one Almighty God : "I Nebu- 
 chadnezzar was at rest in mine house, and flourish- 
 ing in my palace." 
 
 The w T ords show that the long period of Nebu- 
 chadnezzar's wars was over. He was no longer a 
 
 o 
 
 general at the head of his army, moving from place 
 to place, to spread misery and rapine and ruin. 
 It is to Nebuchadnezzar's credit that he could thus 
 "rest in his house." The annals of the Assyrian 
 kings represent them as regarding war as their 
 pastime. It seemed to them mere hunting, only 
 instead of wild beasts their victims were men. 
 Nebuchadnezzar could occupy his mind with other 
 things, and those not voluptuous like the pursuits 
 
154 DANIEL. 
 
 ascribed to Sardanapalus, but of a more ennobling 
 kind. His processes for peopling his huge city 
 were cruel enough ; but at least he provided for its 
 security and prosperity. 
 
 The word translated flourishing is worth a 
 moment's pause. Literally it is green, covered 
 with fresh verdure. The Sacred Tree, an emblem 
 borrowed from the Tree o Life in Paradise, is 
 constantly found engraved on Babylonian gems 
 and signets. We find in this dream the king 
 compared to a tree, and the idea, moreover, is a 
 Biblical one. Isaiah describes the army of Senna- 
 cherib as a forest, and his princes as trees of tall 
 stature (Isa. x. 2>3> 34)- Ezekiel compares the 
 Assyrian to a cedar of Lebanon (Ezek. xxxi. 3). 
 And the Messiah is likened to a sucker, in which 
 the cut-down stem of Jesse revives, and grows once 
 again into majesty (Isa. xi. 1). 
 
 But from the calmness of his repose the king is 
 suddenly roused up : "I saw a dream which made 
 me afraid, and the thoughts upon my bed and the 
 visions of my head troubled me " (ver. 5). He had 
 been startled in a similar way before (chap. ii. 1 ), 
 and, doubtless, we are to understand that the 
 dream was followed by anxious thoughts, which 
 the king could not shake off. The confused images 
 of dreams usually pass quickly away. A few 
 
HEATHEN RECOGNITION OF GOD. 155 
 
 minutes of the light of day suffice to put to flight 
 the feeble memories of our half-waking imagina- 
 tions. But this dream was no mere effect of uneasy 
 slumbers. God had sent it for a purpose, and 
 therefore He would not let it slip into oblivion. 
 Troubled waking thoughts followed, and the king, 
 agitated and ill at ease with the foreboding of 
 coming danger, sends for the wise men of his 
 kingdom to set his mind at rest. 
 
 It is remarkable that the king looks for help to 
 the quarter where he had looked before in vain. 
 But on this occasion he had not forgotten his night 
 vision, and might suppose that with their great 
 learning and many books on magic the astrologers 
 could at least interpret a dream, though they could 
 not discover it. It was their office to do so, and 
 possibly they had interpreted many omens and 
 signs and astral appearances in the intervening 
 years. They fail, but the king does not order their 
 instant execution, and the razing of their houses to 
 the ground. The fierce heat of youth has burned 
 itself out. He has learned to be more reasonable. 
 It is said that the word impossible did not exist 
 in Napoleon's dictionary. Nebuchadnezzar had 
 learned that power has its limits, and that it is 
 childish ignorance not to know the bounds of the 
 possible and impossible ; of what a ruler may 
 
156 DANIEL. 
 
 reasonably expect, and what it is wrong and un- 
 reasonable to require. 
 
 There may be another reason for the king's 
 calmness. When the Chaldeans failed before he 
 was angry, because he believed in them, and ex- 
 pected that they would succeed. He had a better 
 judgment now, and as they went through their 
 formulse, and made their calculations, and did 
 everything in the most approved style of their art, 
 and yet could give no reasonable answer, the sole 
 result was that the king grew impatient for the man 
 who never had failed, and so "at the last Daniel 
 came in before me." He had become a great political 
 officer, occupied with weighty affairs of state, and 
 not to be sent for except in case of extremity. It 
 shows strange ignorance of the etiquette of Oriental 
 courts to suppose that one so high in rank as 
 Daniel would be summoned in the first instance, 
 and before the ordinary means for answering the 
 king's question had been tried and failed. There 
 is a manifest tone, moreover, of apology in Nebu- 
 chadnezzar's speech, which shows that Daniel was 
 no longer holding the modest position which be- 
 longed to him in chapter ii. The king was an 
 absolute despot, but even tyrants learn to control 
 themselves in their behaviour towards men whose 
 services are indispensable and necessary for the 
 
HEATHEN RECOGNITION OF GOD. 157 
 
 existence of their thrones. The good government 
 and stability of the king's empire depended largely 
 upon Daniel's wisdom, and though as " chief of the 
 magicians " he might finally be appealed to, yet the 
 king never forgets his rank. 
 
 Eespectfully he addresses him : " Belteshazzar, 
 master of the magicians, because I know that the 
 spirit of the holy gods is in thee, and no secret 
 troubleth thee, tell me the visions of my dream 
 that I have seen, and the interpretation thereof." 
 
 Evidently the king had sent for soothsayers, 
 astrologers, and Chaldeans, because it was the right 
 thing, and customary to do so. It would have 
 been a slight put upon an influential body of men, 
 greatly respected of the multitude, if he had passed 
 them by. But he knew that he had something 
 more trustworthy to fall back upon. And so he 
 listens quietly to their feeble evasions, feels no 
 disappointment at their failure, and sending for 
 one well tried and highly valued, knows that there 
 will be no mistake with him. "The spirit of the 
 holy gods was in Daniel." The form of expression 
 is heathenish. He still supposes that a multitude 
 of deities exists. But he supposes that they have 
 found in Daniel a home, and that his wisdom is no 
 mere human foresight, no acuteness of quickened 
 perception, no mere penetration of an understand- 
 
158 DANIEL. 
 
 ing cleared from prejudices and half-truths. It is 
 a Divine wisdom, inspired by the indwelling of the 
 gods, and therefore no secret could trouble him. 
 An experienced man may make a happy guess at 
 the future : nothing less than Divine power can 
 bestow the gift of prophecy. 
 
 In the next chapter we will consider the dream 
 itself. In this we have seen that the effect of 
 Daniel's piety and godliness had been to win for 
 him a secure place in the heart and judgment of a 
 man so great and highly endowed as Nebuchad- 
 nezzar. Not only had God preserved him in 
 danger, but raised him to power and high estima- 
 tion. And thus the few words of Holy Scripture 
 now considered give us a twofold lesson — the 
 lesson, first, of God's faithfulness to His people ; 
 and next, the lesson that those who trust in Him 
 may be tried indeed, and have many a danger to 
 encounter, but that their end will be peace and joy 
 in believing. 
 
( 159 ) 
 
 XL 
 
 A WATCHER AND A HOLY ONE. 
 (Daniel iv. 10-18.) 
 
 A FEESH interest has been given within the 
 last few years to everything connected with 
 Assyria and Babylonia, by the discovery of the 
 libraries of Assyrian kings, buried beneath the 
 mounds which mark the sites of forgotten cities 
 that were famous of old. And as the ordinary 
 writing material consisted of clay, formed either 
 into tablets or cylinders, on which the letters were 
 impressed, and which were then usually baked, 
 these literary remains, though often broken and 
 mutilated, are otherwise as legible as when first 
 written. But it was only gradually that these 
 cylinders could be understood ; for at first neither 
 the character nor the language was known. By 
 the patient labours, however, of devoted men, all 
 difficulties have been, by slow degrees, overcome. 
 And now, though here and there words and 
 phrases occur not entirely intelligible, yet gene- 
 
160 DANIEL. 
 
 rally, Assyrian and Babylonian inscriptions are as 
 capable of translation as inscriptions in the Greek 
 or Latin language. 
 
 A remarkable class of these cuneiform inscrip- 
 tions runs parallel to the earlier portion of the 
 Book of Genesis, and in it the sacred tree, repre- 
 senting the Tree of Life in Paradise, holds an 
 important place. In the engravings of Botta and 
 Layard we see this tree adored by royal person- 
 ages, guarded by sacred beings, who stand by it 
 in an attitude of veneration, while over it is the 
 winged disk, which is the symbol of the Supreme 
 Deity. As this holy tree is one of the most 
 common figures on gems and among the orna- 
 ments even of buildings, it was certainly well 
 known to Nebuchadnezzar ; and as there was no 
 idea in his mind that he was the person signified, 
 we must not accuse him of pride in arrogating so 
 sacred a symbol to himself. It was Daniel who 
 supplied the interpretation : what the king saw 
 was the sacred tree growing, and spreading forth 
 its branches on every side. 
 
 But the image was perfectly natural in itself; 
 and while the ancients do not seem to have cared 
 much for the larger beauty of the landscape, they 
 greatly admired noble trees. Herodotus describes 
 Xerxes as decking with ornaments of gold a 
 
A WATCHER AND A HOLY ONE. 1G1 
 
 splendid plane-tree which he passed on his march. 
 Similar feelings are expressed by many classic 
 authors. Yirgil makes his shepherds recline under 
 a spreading beech ; Horace loved the elm and the 
 poplar festooned around with vines ; and in the 
 Bible Abraham chooses an oak grove for his habi- 
 tation. Deborah dwells beneath a palm ; while 
 Saul holds his court under a tamarisk-tree ( i Sam. 
 xxii. 6) ; and beneath another tamarisk, as a tree 
 loved by him while living, his bones, and those of 
 Jonathan his son, were laid at rest (ibid. xxxi. 13). 
 
 "We find, moreover, trees often playing a fore- 
 most part in dreams. Many are the instances 
 mentioned : let me add one more. When Ephrem, 
 the Syrian poet, was a child, he dreamed that out 
 of his tongue there sprouted a vine, which grew 
 till it reached to heaven, and produced leaves and 
 fruit in endless abundance. All creation came and 
 gathered of its clusters, and none went away unfilled. 
 On his death-bed, in his last words to his weeping 
 friends, he tells them this dream, and interprets it 
 of his hymns, which were at that time learned by 
 heart and sung by all the Christians in the East. 
 
 The metaphor of the tree, then, was natural in 
 itself, and especially appropriate at Babylon, where 
 sculptured on every side was the Tree of Paradise. 
 Moreover, in its grandeur and magnificence it was 
 
162 DANIEL. 
 
 a fit representation of the king, described before as 
 the golden head of earthly monarchy. For "the 
 tree grew, and was strong, and the height thereof 
 reached unto heaven, and the sight thereof to the 
 end of all the earth : the leaves thereof were fair, 
 and the fruit thereof much, and in it was meat for 
 all : the beasts of the field had shadow under it, 
 and the fowls of the heaven dwelt in the boughs 
 thereof, and all flesh was fed of it " (vers. 1 1, 12). 
 
 How grand a picture is this of an empire self- 
 contained and producing within itself all that it 
 needed. There is in it no feeling of insecurity ; no 
 dread of poverty or want. Food is found therein 
 enough for all. Trade, agriculture, art, science, 
 all flourish, and none who come to its ruler are 
 sent away with their manifold needs unsatisfied. It 
 is also a kingdom that develops itself and extends 
 its influence on every side. Now if this growth 
 had been natural, like that of a tree, all had been 
 well. And a righteous kingdom would thus grow 
 and expand. The cause of war and fighting among 
 nations is the same as that which produces discord 
 among individuals. Men quarrel because they all 
 seek their own, and not another's good. But a 
 nation loving and practising righteousness would be 
 at peace within itself, and strong, therefore, to resist 
 foreign aggression ; while it would provoke no ill- 
 
A WATCHER AND A HOLY ONE. 163 
 
 will, and would conciliate trust and affection. We 
 condemn these ancient empires for their lust of 
 war ; and yet Christendom, after long centuries of 
 nominal allegiance to " the Prince of Peace," lives 
 in an armed preparedness almost as disastrous as 
 .war. 
 
 Thus the vision bears witness to the great 
 qualities of Nebuchadnezzar as a ruler. His civil 
 administration must have been as vigorous and 
 wise as had been his government in war, or it 
 would not have been possible to represent his 
 empire under an image so descriptive in every 
 particular of prosperity, and of the contentment of 
 all classes of his subjects. 
 
 " Now as he gazed upon the sacred tree, behold 
 a watcher and a holy one came down from heaven." 
 The word watcher, 'iro 9 became an ordinary term 
 in the Syrian Church for angel, and Ephrem 
 Syrus classes the watchers with the Seraphim and 
 Cherubim as a special order of heavenly beings. 
 The use, however, of the word in the Syrian Church 
 was probably borrowed from this passage, and it is 
 interesting to find in the Babylonian mythology a 
 complete explanation of its use. For as there are 
 ivatchers mentioned also in the literature of the 
 Parsees or Persian fire-worshippers, it has been 
 argued that the Book of Daniel was a late book, 
 
164 DANIEL. 
 
 which had borrowed its doctrines of angels from 
 Zoroaster. Our enlarged knowledge of Babylonian 
 literature has revealed to us the fact that they 
 believed in a vast hierarchy of spiritual beings of 
 every rank, some belonging to the earth and some to 
 heaven ; and among these the seven spirits, to whom 
 the seven planets were entrusted, held an important 
 place as the guardians of the universe and of the 
 house. There were also seven warder spirits who 
 kept guard at the gates of Hades. And each dwell- 
 ing also had special watchers, whose office it was to 
 drive away the wicked and all enemies, and who 
 could even inflict upon them the penalty of death. 
 There have been brought home to our museums 
 figures coarsely fashioned in bronze of these 
 watchers ; while in the cuneiform inscriptions there 
 are found solemn forms, directing where, with 
 magical rites, each one of these guardian beings 
 was to be placed, and detailing his attributes and 
 .office. The being, therefore, which the king saw 
 in his dream was one of his own guardians, a 
 warder spirit under whose protection he had been 
 placed. And we may probably, therefore, conclude 
 that however severe might be the punishment, yet 
 he would understand that it was intended for his 
 good and not for his destruction. For it came 
 from friends and not from foes. 
 
A WATCHER AND A HOLY ONE. 165 
 
 The images of the king's dream naturally were 
 taken from his own notions and ideas ; but in 
 verse 17 higher teaching was vouchsafed to him. 
 He learned there something far better than his 
 heathenish mythology ; for that which he supposed 
 to be by the decree of the watchers was really 
 ordered to the intent that he might know that 
 there is but one God Most High, and that He 
 ruleth in the kingdom of men. 
 
 The decree was that the tree should be hewn 
 down, its leaves shaken off, its fruit scattered ; that 
 no longer should the beasts find shelter beneath 
 its shade, nor the birds lodge in its branches. 
 Such words would have portended the total over- 
 throw of Nebuchadnezzar and his dynasty, but for 
 one remarkable reservation. The stump of the 
 tree was not to be rooted up, but was to be bound 
 tightly around with bands of iron and brass, and 
 so was to remain wetted with the dews of heaven, 
 and having its portion with the wild beasts in the 
 grass of the earth. 
 
 In this there is mingled punishment and mercy. 
 For if there was the hewing away of all beauty and 
 grace, and the destruction of all strength and gran- 
 deur, yet was there hope in the guarded root. For 
 those bands of brass and iron were for protection, 
 and not for punishment. The king's mind would 
 
166 DANIEL. 
 
 indeed be enwrapped in the darkness of a disturbed 
 reason. Madness was to bind him fast. But these 
 bands meant, not madness, but divine protection ; 
 for they were to secure the root from injury. At a 
 time, and under circumstances when he could not 
 protect himself, God would guard him from wrong. 
 No foot might trample upon him ; no hand of man 
 might work his final extirpation. 
 
 But a strange destiny was in store. " Let his 
 heart be changed from man's, and let a beast's 
 heart be given unto him ; and let seven times pass 
 over him" (ver. 16). 
 
 The disease thus indicated is now generally ac- 
 knowledged to have been a kind of madness called 
 lycanthropy, because the person so afflicted, while 
 retaining more or less his reason in other matters, 
 supposes himself to be changed into some animal, 
 whose conduct he imitates. The word lycanthropy 
 properly applies only to those who supposed them- 
 selves changed into wolves, and who, under that 
 idea, committed murders and hid themselves in 
 dens away from mankind. Nebuchadnezzar seems 
 to have supposed himself changed into an ox, or 
 rather into one of those grand winged bulls which 
 guarded the approaches to the palaces of the kings, 
 and were symbols of the might and majesty of the 
 gods. Even in his madness the fancies of the king 
 
A WATCHER AND A HOLY ONE. 167 
 
 take Babylonian forms, and are suggested to him by 
 the sights with which he was daily conversant. 
 
 In his Lectures on Daniel, Dr. Pusey quotes 
 an opinion of Dr. Browne, that Nebuchadnezzar 
 throughout retained the sense of his personal iden- 
 tity, and was able to pray consciously to God. " I 
 think it probable," he says, " because consistent 
 with experience in similar forms of mental affection, 
 that Nebuchadnezzar retained a perfect conscious- 
 ness that he was Nebuchadnezzar during the whole 
 course of his degradation, even while he ate l grass 
 as oxen ; ' and that he may have prayed fervently 
 that the cup might pass from him." 
 
 For this he gives reasons. And if the king thus 
 knew who and what he was, and could carry with 
 him the remembrance of his past life, how strange 
 must have been his thoughts, and how painful his 
 experience during those " seven times ! " A beast's 
 heart had been given him, that is, an impulse from 
 within forced him to act like an animal, to imitate 
 its cries, to adopt its habits, to try to inhabit the 
 same places, and feed upon the same kinds of 
 nourishment ; and yet all the while he knew that 
 he was not an ox but a man. How distressing 
 must have been the discord between the mania 
 that had thus depraved one portion of his reason 
 and the portion that was still sound ! His great 
 
168 DANIEL. 
 
 genius and mental ability were still there ; for 
 probably bis intellectual gifts remained, clouded, 
 indeed, but not destroyed ; and yet be was forced 
 to obey a diseased imagination, to forego bis gran- 
 deur and all the cares of empire, nay, even to fall 
 below tbe state and condition of a man, and adopt 
 the life of a brute. 
 
 "What Nebuchadnezzar suffered from was, there- 
 fore, a form of disease, rare indeed, but of which 
 other well-authenticated instances have been re- 
 corded by medical men. And it is one of the 
 many proofs of the credibility of the Book of 
 Daniel, that we should thus find in it an account of 
 a strange malady so described, as that the physical 
 facts narrated agree with observations made since 
 by scientific men in modern times. No author men- 
 tions this disease before the Christian era, and at 
 first sight the whole narrative seems to belong to 
 the region of the miraculous. But, as is so con- 
 stantly the case in Holy Scripture, even miracles 
 are in accordance with physical laws. The plagues 
 of Egypt agree with phenomena natural in that 
 country ; and in the miracle recorded in Mark viii. 
 23-25, our Lord gave the blind man first the 
 power of seeing ; but all was confused, and men 
 and trees were indistinguishable. The man plainly 
 had not learned to use his eyesight, to measure 
 
A WATCHER AND A HOLY ONE. 169 
 
 distances, place things in their true relation, and 
 correct the impression made upon the eye by the 
 use of his reason. The images on the retina of the 
 eye were right enough, but experience was wanting. 
 Our Lord touched his eyes again, and gave in a 
 moment that which the child acquires by years of 
 observation. So here we have a species of mania 
 now well known, but then absolutely new. And 
 the description of it finds its explanation in facts 
 since scientifically observed. 
 
 Even the assertion that Nebuchadnezzar prayed 
 before his recovery, so marvellous in itself, is 
 shown by similar cases, many of which are col- 
 lected by Dr. Pusey, to be really an evidence of 
 the reality of the facts recorded. We are not, 
 however, to suppose that the king's reason was 
 altogether unimpaired. It is said in verse 34 
 that " his understanding returned unto him," and 
 though we are primarily to understand by this 
 that the lycanthropic mania had departed, yet so 
 terrible a disease must, to some extent, have 
 obscured all the powers of his mind, though only 
 partially. From time to time Nebuchadnezzar was 
 able to reflect upon what he was and compare it 
 with what he had been. And the dream and 
 Daniel's interpretation had left their mark probably 
 upon his memory. And so there was the know- 
 
170 DANIEL. 
 
 ledge that his humiliation was a punishment for 
 pride. He had regarded himself as one whose 
 power was supreme and irresistible. He now sup- 
 posed himself to be an ox, with no other usefulness 
 than to be a drudge and till the ground for man. 
 
 And thus the dream was " to the intent that the 
 living might know that the Most High ruleth in the 
 kingdom of men,andgiveth it to whomsoever He will, 
 and setteth up over it the lowest of men " (ver. 1 7). 
 
 It was a humiliating lesson for one so gifted, and 
 raised to such greatness by a long course of victory 
 in war and success in the arts of peace. When 
 reciting the dream to Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar may 
 have felt deep in his heart some incredulity. The 
 kingdom of men had not, in his case, been given to a 
 man of mean condition. But how would the words 
 thrill through his memory when soon afterwards 
 he deemed himself a mere animal, whose task was 
 the plough. But all this was to come. At present 
 he has only the dream, and summons Daniel to 
 interpret it. It was the opening scene of a strange 
 drama, but one sent for a moral purpose, to teach 
 the king a great lesson, to humble his pride by a 
 terrible punishment, and chiefly, as one may hope, 
 to bring him to the footstool of Daniel's God in 
 earnest repentance, and win for him a place among 
 those rescued from eternal misery. 
 
( "1 ) 
 
 w 
 
 XII. 
 
 THE ASTONIED INTERPRETER. 
 
 (Daniel iv. 19-27.) 
 
 "E have followed the king step by step in his 
 recital of his dream to Daniel. We have 
 seen how the imagery of it is taken from the sacred 
 symbolism of the Assyrians, with whom the holy 
 tree was the ordinary representative of majesty 
 and power ; and further, that the mental delusion 
 which threatened to obscure the king's reason took 
 its form from those colossal figures of winged bulls 
 which adorned the walls of his palace and guarded 
 its entrance. We have also seen that the descrip- 
 tion of the tree bears emphatic testimony to the 
 energy of Nebuchadnezzar's rule, and the prosperity 
 of the people subject to him. But the tree was to 
 be hewn down, its branches cut off, its very leaves 
 torn away, and its fruit scattered. And Daniel 
 saw the dread meaning of this sentence, and sat 
 " astonied for one hour, and his thoughts troubled 
 
 I?? 
 17m. 
 
172 DANIEL. 
 
 The word, however, rendered hour means only 
 an indefinite time. Daniel sat astonied/or a while. 
 He had long served the king, and was probably 
 attached to him personally; and this threatened 
 overthrow of his rule was a grief to him. Probably 
 Nebuchadnezzar, like Napoleon and other men of 
 genius, exercised a fascination upon all brought 
 into close contact with him ; and besides this, what 
 was to become of the kingdom when the strong 
 arm was broken which had hitherto ruled it ? Who 
 was to take care of the throne during the seven 
 years of the king's malady ? A regency is often a 
 disastrous thing now, with all our modern safe- 
 guards and systems of legal procedure. Power 
 then resided in the will of one man, and when that 
 will was enfeebled, murders and usurpations were 
 the unfailing result. In this very case, within two 
 years after Nebuchadnezzar's death, Babylon fell 
 into a state of general anarchy. There was enough 
 to trouble a good and wise man in the prospect of 
 seven years of suspense ; and especially as Daniel 
 was himself the chief minister of state. 
 
 We may be sure that it was due to Daniel that 
 those seven years passed over quietly, and that at 
 the end of them Nebuchadnezzar once again peace- 
 ably occupied the throne. But as yet all was un- 
 certain. Daniel saw the storm in front. He knew 
 
THE ASTONIED INTERPRETER. 173 
 
 that the ship of the state would soon be sailing in 
 troubled waters, assailed by many a gale of private 
 faction, and beaten by many a tempest of popular 
 commotion, of foreign attack, and of intrigue at 
 home. He did not know that he would be able to 
 guide the ship safely, and at the seven years' end 
 restore to his master his kingly crown with its 
 beauty and splendour undimmed. 
 
 "He sat astonied for a while," and Nebuchad- 
 nezzar saw the agitation of his feelings. As one 
 anxious thought after another imprinted its mark 
 upon Daniel's sorrowful countenance, the watching 
 king felt that the dream boded him no good ; but 
 it is a proof of the generosity of his character that 
 his trouble was not for himself, but for his faithful 
 minister. Kindly and affectionately he bids him 
 dispel his anxiety. " Let not the dream nor its 
 interpretation trouble thee." And thus encouraged, 
 Daniel broke silence, and said, "Would that the 
 dream belonged to those who hate my lord, and 
 its interpretation to his enemies." 
 
 Eelieved by this sigh of anguish, he now repeats 
 the king's description of the tree, amplifying its 
 beauty and majesty, and pausing upon each parti- 
 cular of its greatness, as if unwilling to arrive at 
 its conclusion. But at last it comes. The sacred 
 tree is the symbol of the king, who in the years of 
 
174 DANIEL. 
 
 his rule had grown strong and mighty, until his 
 dominion — that is, his authority as a ruler — 
 reached to the utmost end of his vast realm. 
 
 So far all was well. But the tree was to be 
 hewn down, and this the prophet interpreted of 
 the expulsion of Nebuchadnezzar, not only from 
 his royal state, but from the use of his reason, and 
 of his prerogatives as a man. For seven years he 
 must be content to herd with the oxen, to deem 
 himself one of their number, to try to eat their 
 food, and live their life ; rushing away from men, 
 he was to make the forest or the marsh his home, 
 and abandon all the comforts and refinements of 
 human life. 
 
 But there was, first, a hope, and secondly, a 
 purpose, in this chastisement. It was not to last 
 for ever. There are trees which, when cut down, 
 grow no more. The cedar, the cypress, the fir, 
 throw up no suckers from their roots. But other 
 trees may revive as long as the stump still exists 
 in the ground (Job xiv. 7-9). The hewn down 
 trunk of Jesse's race was to throw up a sucker that 
 wou]d attain to spiritual and eternal dominion 
 (Isa. xi. 1 ). And here, after a period of obscurity, 
 Nebuchadnezzar was once again to return to his 
 royal glory. For his root was to be protected, 
 "bound around with a band of iron and of brass," 
 
THE ASTONIED INTERPRETER. 175 
 
 and its life was to be maintained by the gently 
 falling dew of heaven. 
 
 It was, nevertheless, a sad hope ; for it would 
 be realised only after a long waiting. For seven 
 years the king's reason would be clouded, his mind 
 darkened by diseased imaginations, his palace 
 occupied by others, his kingdom left to the care 
 of strangers, and himself herding with the brutes. 
 It was a terrible punishment. The loss of reason - 
 is the greatest affliction that can happen to any 
 one ; and here it was about to befall a man of 
 extraordinary genius, who had mental gifts of the 
 highest order, and who had cultivated and exercised 
 these gifts, and who needed them for the govern- 
 ment of the kingdom that he had built up. 
 
 And this terrible chastisement was no matter of 
 chance. It had also a purpose. It was to last 
 until the king knew and acknowledged that " there 
 was one Most High, who ruleth in the kingdom of 
 men, and giveth it to whomsoever He will." 
 
 " The Most High." There was something new 
 to the king in this appellation. He had thought 
 of many gods. The heavens were to him a repeti- 
 tion of the earth. There were beings there of 
 every kind and class, good and evil, powerful for 
 mischief, partial, capricious, but useful if pro- 
 pitiated. He thought that these beings existed for 
 
176 DANIEL. 
 
 man's sake. He was to learn of one God, for and 
 by whom all things exist, and who rules in the 
 kingdom of men. He supposed that men such as 
 himself, kings and princes, ruled, and that the gods 
 would help or try to frustrate these earthly rulers 
 according to the treatment which they themselves 
 received. He had never conceived such a thought 
 as that which is so natural to us, that while man 
 proposes, God disposes of earthly things. Even 
 the philosophical Greeks supposed that the Deity 
 was subject to the rule of Necessity or Fate. Zeus 
 might hold the balance, but the scale would go up 
 or down independently of his will. But during 
 these seven years there was to be a growth of 
 knowledge in the king's mind, until he had 
 mastered the truth that the earth is the Lord's, 
 and that all things on earth are as He wills and ' 
 His permission. Each man seems to b* 
 of action, a self-determining agent, one^jf vi±, 
 
 for himself, and acts as he chooses. And it \& 
 true that man, to a certain extent, can. 1 will ant 
 choose and act for himself. It is the dread gift r 
 his birthright : " Let us make a man in our im^ 
 after our likeness, . . . and let him haveVdomimon I 
 But this power does r * exist apart from God. In 
 all we will and d^ s willing and doing after 
 
 His good pleasure. it is a deep mystery, this 
 
THE ASTONIED INTERPRETER. 177 
 
 interlacing of the Divine and human will. But we 
 feel quite sure that no power of any kind exists 
 apart from God. It is His Omnipresence which 
 endows all living things with activity. Even in 
 things inanimate we know of no power except the 
 presence of God. If a thing falls to the earth, if 
 two things attract one another, we say it is by the 
 law of gravitation. But there is no law without a 
 lawmaker, no law apart from the active will of Him 
 who maintains it in force ; and the laws of nature 
 are ordained by the wisdom and upheld by the 
 energy of the will of God. The law of gravitation 
 is God's ordering, its force is the presence of His will. 
 Nebuchadnezzar was to learn something of this. 
 He was to learn that throned above the world was \ 
 the Most High, and that He ruled in the kingdom 
 5 men. "Whether they willed it or not, kings were 
 XT " ministers, and their seeming freedom was 
 ^an ''~1|to> as i* i s to all men, because God has 
 or wise reasons made the world a place of human 
 j rotation. L . And we who see but our own one little 
 orld may^repine, and wish that God had made it 
 x. j p'easant, more easy, more safe, more free 
 -mci'kls #nd temptations and difficulties. If we 
 could see all worlds, if we } d perfect knowledge, 
 and knew as also we are k: we should under- 
 
 stand that our mental difficulties all arise from our 
 
 M 
 
178 DANIEL. 
 
 trying to judge where it is our duty and our privilege 
 to obey. We have not the knowledge necessary for 
 settling all speculative questionings, but only such 
 practical guidance as may serve to direct us safely 
 through the tangled maze of human life. 
 
 We are not told in what way Nebuchadnezzar 
 was to attain to this humbling conviction. His 
 malady may have been but partial, and many 
 powers of his mind unimpaired ; or there may have 
 been lucid intervals from time to time, during 
 which the king may have understood the intensity 
 of his degradation, and also learned that better 
 humiliation of sorrow for the sins which had 
 brought him so low. Or it may have been only 
 at the end of his seven years of lunacy when, with 
 returning reason, there came an intense realisation 
 of all that had happened ; of his early grandeur 
 and military renown ; his success in the govern- 
 ment of his vast realm ; the glory of his buildings ; 
 the prosperity of his subjects ; and, withal, of his 
 pride, selfishness, cruelty, and of the arrogance and 
 wilfulness of a despotic and irresistible tyranny. 
 But whether the process was gradual, or whether 
 there was but one cleansing in the burning furnace 
 of concentrated self-accusation, and consciousness 
 of the sins that had brought upon him the Divine 
 wrath, the change in him was to be complete. 
 
THE ASTOXIED INTERPRETER. 179 
 
 And the king's confession, when his reason finally 
 came back, is that of a man on whom repentance * 
 has had its perfect work. 
 
 In verse 26 there is a very remarkable expres- 
 sion. Nebuchadnezzar's malady was to last until 
 he had learned that " the heavens do rule." The 
 idea cannot be that of the material heavens, which 
 in some of the Assyrian hymns are regarded as 
 "the father of the gods." For Daniel has been 
 speaking of the Most High. It is one Supreme 
 Being, a personal God, to whom he was endeavour- 
 ing to raise the king's mind. But having clearly 
 taught this unity and personality of the Deity, he 
 now contents himself with a general expression of 
 the great truth that power resides, not on earth, 
 but above. It is not in this lower sphere that we 
 are to look for the vital force which maintains sub- 
 lunary things in order. Bather must we acknow- 
 ledge, with St. James, that all things good, all 
 gifts and endowments, all energies and powers, 
 come down to us from above (James i. 17); and 
 that this earth is but an emanation from heaven, 
 called by God at first into existence, and still existing 
 only as He wills, and as long as He wills. For " in 
 God we live and move and have our being " (Acts 
 xvii. 28) ; and apart from Him we are nothing. 
 
 Daniel, therefore, calls away the thoughts of the 
 
180 DANIEL. 
 
 king from earthly delusions to that Might en- 
 throned above, which created the earth for the 
 manifestation of the Divine glory, which has made 
 man the object of heavenly love, and which still 
 guides and regulates and sustains all earthly things. 
 And that this Might is a personal being follows 
 from Daniel's urgent remonstrance with the king. 
 For the material heavens are indifferent to human 
 conduct and human happiness. The sun shines as 
 brightly upon the ruin of man's fortunes as upon 
 his success. The advice given by Daniel implies 
 the existence of a just Governor to whom the king 
 is responsible for his deeds, and he bids him endea- 
 vour so to act as to incline this just Euler of the 
 world to be merciful unto him. "Wherefore, 
 king, let my counsel be acceptable unto thee, and 
 break off thy sins by righteousness, and thine ini- 
 quities by showing mercy to the poor ; if there may 
 be a lengthening of thy tranquillity" (ver. 27). 
 
 Now we are not to suppose that this is mere 
 general advice. Daniel was not likely at such a 
 moment to give utterance to mere truisms, and 
 say, Be a good man and all will go well. On the 
 contrary, his words had direct reference to the 
 king's previous conduct. Nebuchadnezzar had 
 been a sagacious and successful ruler, but right- 
 eousness formed no part of his programme. His 
 
THE ASTONIED INTERPRETER. 181 
 
 kingdom was built up by rapine and plunder. 
 Habakkuk powerfully describes in chapter ii. the 
 covetousness and lust of war and conquest that had 
 marked the king's career. He had manifested no 
 respect for the rights of others, but had been a 
 scourge and flail for the beating down of all the 
 nations far and near. And when he had over- 
 thrown their independent existence, he was not 
 content with making them tributary, but dragged 
 the unhappy people away, that, far from their 
 homes, dispersed among strangers,, they might be 
 reduced to the condition of mere serfs, and live 
 without hope or self-respect, deprived of all rights, 
 and with no other safeguard for very existence 
 than the will of a despotic conqueror. 
 
 And mercy was as entire a stranger from the 
 heart of Nebuchadnezzar as was righteousness. The 
 burden of Habakkuk's prophecy against the king 
 is that chastisement must come " because of men's 
 blood, and for the violence of the Chaldean land, 
 and of the city of Babylon, and of all that dwell 
 therein " (Hab. ii. 1 7). Nebuchadnezzar thought 
 as little of human life as he did of the rights of 
 nations and of justice. Those vast deportations of 
 the inhabitants of a whole country must have been 
 attended with an awful sacrifice of human lives. 
 The path of those caravans must have been strewn 
 
182 DANIEL. 
 
 with the corpses of all the sickly and the feeble 
 among the people — with women that had been 
 nurtured tenderly, and with young children left to 
 die whenever their strength began to fail, and they 
 could no longer keep pace with their captors on the 
 march. Nor was Nebuchadnezzar's cruelty con- 
 fined to these general schemes for the aggrandise- 
 ment of the realm of the Chaldeans at the cost of 
 so great human suffering and woe. For the pages 
 of Holy Scripture set him before us as a fierce and 
 brutal ruler, ready to butcher whole classes of 
 men (Dan. ii. 12, 13), and delighting in modes of 
 torture of a most savage description (ibid. iii. 19, 
 20 ; Jer. xxix. 22). 
 
 All this was to be changed. The king had been 
 utterly unscrupulous in the carrying out of his 
 designs, and not only foreign nations, but his own 
 subjects and the exiles dwelling in his realms, had 
 groaned under his stern despotism. Probably, 
 too, in his vast buildings, he had used forced 
 labour, as is, even now, too generally the case in 
 Eastern lands, and thus every edifice would have 
 cost vast numbers of human lives as well as terrible 
 misery. It was as new a thought for Nebuchad- 
 nezzar that other people had rights, as that it was 
 a God in heaven, and not himself on earth, that 
 ruled in the affairs of men. Daniel's words may 
 
THE ASTONIED INTERPRETER. 183 
 
 seem to us matters of course. As ages have passed 
 by, men have learned that others have rights as 
 well as themselves. And yet, even in our own 
 century, we might find proof that a man of vast 
 military genius may learn to use men merely as his 
 instruments, and to think little, not merely of 
 human misery in the abstract, but even of the 
 lives and well-being of his own devoted followers. 
 
 It was, therefore, a very hard lesson which 
 Nebuchadnezzar was called upon to learn. Every 
 previous victory, every success in war, every exer- 
 cise in past time of his despotic powers, had tended 
 to make him arrogant, selfish, wilful, incapable of 
 self-restraint, indifferent to the wishes and happi- 
 ness of others. Terrible was to be his punishment. 
 For seven years he was to account himself a brute, 
 and spend his life with the beasts. But when 
 reason returned there were to come with it better 
 things. There were to come self-restraint, respect 
 for the rights of men, mercy even for the erring. 
 Daniel's words, it may be, ate into the king's heart 
 like burning fire. During his humiliation, often 
 and again they may have sounded in his ears 
 like some strain of music which comes unbidden. 
 Eighteousness — he had never practised it or ")L 
 troubled about it before. Mercy — never before 
 had he shown himself gentle or forgiving. It was 
 
184 DANIEL. 
 
 a great change, to be wrought by an extraordinary- 
 intervention of God's Providence. And if Nebu- 
 chadnezzar throughout his history stands forth as 
 a remarkable man, in himself not unworthy of the 
 Divine dealings with him ; if, too, his history in- 
 dicates to us that the Gentiles were the object of 
 the Divine regard, and not the Jews only, yet the 
 lesson is for general use and for the teaching of all 
 mankind. Only we mercifully can learn our lesson 
 by the example of others, and gather instruction 
 for our lives and conduct by narratives such as 
 this. For in the pages of the Bible the veil is 
 partially removed, and we see God's ways with 
 men clearly set forth, and learn what are His 
 purposes, not only in the rising and fall of king- 
 doms, but even more in the prosperity and the 
 chastisement of the men whose acts and lives are 
 there set forth before us. We may never have had 
 the power to sin on so grand a scale as Nebu- 
 chadnezzar did, nor have to bear so strange a 
 punishment. But we all may meet with merited 
 chastisement, and well will it be for us if we 
 meditate upon its purpose, and with humble peni- 
 tence break off from our sins and seek for healing 
 and restoration from One, no longer revealed to us 
 as the " Most High," but as our Father in heaven, 
 reconciled to us by the blood of His dear Son. 
 
( 135 ) 
 
 XIII. 
 
 THE ROYAL PENITENT. 
 (Daniel iv. 28-37.) 
 
 " A LL this came upon the king Nebuchadnezzar " 
 (ver. 28). Strange must it seem that a 
 vision so remarkable as that of the sacred tree, and 
 of the watcher ordering it to be hewn down, and 
 the dread menace of years of lunacy, should have 
 produced no change in the king's ways. Naturally, 
 it seems to us that if we had been in Nebuchad- 
 nezzar's place, and had known so clearly that a 
 great retribution was hanging over our heads, we 
 should have ceased not day or night to pray God 
 that He would withdraw His chastising hand. 
 And Daniel had even urged this upon the king's 
 mind, and tried to lead him to the hope of a 
 lengthened tranquillity, to which he could attain 
 only by true penitence and the breaking away 
 from the paths of sin. 
 
 Yet, really, Nebuchadnezzar acted as the majority 
 of men act now. They do not doubt that their 
 
186 DANIEL. 
 
 sins will find them out, and, nevertheless, they go 
 on in the same dull course, putting away all 
 thought of consequences, not by any forcible act, 
 but by simply contenting themselves with their 
 daily habitual course of life. Day by day they 
 discharge their ordinary duties, become victims of 
 their usual temptations, give way to the same self- 
 indulgences, and never really reflect upon the 
 issues of their conduct. Then perhaps sickness 
 comes, and they have quiet, thoughtful times, and 
 see death close at hand ; or some sorrow or misfor- 
 tune overtakes them, and in their depression serious 
 misgivings force themselves upon their minds, and 
 good resolutions are made, and it seems as if a 
 sinner were rescued from ruin. But time, with its 
 soft hand, heals the sorrow, and health takes the 
 place of sickness ; and once again we are surrounded 
 by the din of constant occupation, and our old 
 ways resume their wonted mastery. In our hours 
 of sickness or grief we were, for the time, rescued 
 from the strong current that was hurrying us along 
 in its rapid course. Withdrawn from its force, we 
 were lifted up, as it were, for a while, and placed 
 upon the river's bank, that we might reflect upon 
 the direction which the stream of our life was 
 taking, and ask ourselves — What will the end be ? 
 Whither hasten we so lightly and so fast? But 
 
THE ROYAL PENITENT. 187 
 
 gradually the current draws us in again, and we 
 are borne along as carelessly as before. 
 
 Now we should lose the benefit of our Bible 
 lessons if we supposed that the more evident 
 presence of the supernatural made the probation 
 of those of whom we there read different in kind 
 from our own. God reveals Himself now, by the 
 voice of conscience, quite as clearly as He then 
 manifested His presence by miracle or prophecy. 
 Many a sinner, under the influence of sermon or 
 prayer, or the reading of Holy Scripture, is as fully 
 convinced of God's care for him, and that a call has 
 reached him " to break off his sins by righteous- 
 ness," as Nebuchadnezzar could have been. The 
 sin of Iscariot may have been of deeper dye than 
 that of Caiaphas, because he had had greater oppor- 
 tunities of hearing our Lord's words and witnessing 
 His mighty acts. But in itself the sin of both was 
 identical. Both for private ends put away from 
 them the conviction that Jesus of Nazareth was 
 their Messiah, and both for worldly gains joined 
 in compassing His death. And men commit the 
 same sin now, when they put to silence the inner 
 voice which tells them that Christ is the Saviour of 
 sinners. Nebuchadnezzar here did what every sinner t *fL 
 does who has ever felt conviction of sin, and has 
 let the emotion pass away unused. And so punish- 
 
188 DANIEL. 
 
 nient took its course. He might have so used the 
 warning as to have escaped it. For a time, possibly, 
 he was deeply affected ; but day by day the re- 
 membrance of the dream and of its interpretation 
 withdrew into the background. He was fully 
 occupied with the affairs of his kingdom, had to 
 attend to his army, to his buildings, to the great 
 works for bridling the course of the Euphrates, and 
 to the thousand and one cares of state. Each day 
 couriers came with tidings of importance, and the 
 king neglected none of them. The one tiling he 
 did neglect was himself. He had had warning, 
 but he let other things hide it away. 
 
 And God was long-suffering. Month after 
 month passed, each bringing its opportunity. The 
 balance is still held even. The uplifted hand for- 
 bears the blow. Would Nebuchadnezzar recall the 
 warning to mind, or let it quite pass away ? God 
 does not hurry the decision, but waits ; and when 
 the choice was fully made then the punishment 
 came. 
 
 " At the end of twelve months he walked in 
 the palace of the kingdom of Babylon. The king 
 spake, and said, Is not this great Babylon, that I 
 have built for the house of the kingdom by the 
 might of my power, and for the honour of my 
 majesty ? " He has had a whole year's respite, and 
 
THE ROYAL PENITENT. 189 
 
 at the end of the time is as selfish and arrogant as 
 ever. All thought of the depth of degradation 
 that is before him has slipped away from his mind. 
 We seem to see him as he paces to and fro on the 
 flat roof of the vast palace that he has built. His 
 great officers of state are in attendance, and follow 
 him reverently, and as he reaches the end of the 
 terrace and turns round, they stand aside that he 
 may pass through ; and then respectfully follow 
 him again. But he marks not their presence. His 
 whole mind is taken up with pride and vainglory 
 at what he has done. There still remains a solid 
 mass of masonry towering above the ruins of the 
 royal palace, and on this probably Nebuchadnezzar 
 was walking. Stretched on all sides below him 
 was " Babylon the great," and though the city was 
 really of vast antiquity, yet he had so added to 
 it, had so strengthened and beautified it, that he 
 might fairly claim it as his work. He had con- 
 structed those mighty walls, which long remained 
 the wonder of the world. He had du£ the 
 course for the Euphrates, building massive bar- 
 riers of brick on each side to confine its waters, 
 with flights of steps and gates of brass to lead 
 down to it. Many of his wars had been waged 
 that he might force the conquered people to come 
 and inhabit its vacant spaces. Within he had 
 
190 DANIEL. 
 
 reared temples and observatories, and hanging 
 gardens for the pleasure of his wife, and palaces for 
 royal abode. Myriads torn from their homes were 
 toiling below. He thought not of their heavy 
 hearts, their ruined homes, their hopeless misery. 
 His one thought was that all he saw was for his 
 own gratification. It was a wonderful work that 
 lay around him, and he had been the doer of it. 
 His empire was the foremost of earthly realms, 
 and he was its founder. Never was a man more 
 thoroughly the author of his own greatness than 
 Nebuchadnezzar. To his own genius, his own 
 military prowess, his own powers of statesmanship 
 he owed everything. He had achieved all " by the 
 might of his own power, and for the honour of his 
 f own majesty." Self was uppermost in his mind. 
 There was no thought of the purpose for which 
 God had so exalted him ; no thought of God 
 whatsoever ; and no thought of man except as 
 his slave, and the mean creature who must do as 
 he willed. Never was pride and arrogance more 
 inflated ; and never was humiliating punishment 
 more near. 
 
 For " while the word was in the king's mouth, 
 there fell a voice from heaven, saying, King 
 Nebuchadnezzar, to thee it is spoken ; the kingdom 
 is departed from thee. And they shall drive thee 
 
THE EOYAL PENITENT. 101 
 
 from men, and thy dwelling shall be with the 
 beasts of the field ; they shall make thee to eat 
 grass as oxen, and seven times shall pass over thee, 
 until thou know that the Most High ruleth in the 
 kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He 
 will." 
 
 This was the lesson which the king had to learn 
 (ver. 25), and he might have learned it joyfully 
 in peace. The appeal had been made to his con- 
 science. He had been warned by a wonderful 
 dream, and Daniel had shown him what was the 
 Divine purpose. But twelve months had passed 
 away, and the lesson was still unlearned ; and now 
 he must be taught it after a sterner fashion. And 
 to us also is it spoken : for God's dealings with 
 mankind are the same yesterday, to-day, and for 
 ever. We have to learn also the lesson of God's 
 rule, and that we are responsible to Him for all 
 our thoughts and words and deeds. But ill would 
 it be for us if God taught us in only one manner. 
 There is a manifold diversity in the ways of His 
 Providence, though the purpose is ever the same. 
 He calls us by His mercies and His love ; by the 
 voice of conscience within, and by the varied events 
 which meet us in our pathway through the world. 
 He has surrounded us with diverse means of Grace, 
 both special and ordinary ; and sometimes, it may 
 
192 DANIEL. 
 
 be, extraordinary occurrences waken us from our 
 apathy, and summon us to repentance. Happy 
 are those who listen to the still, small voice, and 
 grasp the loving hand stretched forth in mercy. 
 For God has also terrors, and strokes of affliction 
 hard and grievous to be borne, and the rod of the 
 impenitent falls upon them in the sharpness of 
 punishment. It was this smiting rod which Nebu- 
 chadnezzar must suffer, because he had hardened 
 himself against all gentler means. 
 
 " A voice fell from heaven." Whether this voice 
 reached only the heart of the king, or whether a 
 sound as of thunder reverberated through the air, 
 we know not. But at once the words of warning, 
 which he had so long forgotten, came back to his 
 mind. What force of terror in those words, " To 
 thee it is spoken." To his officers of state there 
 was a sudden noise. It passed away, and had for 
 them no meaning. " To me it is spoken." Again 
 and again this pealed in the king's ears. And as his 
 courtiers watched they saw a strange change pass 
 over him. A minute before he had stood there, 
 haughty, arrogant, in the full consciousness of his 
 power, his supremacy, his mighty genius. His eye 
 was clear, his gaze steady, his actions self-controlled. 
 Now all is unsteady ; the eye wanders, the look is 
 furtive and downcast. The mind no longer rules 
 
THE ROYAL PENITENT. 193 
 
 his actions ; reason has been dethroned, and strange 
 delusions have taken its place. He is no longer the 
 king, the sovereign master of all around. He 
 fancies himself to be an ox, and with a cry of loud 
 despair rushes away, that he may hide himself in 
 the deep thickets. For the punishment that had 
 been withheld so long as there was possibility of 
 repentance has now come suddenly. 
 
 " The same hour was the thing fulfilled upon 
 Nebuchadnezzar : and he was driven from men, 
 and he did eat grass as oxen, and his body was wet 
 with the dew of heaven, till his hairs were grown 
 like eagles' feathers, and his nails like birds' 
 claws." 
 
 How complete and terrible was this retribution ! 
 Madness in all cases is a most sad form of disease, 
 and not unfrequently it befalls men of distinguished 
 genius. Often there seems but a narrow dividing 
 line between some of the noblest gifts of intellect 
 and imaginations that overpower the reason, and 
 soar into ungoverned and disordered heights. Pos- 
 sibly Nebuchadnezzar had long given way to 
 excited dreams of conquest, and of his great city 
 becoming the centre of the world, and of his throne 
 being the seat of all earthly dominion ; and now 
 all is changed. He supposes himself to be a wild 
 animal, and is driven from men, not by their act 
 
 N 
 
194 DANIEL. 
 
 though there was little pity for the insane in those 
 days, but by his own fears and illusions. And 
 seven years pass over him, during which he wanders 
 in the forests, feeding on such food as they pro- 
 duced, and each day becoming more like the wild 
 beasts who found there their proper home. 
 
 We can quite believe that during this time he 
 was not left without anxious care and attendance. 
 His restoration to his kingdom immediately that 
 he was healed of his disease proves that there were 
 those who maintained for him his rights. His 
 wife Amytis, for whose happiness he had done so 
 much, Daniel, his faithful vizier, would neither of 
 them neglect him ; and so, while he supposed him- 
 self to be an ox, they may have supplied him with 
 needful food, and encouraged him to remain in 
 some sheltered thicket, where they could take 
 care of him, could guard him from molestation, 
 and do all that was possible for his health and 
 comfort. 
 
 " And at the end of the days I Nebuchadnezzar 
 lifted up mine eyes unto heaven, and mine under- 
 standing returned unto me, and I blessed the Most 
 High, and I praised and honoured Him that liveth 
 for ever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, 
 and His kingdom is from generation to generation ; 
 and all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as 
 
THE KOYAL PENITENT. 195 
 
 nothing ; and He doeth according to His will in 
 the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of 
 the earth : and none can stay His hand, or say unto 
 Him, What doest Thou ? " 
 
 We have already seen that it is an observed fact 
 in cases of lycanthropy, that there are sane in- -^ 
 tervals when the sufferer is conscious of his state, <^- 
 and when there is a strong inclination to prayer 
 and to religious emotion. In this case, moreover, 
 the allotted period of punishment was at an end, 
 and as it had been preceded by arrogance and self- 
 laudation, so the return to sanity begins in humilia- 
 tion and prayer. It is possible, and even pro- 
 bable, that the king had had several such periods 
 of self-consciousness, when, hidden away in some 
 leafy recess, he had reflected upon his past life and 
 the strange punishment which had overtaken him. 
 And in them God's grace had wrought in him 
 that abiding change which made him willing to 
 humble himself by publishing this decree, in which 
 he frankly acknowledged both his sin and the 
 punishment which it had brought upon him. And 
 now it had done its work, and taught him the 
 lesson which he might have learned less painfully, 
 that God is supreme, and that man must obey 
 Him and work for Him. But how often is it with 
 us that we bring upon ourselves severe chastise- 
 
196 DANIEL. 
 
 ment because we are so deaf to God's voice when 
 He speaks to us gently. Yet happy was Nebuchad- 
 nezzar that at last conviction had been wrought 
 in him ; for not always does chastisement produce 
 its intended purpose. There are those who harden 
 themselves against God's anger as erewhile they 
 had done against His love. And what more can 
 He do for His people ? He tries to win them by 
 love, and they give themselves to riot and vanity ; 
 He visits them with the scourge, and they rebel 
 and defy Him. 
 
 It was not so here, and therefore the last days 
 of Nebuchadnezzar were days of peace and tran- 
 quillity. " At the same time my reason returned 
 unto me ; and for the glory of my kingdom, mine 
 honour and brightness returned unto me ; and my 
 counsellors and my lords sought unto me ; and I 
 was established in my kingdom, and excellent 
 majesty was added unto me." 
 
 His chastisement was at an end. No traces of it 
 were to remain, but the rest of his days were to be 
 spent in undimmed splendour. Besides the honour 
 and dignity of his royal state, the brightness of 
 his countenance was restored to him. Once again 
 there was the clear eye, the expressive look, the 
 face full of meaning. There was no furtive glance, 
 no clouded, wandering avoidance of the look of 
 
THE EOYAL PENITENT. 197 
 
 others, no dazed, uncertain mien, but the dignity 
 of right reason, and the voice giving utterance to 
 wise thought and calm resolve. It is remarkable 
 that he did not of himself return to seek again his 
 throne. Probably his frightful personal appearance, 
 with his hair long and matted together, and his 
 nails like claws, made him ashamed. Probably, 
 too, there was faith. His punishment had come 
 literally as God had spoken, and equally certain of 
 fulfilment was the promise of restoration. 
 
 But how was it that his lords thus came to seek 
 him ? It must have been Daniel's doing, and pro- 
 bably he had been the wise counsellor who had 
 kept the affairs of state in good order, and the 
 throne open for the king's return, during the seven 
 years of banishment. In so new a kingdom there 
 were dangerous forces at work for its ruin. Evil- 
 Merodach, the son of Nebuchadnezzar, reigned 
 scarcely three years, and was then murdered, to 
 make room for a succession of men who usurped 
 the crown by violence. It is a grand tribute to 
 Nebuchadnezzar as a ruler that for seven years his 
 subjects waited for him, and that no conspiracy or 
 intrigue closed against him the return to empire. 
 But there must have been a wise regent during his 
 absence, or things would have fallen to pieces of 
 themselves. States subjected against their will 
 
198 DANIEL. 
 
 would have rebelled ; wild tribes, freed from stern 
 control, would have carried rapine and desolation 
 far and wide ; quarrels among the great nobles 
 would have led to partisan contests ; and oppression 
 unchecked would have ended in violent commotions. 
 Whoever was regent was a wise, an energetic, a 
 just, and an unselfish ruler ; and that regent appa- 
 rently was Daniel. Even if the queen, Amytis, 
 nominally held the office, yet Daniel would be her 
 minister, and in chapter v. 1 1 we have proof of 
 the high estimation in which he was held by the 
 royal house. 
 
 And Daniel too would know when the appointed 
 years of punishment were over. He had waited 
 for the time when once again he could bring back 
 his master to the throne. Alike faithful to his king 
 and his God, he had borne the great weight of 
 those seven years of care and anxiety in the sure 
 confidence that the word of God was true, and that 
 the root had been bound about with iron and brass 
 in order that out of it might again spring the 
 mighty tree of royal grandeur. 
 
 And as the seven years drew near their end, 
 both the queen and the vizier would redouble their 
 care. Probably during his mania Nebuchadnezzar 
 had fled away from all human approach. Certain 
 things they could do for him, but the chief thing 
 
THE ROYAL PENITENT. 199 
 
 was to guard his haunt from being visited by any 
 but themselves, and by themselves even in such a 
 way as not to alarm him. But now the set time 
 had come, and they summon his lords, and go forth 
 to find him in the wood where he usually wandered. 
 And doubtless there were many who ridiculed their 
 expedition, many more who doubted. The queen, 
 they would say, had held the reins of power upon the 
 plea that Nebuchadnezzar was alive. Was he really 
 so ? Should they find him at all % If so, in what 
 state ? If still a lunatic, what should they do with 
 him ? If they brought him back with long unkempt 
 hair and nails, and lowing like an ox, would the Chal- 
 deans obey him ? or consent any longer to endure a 
 woman's rule, when they saw what was the condi- 
 tion of the being in whose name she governed ? 
 Strange thoughts must have filled their minds as 
 they went forth to hunt the woods for the maniac, 
 who seven years ago had rushed away from all 
 human converse to herd with the beasts. 
 
 But under Daniel's influence they went ; and 
 they found a man strange in his outward aspect, 
 but waiting for their coming, sure that they would 
 come ; and so serene and bright in look, so wise in 
 words, so dignified in mien, that they reverently 
 bent the knee before him, and acknowledged him 
 for their king. And he bent before God, and 
 
200 DANIEL. 
 
 published his decree of humiliation, and, withal, of 
 praise and thanksgiving. " Now I Nebuchadnezzar 
 praise, and extol, and honour the King of heaven, 
 all whose works are truth, and His ways judg- 
 ment ; and those that walk in pride He is able to 
 abase." 
 
( 201 ) 
 
 w 
 
 XIY. 
 
 BELSHAZZAB, THE KING. 
 (Daniel v. 1-4.) 
 
 E are living in an age when knowledge is so 
 wonderfully multiplied that scarcely is the 
 ink of one statement dry before fresh records are 
 discovered, giving us certainty where before we 
 had conjecture only. And in almost every case 
 this increased knowledge removes difficulties which 
 sceptics had previously used for throwing doubt 
 upon the accuracy of the Biblical record. They 
 had made merry over the kingdom of the Hittites, 
 so often mentioned in the earlier books of Holy 
 Scripture. That kingdom has now come to light, 
 and in the Egyptian records we find ample proof 
 of its grandeur, and that the Hittites were a 
 learned and civilised people, and so powerful that 
 they contended on equal terms with the Pharaohs 
 for supremacy in Western Asia. Equal ridicule 
 was cast upon Elam, as if it were an invention of 
 the prophets. The cuneiform inscriptions confirm 
 
202 DANIEL. 
 
 the accuracy of the prophetic declarations, by 
 showing that Cyrus was actually king of Elam, 
 and that Elam and Media were the conquerors 
 of Babylon (Isaiah xxi. 2). So here Belshazzar 
 seemed to give a great triumph to the sceptic, 
 who boldly asserted that there was no such king, 
 and behold, now his history is gradually coming 
 to light. The preservation of these old records is 
 a striking instance of the Divine Providence. In 
 Egypt the climate is so dry that even manuscripts 
 remain for centuries as bright and clear as when 
 first written. But ordinary writing materials 
 would quickly have perished in Assyria and Baby- 
 lonia. And there the people inscribed their 
 records on clay, and only rarely on paper or 
 parchment. Cumbrous as it may seem, clay was 
 really a cheap and convenient material, and tiles 
 made of it and carefully dried or burnt were prac- 
 tically imperishable. We possess no Greek manu- 
 script earlier than the third century after Christ, 
 unless it be that lately discovered at Constanti- 
 nople by Archbishop Bryennios, containing " The 
 Teaching of our Lord by the Twelve Apostles." 
 This is far older than any other known Greek 
 writing ; but we have in the British Museum 
 inscribed clay tablets certainly as ancient as the 
 time of Abraham. 
 
BELSHAZZAR THE KING. 203 
 
 Now the difficulty about Belshazzar was this : 
 the Babylonian empire survived the death of 
 Nebuchadnezzar for scarcely a quarter of a century, 
 and during that period profane history gives us 
 the record of only four kings, Evil-Merodach, 
 Neriglissar, Laborosoarchad, and Nabonidus. It 
 relates, moreover, the fall of Nabonidus, also called 
 Labynetus, in such a way as to prove that he was 
 not Belshazzar. For after being defeated in the 
 open field, it describes him as throwing himself 
 into the strong fortress of Borsippa, where he 
 maintained his defence until some time after the 
 fall of Babylon, but finally capitulated to Cyrus, 
 who spared his life and sent him into Carmania, 
 where Abydenus says, but untruly, that he even 
 became satrap. Within the last few years the 
 cuneiform inscriptions have made it certain that 
 Belshazzar not only existed, but that he was 
 neither Evil-Merodach, as some have supposed, 
 nor identical with Nabonidus, according to the 
 arguments of others. Cylinders of Nabonidus 
 have been found in which he prays for " Belshazzar 
 (spelt Bel-sarusar), his eldest son, the offspring of 
 his heart." And quite recently Mr. Eassam has 
 discovered cylinders, which have been translated 
 for us by Sir H. Eawlinson and Mr. Pinches, 
 throwing great light upon the fall of Babylon, and 
 
204 DANIEL. 
 
 of which Mr. Sayce has given us a popular account 
 in "Fresh Light from the Ancient Monuments" 
 (pp. 166-183). 
 
 In one of these, in which Nabonidus describes 
 his restoration of various temples, repeated mention 
 is made of " the king's son," as evidently a person 
 of much importance ; and it is very probable that 
 Nabonidus, who was not of royal descent, had 
 married a daughter of Nebuchadnezzar, who thus 
 would be father or grandfather of Belshazzar, as 
 described in verses 2 and 11. With this virtually 
 agrees the statement of Herodotus that there was a 
 Labynetus, son of Labynetus and Nitocris, a Baby- 
 lonian queen. The mistake is simply that of confusing 
 the son with the father. Now, whether Belshazzar 
 ever bore his father's name is unknown to us ; and 
 though quite possible, yet it is more probable that 
 Herodotus, who wrote at a distance, confused the 
 stories which he heard. But the importance 
 attached to Nitocris in his history confirms our 
 belief that she was a daughter of Nebuchadnezzar. 
 According to Herodotus Labynetus (Nabonidus) 
 was a successful ruler, and the builder of stately 
 palaces and temples. The cylinders agree with 
 this. Among other temples they especially men- 
 tion his restoration of those at Haran and Sephar- 
 vaim ; and they show that in the earlier part of 
 
BELSHAZZAR THE KING. 205 
 
 his reign he even defeated Cyrus, and took As- 
 tyages prisoner, though doomed subsequently to 
 fall beneath their attack. Herodotus had but a 
 very general idea of Babylonian history, and knew 
 nothing even of Nebuchadnezzar. 
 
 We now know that the son of Nabonidus was 
 associated with his father in the government ; and 
 one cylinder gives the name of the last king of 
 Babylon as Merodachsarusar, wherein the name of 
 Merodach seems substituted for that of Bel. As 
 Belshazzar did nothing worth recording, and died 
 ingloriously before his father, we could not expect 
 more than these incidental references to him. But 
 two of the cylinders discovered by Mr. Eassam 
 detail the history of the capture of Babylon. 
 Cyrus appears in them as a Persian by descent, 
 but as actual king of Elam, and his success is 
 represented as chiefly owing to the disaffection of 
 Nabonidus' own subjects. As the result it is 
 expressly said that he " entered Babylon without 
 fighting," not by any such method as Herodotus 
 describes, but apparently by treachery. Such a 
 banquet as that given by Belshazzar would evi- 
 dently offer a favourable opportunity for the city's 
 betrayal. Nabonidus is described as endeavouring 
 in vain to resist the advance of the Elamite army 
 under Gobryas, the general of Cyrus, and as having 
 
206 DANIEL. 
 
 fled away when Sippara opened its gates to the 
 invaders without any attempt at defence. Some 
 time after the surrender of Babylon Cyrus captures 
 Nabonidus, and puts him in fetters, and at some 
 subsequent time " the king dies." Mr. Sayce by 
 the king understands Nabonidus, but Mr. Deane, 
 in Bishop Ellicott's Commentary, supposes that it 
 was Belshazzar, and that, as a great mourning is 
 immediately described as having taken place for 
 him at Accad, the scene of the events recorded in 
 this chapter was not Babylon but Accad. But as 
 Nabonidus is mentioned by name in the previous 
 line, and as he was the supreme king, it is plain 
 that he must be the person meant, and the public 
 mourning for him at Accad, and the honourable 
 burial accorded him by Cambyses, the son of 
 Cyrus, " in the temple of the Sceptre of the 
 World," confirm the accounts given by the Greek 
 historians of the merciful treatment he met with 
 from Cyrus, even though at his first capture he was 
 thrown into fetters ; and his death apparently was 
 not by violence, but from natural causes. 
 
 To sum then this matter up, these two cylinders 
 which give us the account from Cyrus's side of his 
 conquest of the Chaldean empire, and his capture 
 of Babylon, show that Nabonidus made a brave 
 defence in the open field, and that he fell owing to 
 
BELSHAZZAR THE KING. 20 7 
 
 the disaffection of his subjects. They set Cyrus 
 before us as fomenting this disaffection, which pre- 
 vailed even among the Chaldeans, and would be 
 more general among those nations which, like the 
 Jews, had been torn from their own countries 
 to dwell as strangers in the waste parts of the 
 dominions of Nebuchadnezzar. As Babylon especi- 
 ally had a large proportion of foreigners among its 
 inhabitants, it is not surprising that like Sippara 
 it surrendered itself to Cyrus without resistance ; 
 and if the Jews aided in this surrender, we have 
 an additional reason for the conqueror's kindness 
 to them, and for his restoration of them to their 
 land. There does not seem to be in these two 
 cylinders any direct reference to Belshazzar. Ap- 
 parently he was a dissolute prince, and was content 
 to trust in the strong walls of Babylon while his 
 father was making outside a vain but courageous 
 defence. But there were enemies within the city ; 
 and encouraged by the defeat of Nabonidus, the 
 malcontents made their own terms with Cyrus, 
 who, when admitted within the walls, treated them 
 kindly and granted them peace. Probably while 
 the banquet was going on the conspirators were 
 gathering noiselessly round the youthful king, and 
 put him to death before surrendering the city to 
 the invaders. And having made no defence, and 
 
208 DANIEL. 
 
 falling thus ingloriously, there was nothing either 
 in his life or death which merited mention at the 
 hand of the chronicler of Cyrus's victories. Of 
 Nabonidus it is expressly said that his capture was 
 subsequent to the peaceful entry of Cyrus into 
 Babylon. 
 
 Fresh documents will probably be found which 
 will give us fuller information of the fall of Babylon. 
 Meanwhile, these tablets of clay have given us 
 contemporaneous proof that Nabonidus, Babylon's 
 last king, had a son, named Bel-sarusar ; that as 
 " the king's son" he held a place of high authority; 
 that Babylon fell without resistance ; and that 
 Nabonidus was not at Babylon when it surrendered 
 itself to Cyrus. Bearing these facts in mind, we 
 may now consider the inspired history. 
 
 It tells us, then, that Belshazzar, recking little 
 of the enemy outside the walls, made a great feast. 
 While his father was fighting for the throne, this 
 youthful voluptuary gathers his nobles together 
 for feasting. Secure within the massive walls of 
 Babylon he cares little for the war raging without. 
 For fourteen years Cyrus had been subjugating to 
 his rule the vast regions which extend from the 
 Euxine to the Persian Gulf, and he was now gather- 
 ing his forces for the final campaign which was 
 to make him the head of the second universal 
 
BELSHAZZAR THE KING. 209 
 
 monarchy. Daniel, no doubt, when he entered the 
 royal presence, and said, " God hath numbered thy 
 kingdom and finished it," bore in mind Nebuchad- 
 nezzar's dream of the image whose " brightness 
 was excellent, and its form terrible," but had any 
 record of it been preserved in the royal house ? 
 Had they handed down any tradition even that 
 Babylon, the head of gold, was to give place to a 
 second universal monarchy, the breadth of whose 
 dominions was typified by the breast of silver, and 
 the two nations who shared the sovereignty by the 
 wide-reaching arms ? Probably we all only too 
 readily forget warnings that are disagreeable to us, 
 and Belshazzar, still surrounded by all the pomp 
 and magnificence of an Oriental court, thought 
 little of the dangers gathering round him, and full 
 of confidence in the impregnable fortifications of 
 his vast city, was too unobservant to discern, or 
 try to remove, the discontent and ill-will that 
 would so soon make the defenders of the brazen 
 gates throw them open to the invader without an 
 effort at defence. 
 
 Still we must not rate Belshazzar too meanly. 
 If Nabonidus married Nitocris immediately upon 
 his coming to the crown, Belshazzar would have 
 been about fourteen years of age when he was first 
 associated with his father in the government (cf. 
 
210 DANIEL. 
 
 chap. viii. i). Surrounded by wise counsellors, 
 and with the aid of his mother, Mtocris, he would 
 not be too young for the office, especially in 
 a climate where both mind and body develop 
 more rapidly than in our colder regions. And 
 evidently his father thought him quite capable of 
 managing the internal affairs of the kingdom while 
 he chose a soldier's life. For two years Nabonidus 
 withstood the advance of the Elamite army, but 
 even after his resistance had failed, and he was 
 shut up in Borsippa, Belshazzar, now called to act 
 as sole king, still made head against the invaders. 
 There was evidently some vigour in his character, 
 joined with voluptuousness, and but for treachery 
 he might have foiled all Cyrus's attacks. Perhaps 
 it was after some partial success that he made this 
 banquet and " drank wine before the thousand." 
 
 This was in accordance with Oriental practice. 
 The drinking began after the feast was over, and 
 the king, seated at a separate table in front of 
 his guests, set them the example of dissolute 
 indulgence. 
 
 And as the wine mastered his better sense, 
 " Belshazzar, whiles he tasted the wine, commanded 
 to bring the golden and silver vessels which his 
 father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple 
 which was in Jerusalem ; that the king, and his 
 
BELSHAZZAR THE KING. 211 
 
 princes, his wives, and his concubines, might drink 
 therein." 
 
 Now this act may very probably have been sug- 
 gested to Belshazzar by the known disaffection of 
 the Jews. There can be little doubt that they 
 shared fully in that dislike to the government 
 of Nabonidus to which Cyrus ascribes the com- 
 parative ease of his conquest of Babylonia. After 
 Sippara had thrown open its gates to Gobryas, and 
 Nabonidus had found himself unable to maintain 
 his defence, the revolt of the whole country would 
 rapidly follow ; and though kept down by force at 
 Babylon, Belshazzar, of course, knew that the Jews 
 were among the most zealous of the friends of 
 Cyrus, and when the wine began to inflame him it 
 was an easy advance to insult and bravado. The 
 phrase " tasting the wine " does not imply mode- 
 rate drinking. As the entertainer, Belshazzar took 
 the first sip of the wine provided for the ban- 
 queters, and then the carouse began. And as 
 probably he sat down full of anger against the 
 Jews, whose strong feelings of patriotism and their 
 exclusive religion always made them stand apart 
 from all heathen nations, there is nothing incred- 
 ible in his thus commanding the holy vessels to 
 be brought forth, though for seventy years they 
 had remained unmoved in the temples, where they 
 
212 DANIEL. 
 
 had been the objects of constant attention as a 
 splendid prize of war. Now there they had been 
 regarded as holy ; offered to Bel as a trophy of 
 victory over the God of Jerusalem, they had been 
 kept sacred, and applied to no profane use. But 
 Belshazzar determines now to put them to unholy 
 employment. Those Jews, so firm in their love to 
 their country, so faithful to their God, forming a 
 race so alien and separate and self-contained among 
 the motley dwellers at Babylon, shall see their 
 God disgraced, and the vessels which they regard 
 with such heartfelt veneration shall be desecrated. 
 The command is given, and it is done. " The 
 golden vessels taken out of the temple of the house 
 of Elohim at Jerusalem are brought forth ; and the 
 king, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines, 
 drank in them." 
 
 The profanity added zest to the carousal. " They 
 drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, and of 
 silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone." 
 
 There is a grim severity in this long enumera- 
 tion. They had gods of every conceivable material, 
 but material gods only. They had gods of every 
 sort ; of gold and silver for the rich ; of brass and 
 iron for the middle classes ; of wood and stone for 
 the poor. But in one respect they were all alike. 
 All were powerless ; they had no breath in them. 
 
BELSHAZZAR THE KING. 213 
 
 There was, then, in this banquet, not volup- 
 tuousness only, but profanity. It had begun in 
 sensuousness, and as with each draught of wine 
 the flesh waxed more wanton, all better and reve- 
 rent thought, and all sense of decency passed away. 
 It made their pleasure more intense when in their 
 enjoyment they could make poor jests about the 
 God who claimed to be the One God, the sole 
 Ruler of heaven and earth. And, as history so 
 often witnesses, the intemperate revel, the coarse 
 mockery, were but the precursors of sudden punish- 
 ment. "Wherever profanity and wantonness meet, 
 it needs no inspired eye to see the hand writing its 
 condemnation upon the wall. The eye of every 
 thoughtful person can see it. Every mind taught 
 by the examples of the past trembles at the thought 
 of the sure nearness of retribution. Above all 
 must one who believes in the rule of a just God 
 feel that such conduct must certainly be visited. 
 Here it was visited ; and we shall quickly see the 
 wonderful manner of the Divine retribution. 
 
( 214 ) 
 
 XV. 
 
 THE HANDWRITING ON THE WALL. 
 
 (Daniel v. 5-9.) 
 
 TITE have but lately read the history of Belshaz- 
 zar's sacrilege. Close upon its commission 
 came retribution. The festival that was to mock 
 the God of Israel, and proclaim the triumph of man 
 over Him who made heaven and earth, ends in 
 man's discomfiture. The thousand lords cannot 
 save their master. They had come to share in his 
 impiety, and be witnesses of his bold effrontery. 
 They see him pale and agitated ; his knees smite 
 one against another. All his strength has vanished ; 
 his pride is humbled. They behold in him a culprit 
 on whom sentence is being passed. He is weighed 
 before them and found wanting, and his kingdom 
 is taken from him, and given to his adversaries. 
 
 The very banquet that was to celebrate his 
 triumph had aided in his downfall. Trusting to 
 the mighty walls which his grandfather had built, 
 he forgot that the empire won by force must be 
 
THE HANDWRITING ON THE WALL. 215 
 
 consolidated by justice, and that ramparts of brick 
 could avail nothing against discontent and disaffec- 
 tion rankling within. And that very temper which 
 could delight in this festival, prepared for the set 
 purpose of showing therein his arrogance, and for 
 using words of boasting over a conquered people, 
 is just the temper that urges even the weakest to 
 resistance, and by the sharpness of its sting incites 
 to stern reprisals. 
 
 Babylon was peopled by races torn from their 
 native lands. With a powerful enemy outside the 
 walls, these transplanted nations would naturally 
 be restless and eager to throw off the yoke. Per- 
 haps none were more restless than the Jews. A 
 nation which can look back upon a noble history is 
 always high-spirited. The men whose memories 
 were stored with the exploits of Moses and Joshua, 
 of Gideon, and Barak, and David : nay, who in 
 their great heroes recognised men raised up by 
 their God, and filled with His Spirit ; such men 
 would be ever on the look-out for the appearance 
 among them of a new heaven-sent leader, and the 
 remembrance of Jeremiah's prophecy of the seventy 
 years would help to keep their minds high strung, 
 and their hearts beating with expectation. How 
 could such a race be ourfit else than restless and 
 
 o 
 
 unquiet ? 
 
216 DANIEL. 
 
 And the king at such a crisis insults them ! 
 And he does so in that possession which all earnest 
 men will never endure to see insulted — in their 
 religion. A man will bear much himself, but he 
 will not bear insult to his wife and children. And 
 those even who have borne the violation of their 
 domestic rights have risen in anger at sacrilege. 
 The Israelites had probably borne of late many 
 wrongs at Babylon. There had been years of 
 anarchy, when the weak have always much to 
 suffer ; and Daniel, who had been their powerful 
 protector in the days of Nebuchadnezzar, had long 
 been living in retirement, while others were at the 
 head of affairs. When the king gave orders to 
 bring forth and profane their sacred vessels, we 
 may feel sure that this was no isolated act. Other 
 wrongs and insults had gone before. It was no 
 mere sudden ebullition of drunken folly. The 
 Jews were suspected by him and disliked, and he 
 had made them feel his anger. There is no reason 
 to doubt the truth of Cyrus's assertion, that the 
 empire of Babylon fell, not through his valour and 
 skilfulness in war, but because of the disaffection 
 of its own subjects. We can scarcely be wrong in 
 considering that the Jews were fully as disaffected 
 as any of the other motley tribes who had been 
 brought against their will to Babylon ; and Bel- 
 
THE HANDWRITING ON THE WALL. 217 
 
 shazzar no doubt knew that they were among the 
 many who were hoping for his downfall ; and he 
 hated them for it. And to make them feel his 
 displeasure he will remind them that they are a 
 conquered race. He will gather round him his 
 Chaldean lords, and will bring forth their sacred 
 vessels and put them to unholy use. The act will 
 bring back to memory that the house of their God 
 lies desolate and in ruins. Nay, more. He will 
 treat their God as one that has quite passed away, 
 and their temple as a forgotten thing. For the 
 vessels hitherto carefully preserved shall be put to 
 common use, as things no longer worth any special 
 notice or regard. Alike the God and the place to 
 which they belonged may now be considered as 
 blotted out of mind. Such an insult would sting 
 them to the quick, and rouse even the most timid 
 to bitter vengeance. And with angry feelings all 
 around, and men gnashing their teeth in indigna- 
 tion, the king calls away his officers from their 
 posts, that they may spend the night in revelry. 
 
 Among those thousand lords must have been 
 most of the men high in rank, and competent to 
 see that the king's matters suffered no damage ; 
 men whose keen eyes would have detected gather- 
 ing mischief, and whose very presence would have 
 kept the disaffected in awe. He bids them leave 
 
218 DANIEL. 
 
 their various duties, that their attendance at the 
 banquet may give point to an insult, and make its 
 barbs more irritating. 
 
 Such acts add nothing to a ruler's strength. 
 Even those who take part in them secretly disap- 
 prove, and lose their confidence in the wisdom of 
 their chief. And meanwhile the disaffected were 
 left free to carry out their own plans. The carouse 
 would give them the very opportunity they wanted. 
 When the king and a thousand of his officers were 
 indulging in the revel, it is not probable that sober 
 watch and careful discipline would be maintained 
 elsewhere. 
 
 The thoughtful at such times need no hand- 
 writing upon the wall to tell them that punishment 
 is near. The pages of profane history are full of 
 narratives which show that a night of revelry is con- 
 stantly the precursor of the day of doom, and that 
 " vengeance as a lion lieth in wait for those that 
 mock" (Ecclus. xxvii. 28). But one great use of 
 Holy Scripture is that it shows us God's presence 
 openly manifested in His dealings with human 
 affairs. His hand is ever really present at all 
 times, working in the events of this world, but it 
 is wrapped about with clouds. Still no one can 
 read history with care and not find the same lesson 
 that is taught by Belshazzar's feast. The lives of 
 
THE HAND WRITING ON THE WALL. 219 
 
 Philip II. of Spain, of Louis XIY. of France, and 
 of Napoleon, all teach it, as do those of myriads of 
 meaner men ; only God punished their pride and 
 ambition by the sure though silent working of His 
 ordinary laws, while here He gave a sign which 
 clearly indicated that those laws are the ministers 
 of His unchanging justice. 
 
 And so the handwriting upon the wall has passed 
 into a proverb, and wherever we see pride and 
 want of self-control, we know that punishment is 
 near ; and in the self-willed acts which mark the 
 climax of a presumptuous course, we see the hand- 
 writing which tells us that the man has reached 
 the edge of the precipice, and that his next step 
 will be utter ruin. And this principle is true in 
 ordinary life, and in the fortunes of institutions 
 quite as much as in that of despots, and conquerors, 
 and statesmen. It is an old saying of the poet 
 Hesiod that " the half is more than the whole," 
 because by moderation and self-restraint we may 
 keep the half, while we shall gain the whole only 
 to see it wrested from us. The papacy overthrew 
 not only itself, but strangled Christianity in those 
 realms where its influence was chief, by attaining 
 to despotic power over the very consciences of men. 
 Yfere any one form of Church government able to 
 crush out all its rivals in England, it would thereby 
 
220 DANIEL. 
 
 ensure its own ruin. Were one political party able 
 to silence the rest, it would only fall thereby into 
 more utter powerlessness. And so in the manage- 
 ment of our own lives, our gifts become our bane 
 instead of being our blessing, when we cannot 
 control ourselves. We have the principle set 
 before us in the life of the most active and highly 
 gifted of the apostles. For at the very time when 
 more than ordinary revelations were made to St. 
 Paul, and he was even caught up into the third 
 heaven, and heard things beyond the power of 
 human language to utter, God at that very time 
 placed a thorn in his flesh to buffet him. And 
 Paul was restless and unhappy at so strange an 
 impediment being placed in the way of his useful- 
 ness, but God revealed to him the secret — "My 
 strength is made perfect in weakness " (2 Cor. xii. 
 9). Place this Divine warning side by side with 
 old Hesiod's aphorism, and in the one we have the 
 lesson in the form of cold heathen philosophy, in 
 the other it is the warm, loving fulness of Christian 
 truth. For the heathen sees man only as he is 
 in and by himself ; Christianity shows him to us 
 in his relation to God. 
 
 The words of the narrative are in agreement 
 with modern discoveries. Mr. Layard, in describ- 
 ing the remains of palaces at Nineveh, speaks of 
 
THE HANDWRITING ON THE WALL. 221 
 
 several of them as having the wall covered with 
 lime or plaster. And here in the full light, " over 
 against the candlestick," in a spot illuminated by 
 the glare from one of the massive candelabra, at 
 the top of each of which was a bowl filled with oil, 
 and in it a bundle of flax for wick, blazing with large 
 light, the fingers were seen, and in the expressive 
 language of the original, " they are writing." 
 
 The king sees the fingers in motion, sees the 
 letters being traced one by one. As he started in 
 terror, the eyes of the revellers turned to the spot 
 on which his gaze was fixed, and the loud mirth and 
 noisy revelry was silenced as in a moment. There 
 was but one thought now, as with the king they 
 watched " the part of the hand that was writing." 
 It was not a whole hand, but simply " fingers of a 
 man's hand," holding probably the iron pen or 
 chisel with which letters were traced ; and all were 
 filled with awe at the thought of what the writing 
 might mean. 
 
 " Then the king's countenance was changed, and 
 his thoughts troubled him, so that the joints of his 
 loins were loosed, and his knees smote one against 
 another" (ver. 6). 
 
 There is a swift transition from insolence to 
 terror whenever the conscience is ill at ease. 
 When Horace describes a man as standing fearless 
 
222 DANIEL. 
 
 in the midst of the ruins of a dissolving world, he 
 rightly says of him that he must be just. Vice 
 can be vain and presumptuous, and in the hour of 
 success will mock and utter words of scorn. Virtue 
 alone can be calm and full of strength at all times, 
 and bear prosperity without arrogance, and adver- 
 sity without feebleness. Especially is virtue strong 
 if it have for its foundation the Kock of Ages, and 
 feel that God compasseth it about. The poor king 
 here is as mean in his cowardice as he was arro- 
 gant in his insolence. His face a few minutes ago 
 was flushed with wine and with pride. His colour 
 now has fled. Pale and blanched, he can scarcely 
 sit upright, for the joints of his body are relaxed, 
 his knees smite together, and it seems as if he must 
 sink down like one palsied or stricken with sudden 
 torpor. Is this poor creature the mighty king 
 who but a short while ago was defying the God 
 of heaven ? who was insulting Jehovah and His 
 people ? Nay, is not every one who insults God 
 as pitiable a sight 1 This stroke of terror has made 
 Belshazzar's folly plain to human eyes ; but man 
 defying God is ever the picture of impotence vainly 
 endeavouring to match itself with the calm majesty 
 of omnipotence. 
 
 " The king cried aloud to bring in the astrologers, 
 the Chaldeans, and the soothsayers. And the king 
 
THE HANDWRITING ON THE WALL. 223 
 
 spake and said to the wise men of Babylon, Who- 
 soever shall read this writing, and show me the 
 interpretation thereof, shall be clothed with scarlet, 
 and have a chain of gold about his neck, and shall 
 be the third ruler in the kingdom. Then came in 
 all the king's wise men ; but they could not read 
 the writing, nor make known to the king the inter- 
 pretation thereof (vers. 7, 8). 
 
 Those who have a natural explanation ready for 
 all miracles, suppose that as the king was drinking, 
 his eye suddenly caught sight of some ancient 
 bricks built into the wall, on which was some 
 cuneiform writing, made visible by the strong light 
 of the candelabrum ; and that his guilty conscience 
 supplied the rest, and made him think that he 
 saw fingers actually tracing the words. But these 
 " wise men " were well skilled in reading ancient 
 writings, and we find that a large proportion of the 
 works in the royal libraries were translations from 
 older, and especially from Accadian books. Nor 
 were these tiles or cylinders used for building 
 materials, and had there been any inscription on 
 the walls it would have been one in honour of the 
 builder of the palace. Such words as Daniel read 
 are utterly unlike any now found in the many 
 literary treasures brought from Babylonia, nor was 
 there any Assyrian alphabet which these men could 
 
224 DANIEL. 
 
 not have deciphered. But they come and scan the 
 strange letters in vain. The writing may have 
 been in the old Samaritan character, which the 
 Jews used before the captivity, during which they 
 learned the square letters now called Hebrew. 
 While profoundly versed in all Assyrian knowledge, 
 it is by no means probable that the Chaldeans 
 cared to learn the alphabets of foreign nations ; 
 and such characters as those used, for instance, 
 upon the Moabite stone might have been outside 
 their range of knowledge. But the writing, what- 
 ever it was, conveyed no idea to the minds of the 
 wise men of Babylon, and Belshazzar, in growing 
 agony and unendurable suspense, offers large re- 
 wards to the man who will allay his fears. 
 
 Dresses of honour, conveying special privileges 
 to the wearers, were long a common form of reward 
 in the East. Mordecai was invested in a robe of 
 this same scarlet (Esth. viii. 15), the purple of a 
 reddish hue being the genuine dye, and more costly 
 and brilliant than the violet purple, usually ren- 
 dered in our version " blue." But besides this and 
 the golden necklace, the fortunate interpreter of 
 the writing was to be, not " the third ruler of the 
 kingdom " but one of the three chief rulers of the 
 kingdom. In Daniel ii. 49 we read of three chief 
 rulers of the province of Babylon. Similarly there 
 
THE HANDWRITING ON THE WALL. 225 
 
 seem to have been three who were over the whole 
 realm. But when Belshazzar made the offer his 
 realm was sadly shrunken. It was bounded by the 
 walls of one city, and all outside was in the power 
 of an enemy against whom his father had striven 
 bravely, but in vain. 
 
 But the promises avail nought. The wise men 
 look and look in vain. The thousand lords all 
 look, but the writing defies their efforts, and the 
 king's despair grows more dark and gloomy. 
 " Then was king Belshazzar greatly troubled, and 
 his countenance was changed in him, and his lords 
 were astonied " (ver. 9). 
 
 How changed the scene ! There had been, at 
 first, impiety and sacrilege. They drank in the 
 holy vessels to the honour of their gods, and 
 indulged in light jest at Jehovah and bitter con- 
 tempt of His people. And then as the carouse 
 went on, there rose the sound of coarser revelry, 
 and the tongue, loosed by the wine from its ordi- 
 nary restraint, gave utterance to words of shame- 
 less blasphemy and ribald license ; and then came 
 silence. Every eye was turned towards the bright 
 space illuminated by the candlestick. "What can 
 those fingers be tracing ? What can those char- 
 acters mean ? What is the message that has come ? 
 They look towards the royal throne, but there 
 
226 DANIEL. 
 
 is no comfort there. The king, lately so defiant, 
 sits shrunken and doubled up, with terror mak- 
 ing every limb to shake. The wise men come 
 in. They gaze : they confer among themselves. 
 There are four words, but in what language are 
 they written ? What is the writing ? What the 
 explanation ? The king urges them on. Whoever 
 can answer shall have honours of every sort, and 
 the highest rank and power that a subject can 
 attain to. They were clever enough to have 
 invented a meaning : to have said that it meant 
 victory, and Cyrus's downfall. But a secret power 
 withheld them. They forego the coveted honours, 
 and own that their boasted wisdom availed them 
 nothing. So is it ever with mere human wisdom. 
 The crisis comes, and it is weighed in the balance 
 and found wanting. 
 
 And so ends the banquet. The thousand lords 
 stand about in groups, their mirth over, with no 
 appetite for merry jest. A giant terror has entered 
 the hall of revelry, and every heart is weighed 
 down with a burden of fear. In the next chapter 
 we shall see the prophet inspired of God reading 
 the mysterious writing, and explaining to the king 
 that the handwriting on the wall meant his own 
 condemnation, the overthrow of his realm, and a 
 scoffer's death. 
 
( 227 ) 
 
 XVI. 
 
 AN UNWELCOME EXPLANATION. 
 
 (Daniel v. 10-23.) 
 
 TEKEMIAH, the prophet of the captivity, had 
 foretold that Babylon should fall when its 
 princes and nobles were drunken with wine ; and 
 that their noisy revel should end in the silence 
 of death (Jer. li. 57). And such is the scene 
 before us. Instead of the babble of a thousand 
 tongues there is silence. For no one can read the 
 mysterious writing which has so strangely changed 
 their merriment into terror. But as they stand 
 about in groups, uncertain what to do, " the queen, 
 by reason of the words of the king and his lords, 
 came into the banquet house : and the queen spake 
 and said, king, live for ever : let not thy thoughts 
 trouble thee, nor let thy countenance be changed." 
 The queen in this place was certainly the queen- 
 mother, who in Oriental courts always holds a 
 position of high rank. Where polygamy is the 
 rule, a wife counts for little, but the mother of 
 
228 DANIEL. 
 
 the reigning sovereign is sure of exercising great 
 influence. We even find the office going on into 
 the next reign ; for Asa removes his grandmother 
 Maachah, the wife of Abijam and granddaughter of 
 Absalom (i Kings xv. 2 ? 10), from being queen- 
 mother, because she was given to idolatry (2 Chron. 
 xv. 16). It thus appears that beside her natural 
 influence she held an official rank for life. So 
 too in Turkey the mother of the reigning sovereign 
 is known as the Sultana Validah ; and, apparently, 
 throughout the East she occupied a definite position, 
 with many legal privileges as well as those accorded 
 her by the affection of her son. But if this queen- 
 mother was Nitocris, she was personally a woman 
 of great ability and power. As the daughter of 
 Nebuchadnezzar she was the link between the 
 reigning dynasty and the great founder of the 
 Babylonian empire. Apparently, too, she had 
 inherited some of the statesmanlike qualities of 
 her father, while her husband Nabonidus was little 
 more than a soldier. She may thus have been the 
 counsellor of her son, whose early elevation to rule 
 was evidently the result of his representing through 
 her the great king. Naturally, therefore, Bel- 
 shazzar would look to her for aid, and he looks 
 not in vain. She may even have come because the 
 confused noise and exclamations of many voices 
 
AN UNWELCOME EXPLANATION. 229 
 
 had reached her apartment. At all events, "by 
 reason of the words of the king and his lords " 
 means "because of their loud talking," though 
 very probably some messenger brought her an 
 account of what had happened, and told her of 
 her son's distress, and that the wise men could do 
 nothing to allay his terrors. 
 
 She comes/ therefore, and says, " There is a man 
 in thy kingdom, in whom is the spirit of the holy 
 gods ; and in the days of thy father light and 
 understanding and wisdom, like the wisdom of the 
 gods, was found in him ; whom the king Nebu- 
 chadezzar thy father, the king, I say, thy father, 
 made master of the magicians, astrologers, Chal- 
 deans, and soothsayers ; forasmuch as an excellent 
 spirit, and knowledge, and understanding, inter- 
 preting of dreams, and showing of hard sentences, 
 and dissolving of doubts, were found in the same 
 Daniel, whom the king named Belteshazzar : now let 
 Daniel be called, and he will show the interpretation." 
 
 Now here one or two difficulties have been made. 
 For, first, it has been asked, Why, if Daniel was 
 master of the magicians, had he not come in with 
 them ? But probably this title was rather a high 
 rank conferred upon a political personage than a 
 practical matter of ordinary duty. Daniel had 
 studied in the college of the Magi, had learned 
 
230 DANIEL. 
 
 their wisdom, and by interpreting Nebuchad- 
 nezzar's dream, had proved that he excelled his 
 teachers ; . but he was forthwith entrusted with 
 political power, and his duties became those of 
 a secretary of state. He retained his rank as 
 " Master of the Magi," and in great court cere- 
 monials might appear at their head, but he prac- 
 tised none of their arts. He had higher and more 
 important functions. And when at the death of 
 Nebuchadnezzar, or upon the murder of Evil- 
 Merodach, all political power passed from his 
 hands, he would neither wish himself, nor would 
 the ordinary Chaldean soothsayers desire, that he 
 should actually interfere with their duties. His 
 safety in troubled times, when usurper' was strug- 
 gling with usurper, would be to dwell quietly ; but 
 evidently he had the entire respect of Nitocris, and 
 probably her protection. 
 
 But it is also asked, How was it that Belshazzar 
 knew so little about him ? Why did he not send 
 for him himself? But, as we shall see, he had a 
 general knowledge of him as one who had been in 
 office under his grandfather ; and a young Oriental 
 despot was not so carefully educated as to know 
 very much even of the history of the time imme- 
 diately preceding his own. There was no one 
 round him who would care to tell him much about 
 
AN UNWELCOME EXPLANATION. 231 
 
 the statesman who had done such good service in 
 days gone by. When Neriglissar murdered the 
 son of Nebuchadnezzar new men would come into 
 power, and it was as much as the old ministers 
 could expect if they were not put to death together 
 with their master. 
 
 But Nitocris remembered with respect one who 
 had served her father so well, and she dwells upon 
 his merits, not because he was a person altogether 
 unknown to Belshazzar, but because he was a Jew ; 
 and it could not but have been a humiliation to 
 the king to have to send to a Jew for help, when 
 the very purpose of the festival had been to insult 
 the Jewish God. As it is, the form of Daniel's 
 answer is not friendly, nor could Belshazzar have 
 expected either respect or friendship. But, as 
 Nitocris pointed out, Daniel was the one man who 
 had the necessary skill, and the banquet prepared 
 in mockery of the Jews, and to pour upon them 
 scorn and insult, is hushed, that a Jew may inter- 
 pret the message sent by Israel's God. 
 
 It was probably the fear of objection being made 
 because of his nationality that caused Nitocris to 
 dwell so fully on his wonderful power of interpret- 
 ing dreams and solving riddles and explaining 
 things difficult and uncertain. She even commends 
 him to her son by showing that his name w T as 
 
232 DANIEL. ' 
 
 almost identical with the king's own. Both were 
 " princes of Bel," and Daniel's Babylonian name 
 would suggest that he was in some way one of 
 themselves, and one who had been at least adopted 
 by them. And so, though the king knew that he 
 belonged to a suspected race, he yet makes no ob- 
 jection. Probably his anxiety to know the meaning 
 of the strange words overcame all other misgivings. 
 
 " Then was Daniel brought in before the king*. 
 And the king spake and said unto Daniel, Art thou 
 that Daniel, which art of the children of the cap- 
 tivity of Judah, whom the king my father brought 
 out of Jewry ? I have even heard of thee, that 
 the spirit of the gods is in thee, and that light 
 and understanding and excellent wisdom is found 
 in thee." And then the king tells him how all the 
 wise men of Babylon had tried to decipher the 
 mysterious writing, and had failed, and repeats the 
 offer of ample honours if Daniel can once again, as 
 in old times, solve the perplexing difficulty. 
 
 The king evidently had some knowledge of 
 Daniel. His connection with Nebuchadnezzar had 
 been too remarkable for his name not to be from 
 time to time upon the lips of men ; but the events 
 themselves told from mouth to mouth became 
 probably so changed and altered, as to be but 
 myths and fables, which the people had shaped 
 
AN UNWELCOME EXPLANATION. 233 
 
 into accordance with their own ideas. A very few 
 years suffice for such changes, and Daniel probably 
 lived at Babylon as one whom the people regarded 
 with awe, as a being invested with extraordinary 
 powers, and who had done marvellous things. But 
 he lived there as a man laid by, who belonged to a 
 former state of things, of which men scarcely dared 
 to speak. Still, when the old man appeared in 
 their streets, they would call to mind their famous 
 king, in whose reign they were masters of the 
 world, and would gaze respectfully upon his prime 
 minister. And now, as again and again in old 
 times, he had been called in to solve the mental 
 difficulties of Nebuchadnezzar, he stands before the 
 unworthy grandson and hears his narrative, and 
 looks reverently upon the writing still illuminated 
 by the blazing light of the candlestick. 
 
 He sees at once its meaning, and will interpret 
 it, but rejects decisively the gifts. " Then Daniel 
 answered and said before the king, Let thy gifts be 
 to thyself, and give thy rewards to another ; yet I 
 will read the writing unto the king, and make 
 known to him the interpretation." 
 
 The purpose of this rejection of the royal gifts 
 was not to vindicate Jewish prophecy from the 
 charge of being venal. No such idea was present 
 in the mind either of the king or of the nobles. 
 
234 DANIEL. 
 
 Their one wish was to have the writing interpreted. 
 We find afterwards that Daniel submitted to the 
 wearing of the robe and chain of office, though he 
 knew how worthless the gifts were. His present 
 refusal was intended, first, to prepare the mind of 
 Belshazzar for the boding of evil ; and, secondly, as 
 a reproof. The idea of some commentators that the 
 king would immediately fall into a rage, and order 
 Daniel to be punished, is without reason, nor need 
 Darnel's words be softened down. They are too 
 unlike those addressed to Nebuchadnezzar (chap, 
 iv. 19), when evil was impending over him, for 
 us not to recognise the difference. As a matter 
 of fact, in all despotisms free language is often 
 addressed to the sovereign, and truth is spoken in 
 a blunt way not usual in courts where behaviour 
 is a matter of etiquette. The history of the Arab 
 chalifs abounds in pointed sayings that must have 
 stung, but which it was the rule to bear. And here 
 Daniel was one who had been the chief minister of 
 the king's grandfather, and who, while refusing the 
 king's gifts, was willing to do his pleasure, and set 
 his mind at rest. 
 
 But Daniel would have been untrue to his high 
 office if he had not reproved the king. His whole 
 address is one of earnest rebuke and remonstrance. 
 From first to last his words are stern, and such as 
 
AN UNWELCOME EXPLANATION. 235 
 
 might have moved the wrath of a despot ; but had 
 not that just happened which had crushed the king 
 with terror ? There is often even a relief in a 
 small annoyance coming to divert the thoughts 
 from a great calamity. Belshazzar had just seen 
 the fingers writing their message upon the wall. 
 He knew that it was a message of punishment 
 from the God of Israel, whose holy vessels he had 
 just been profaning. He expected only words of 
 woe and wrathful tidings from Israel's prophet, and 
 the rejection of his gifts was in harmony with his 
 own secret thoughts. 
 
 And then Daniel recalls to his mind the history 
 of the strange humiliation which had befallen 
 Nebuchadnezzar because of his pride. " thou 
 king, the most high God gave Nebuchadnezzar, 
 thy father, a kingdom, and majesty, and glory, 
 and honour : and for the majesty that He gave 
 him, all people, nations, and languages trembled 
 and feared before him : whom he would he slew ; 
 and whom he would he kept alive ; and whom he 
 would he set up ; and whom he would he put 
 down. But when his heart was lifted up, and his 
 mind hardened in pride, he was deposed from his 
 kingly throne, and they took his glory from him : 
 and he was driven from the sons of men ; and his 
 heart was made like the beasts, and his dwelling 
 
236 DANIEL. 
 
 was with the wild asses ; they fed him with grass 
 like oxen, and his body was wet with the dew 
 of heaven ; till he knew that the most high 
 God ruled in the kingdom of men, and that He 
 appointeth over it whomsoever He will." 
 
 The history of Nebuchadnezzar's malady would 
 be long remembered in the royal house, and be 
 narrated, with such changes as are sure to accom- 
 pany oral tradition, among the stories wherewith 
 people who have no books while away their time. 
 But no change could make it more startling than 
 the simple facts, and Daniel magnifies Nebuchad- 
 nezzar's authority and dilates upon his grandeur to 
 show that it was no common king who had suffered 
 this humiliation. Belshazzar had not attained to 
 such power as that wielded by his grandfather. 
 He had not his splendid ability ; had achieved no 
 victories ; had no army of veterans irresistible in 
 battle, and whose sole law was the will of their 
 lord. Very probably even there were with him 
 one or more officers who represented Nabonidus, 
 and as long as the father lived, there was a limit 
 to the authority of the son. True, that they were 
 now kept apart, and nobody within the walls 
 of Babylon could vie with Belshazzar. But the 
 jDresence of the enemy, the necessity of making 
 resistance, the control of the army, the mainten- 
 
AN UNWELCOME EXPLANATION. 237 
 
 ance of its efficiency, and the prevalence of general 
 disaffection, making all things more difficult, were 
 so many limits of the king's power. Nebuchad- 
 nezzar had overcome all resistance, success had 
 crowned his efforts, and difficulties had but proved 
 his ability. Such a one could kill and keep alive ; 
 could set up and pull down. But wherever the 
 monarch is not a person of high intellectual and 
 moral ability, the presence of difficulties is apt to 
 raise up some one, who, by the force of his nature, 
 becomes predominant, and who, though still a 
 subject, yet wields all real power. 
 
 Such may have been the case with the young 
 king, but it was not so with Nebuchadnezzar. And 
 yet when that grand monarch gave way to pride 
 and arrogance, he suffered a reverse so marvellous 
 and extraordinary, that the story of one so highly 
 endowed, so strong in mind and will, giving way 
 to the strangest hallucination, and roaming about 
 lowing like the oxen and eating their food, and yet 
 finally returning to his kingdom : — this, with the 
 many minor events and anecdotes, w T hich filled up 
 the outline preserved to us in Holy Scripture, must 
 have been repeated from father to son through 
 many generations ; and well was it if until it passed 
 away it remained as a lesson against that sin w Inch 
 especially besets men in high rank and power. 
 
238 DANIEL. 
 
 There is one added particular not given in the 
 fuller narrative, namely, that Nebuchadnezzar's 
 " dwelling was with the wild asses." Now the 
 wild ass is an animal difficult and almost impos- 
 sible to tame, of great fleetness, wary and hard to 
 approach, and whose home is in the desert. Living 
 with them it would be no easy matter to approach 
 Nebuchadnezzar ; nor is it contrary to what has 
 happened in other well authenticated cases, to 
 believe that after a time a wild man would almost 
 rival them in speed and certainly in endurance. 
 At a distance, then, from the cultivated fields 
 watered by the canals of Babylonia, far away in 
 the deserts which border upon it, Nebuchadnezzar 
 passed the seven years of his malady. What steps 
 his wife and Daniel could take for his protection, 
 and what help they could give him when consorting 
 with these strange companions, it is difficult to say. 
 But doubtless they would watch over him, would 
 observe his haunts, and do all that was possible to 
 alleviate his state. 
 
 But how constantly is it the case that men know 
 the words of a lesson but do not understand its 
 meaning. Too often, not children only, but grown 
 men, learn by rote, and can repeat the sounds, but 
 the sense is hidden from them. Even religious 
 men may read their Bibles times without number, 
 
AN UNWELCOME EXPLANATION. 239 
 
 and yet have seen only the casket which contains 
 the jewel ; until it may be some trial comes, some 
 mental striving and searching of heart, and then 
 some text, which they have repeated hundreds of 
 times without any special meaning, is unlocked, 
 and they find in it some deep lesson of strength 
 and comfort, of which before they had been un- 
 aware. Widely apart are the two kinds of know- 
 ledge. Our intellects explain to us the outward 
 form, the relations of the words, their grammatical 
 import ; it is when our hearts take them up that 
 we learn their spiritual and Divine teaching. Bel- 
 shazzar probably had often listened with curious 
 interest to the story of his illustrious grandfather's 
 malady, as it was repeated perhaps in the women's 
 apartments in his childhood ; and in riper years 
 he may have read the proclamation which the 
 penitent monarch published after being restored 
 to his throne. But he listened as David had 
 listened to Nathan's story of the ewe lamb ; there 
 was nothing to say to him, " Thou art the man." 
 But the aged prophet, speaking with all the 
 weight of one who had been the counsellor of 
 the great founder of the Babylonian empire, now 
 drives the barbed arrow of reproof deep into his 
 conscience. He repeats to him the history of 
 Nebuchadnezzar's pride and punishment, and adds, 
 
240 DANIEL. 
 
 " And thou his son, Belshazzar, hast not humbled 
 thine heart, though thou knewest all this ; but hast 
 lifted up thyself against the Lord of heaven ; and 
 they have brought the vessels of his house before 
 thee, and thou, and thy lords, thy wives, and thy 
 concubines, have drunk wine in them ; and thou 
 hast praised the gods of silver, and gold, of brass, 
 iron, wood, and stone, which see not, nor hear, nor 
 know : and the God in whose hand thy breath is, 
 and whose are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified. " 
 These are stern but faithful words, worthy of God's 
 prophet, and the remembrance of the terrible malady 
 with which Daniel's God had smitten the most 
 mighty monarch of his race must have repressed 
 every rising of the king's anger, and humbled the 
 arrogance which, an hour or two ago, had been so 
 rampant. It is a well-known rule that those who 
 are insolent in prosperity are abject and mean when 
 distress overtakes them. For the arrogance and 
 the meanness are alike the oscillations of a mind 
 destitute of self-control. The pendulum which goes 
 farthest in one direction swings equally far upon 
 the opposite side. Belshazzar was too terrified by 
 the apparition of the fingers writing his condemna- 
 tion to dare say one word of remonstrance. In his 
 pride he had defied God, but his pride is quelled, 
 and he meekly listens as the prophet rebukes him ; 
 
AN UNWELCOME EXPLANATION. 241 
 
 tells him of knowledge unused, and of the warning, 
 unheeded, of Nebuchadnezzar's punishment ; stig- 
 matises as things void alike of sight and hearing and 
 sense his idols of silver and wood and stone ; and 
 warns him that the God against whom he had lifted 
 himself up was the God in whose hand was his very 
 breath, and who had the control of all his ways. 
 
 Well would it be if we would each one learn the 
 lesson of bowing in humble obedience to God's will 
 from these examples of old, instead of having it 
 forced upon us by personal suffering. Or rather, 
 as Christians, it is our duty to bend to the Divine 
 will in loving trustfulness as being the will of our 
 Father which is in heaven. Too often men will 
 learn nothing except by their own experience, 
 and it is only when battered and bruised by vain 
 striving, and humbled by disappointment and fail- 
 ure, that man's self-will is content to lose itself in 
 the love of One whose mercies fail not. But here 
 the lesson was of punishment alone. Humbled, 
 terrified, but unrepentant, Belshazzar listens to his 
 doom. And as Daniel spake the words of inter- 
 pretation, already the storm was gathering close 
 around that was to sweep him away. And again 
 and again, it may be, the words of Daniel resounded 
 in his ears : " The God in whose hand thy breath is, 
 and whose are all thy ways, thou hast not glorified." 
 
 Q 
 
( 242 ) 
 
 XVII. 
 
 MENE, MENE. 
 (Daniel v. 24-31.) 
 
 TN the previous verses Daniel had narrated to 
 Belshazzar the history of Nebuchadnezzar's 
 pride and mysterious punishment. And of this, 
 more or less, the king had already known, and yet 
 he had given way to a more impious arrogance than 
 that which had caused his grandfather's humilia- 
 tion. And therefore had this strange sight come 
 to him of the part of a hand writing his condemna- 
 tion upon the wall. We need not waste time in 
 considering whose hand it was ; whether it were 
 that of an angel, or whether it were some special 
 creation called into being for temporary use. 
 Enough to know that by the wondering eyes -of 
 the kins: and his lords finders had been seen 
 tracing strange characters, and that the characters 
 remained visible. The particles of matter of 
 which the plaister was composed had grouped 
 themselves as God willed, even though it had 
 
MENE, MENE. 243 
 
 been a spiritual hand that moved them, and they 
 bore their silent message to the terrified revellers. 
 And the first word, twice repeated, was Mene. 
 " And this is the interpretation of the thing : 
 Mene; God hath numbered thy kingdom, and 
 finished it." 
 
 Literally the word means : Numbered, numbered. 
 There is an appointed measure, a settled limit to 
 everything. Even in the creation of the world, 
 and the constitution of matter, number plays an 
 important part. For it is by the arrangement 
 of a few elementary particles according to fixed 
 numerical proportions that the endless variety of 
 substances here on earth is produced. Chemical 
 affinities, which regulate the composition of most 
 of the things around us, so work by numbers that 
 the formula in books of chemistry descriptive of 
 most substances is even given in figures. Music, 
 again, depends upon vibrations numerically dif- 
 ferent ; and in the solar system the distance of 
 the planets from one another is in a settled 
 numerical ratio, so that even before so many 
 asteroids were discovered, it was known that a 
 planet must once have existed in the space 
 which they now occupy ; for otherwise there would 
 have been a gap in the numerical order. When, 
 then, we look out upon the world around us, we 
 
 w^ 
 
244 DANIEL 
 
 may say, Numbered, numbered. All is b}^ number 
 and weight. 
 
 And this is true, not merely of matter, but in 
 a still higher sense of our lives. Our days are 
 numbered, and come to an end as soon as their 
 tale is told. We start with an allotted sum, and 
 as soon as the total is reached, we pass away. 
 Our acts are numbered. But here the sense is 
 different. Of our acts a record is kept, and not 
 one of them passes away from remembrance, while 
 the length of our lives is settled for us at the very 
 moment when we begin our course. But here 
 we may imagine some one asking, Who is it that 
 gave man this allotted space of life ? Who is it that 
 now keeps record of all his doings ? And we may 
 answer, Even He who made the world by order 
 and proportion, and ordained that this mystery of 
 number should pervade it everywhere. A world 
 so subtilly constituted can be no chance product ; 
 and if made on a settled plan, then we may be 
 sure that it had a settled purpose also ; and that 
 purpose can be nothing less than the trial and 
 probation of the one being who walks upon it erect 
 and self-conscious — even man. 
 
 For God's people there is comfort in the thought 
 that all things are counted, and for this purpose 
 our Lord used it. Man need not live careworn 
 
MENE, MENE. 245 
 
 and anxious, for the very hairs of his head are all 
 numbered. He is not subject to blind chance. 
 His existence is not the result of a mere fortuitous 
 medley, nor can he ever become the victim of luck 
 or accident. But more than this. To the heathen 
 life was often made very miserable by the supposition 
 that he was the prey of destiny. He seemed made 
 only to be crushed by forces over which he had no 
 control, and which moved on dark and pitiless, 
 unmoved by human joy and sorrow. To the 
 heathen nothing was more painful than the sight 
 of a good man suffering adversity, and their poets, 
 therefore,, took it as the general subject of their 
 tragedies, because it so deeply agitated the mind, 
 and filled it with terror. It causes no terror now, 
 for to the Christian it brings the thought of " a far 
 heavier weight of glory." For us there is neither 
 chance nor destiny. Not chance, for all things are 
 numbered. God, by settled rule and measure, 
 allots to each thing its place and time, and nothing 
 happens but as He wills. Not destiny, for human 
 actions are counted. And they are counted because 
 in every one of them man has something of his 
 own. If man were subject to fate and necessity 
 this would not be so. No more account would be 
 taken of actions irrevocably fixed by destiny than 
 of the ticking and striking of a clock. But man 
 
246 DANIEL. 
 
 lias the high privilege of being a fellow-worker 
 with God. Made in God's image, he has something 
 of that originating power, something, also, of that 
 regulating power, which in the highest degree 
 belong to God. By this power God created the 
 world ; man by it alters and shapes and moulds 
 things around him, and forms his own character. 
 And because man thus has in him something 
 Divine, because, in his free energy and power of 
 thinking and choosing and acting for himself, he 
 is a " partaker of the Divine nature " (2 Pet. i. 4), 
 therefore none of his acts are lost or forgotten, 
 but they are written in the book of remembrance 
 that is before the Lord continually. 
 
 But men may live thoughtless and forgetful of 
 this high value of their acts. Made in the likeness 
 of God, they may debase themselves, and abuse 
 their noble gifts to their own shame and condemna- 
 tion. And if the probation of man, and his endow- 
 ment with attributes, resembling in their degree 
 those of Deity, was intended for his good, and his 
 final elevation to transcendent glory, then must 
 also his misuse of them end in lasting misery. 
 And so to Belshazzar the words brought only grief 
 and consternation. Numbered, numbered. His 
 days were numbered and over. His joys numbered 
 and gone. His kingdom, his royal dignity and 
 
 i 
 
MENE, MENE. 247 
 
 reign, numbered and taken away. No more life, 
 no more pleasure, no more feasting and revelry, no 
 more regal state and pomp of grandeur. He had 
 reached in all things his allotted number, and what 
 remained? What was the end of all his oppor- 
 tunities ? The account must now be summed up, 
 the columns balanced ; aud what was the result ? 
 Belshazzar could have had little hope, but the 
 prophet kept him in no suspense : " Tekel ; thou 
 art weighed in the balances, and found wanting." 
 
 Counted and weighed. Oh! that men would 
 feel their responsibility while still it is the day of 
 grace. To a heathen, perhaps, this idea of respon- 
 sibility was something novel. He knew, indeed, 
 that there was retribution, that evil deeds followed 
 and overtook the guilty perpetrator, though by a 
 slow and unsteady step. Yet they did recognise 
 a connection between virtue and happiness, between 
 vice and misery, and did understand that there 
 was a just government actually in exercise here on 
 earth. " Barely," says the epicurean poet, Horace, 
 " does punishment fail to reach the guilty, though 
 it follow with lazy tread." Still to the heathen 
 much was dark. He saw sorrow and trouble 
 falling where they were not deserved. He saw 
 men in high places who neither merited their 
 elevation nor used their power for good purpose. 
 
 I 
 
248 DANIEL. 
 
 Though traces there were of a just ordering of 
 things, yet the ordering was not exact or unfail- 
 ing, and there was much of which he could give 
 no explanation. For us all this has changed. This 
 world is not to us our whole field of view. The 
 Christian sees time in its relation to eternity, and 
 his present life is but a beginning, a prelude, a 
 preparation for the life beyond the grave. "When, 
 then, with Isaiah, he exclaims, " Thou, most 
 upright, dost weigh the path of the just" (chap, 
 xx vi. 7), the thought to him is full of joy and 
 confidence. For he feels that in this preparatory 
 world God is with him, ordering his steps, noting 
 all his difficulties and trials, aiding him by His 
 grace, and admitting him for Christ's sake to a 
 covenant of love, whereby in that future world his 
 happiness will be made sure. 
 
 But for Belshazzar there was no comfort or joy 
 in this even balance of God's justice. For he had 
 been weighed and " found wanting." His life had 
 been short ; only a very few years had been allotted 
 him, and he had reached the end ; and now he 
 must be put into the scales, and his acts weighed. 
 He had been a king, and how had he used his 
 power ? On the one side were his opportunities — 
 they had been many, and pressed the scale low 
 down. On the other side, how many were his acts 
 
MENE, MENE. 249 
 
 of mercy ? how many his deeds of justice ? Where 
 were his thoughts for the welfare of his people 1 
 his resolutions to reign for their good, and to 
 exercise vigilant self-denial, lest base pleasures and 
 greed of power and wealth should make him their 
 scourge instead of their protector ? He had been 
 appointed by his father to share the regal power 
 at a time of difficulty, when a powerful enemy, 
 who had conquered most of Asia, was active in 
 the field ; and when his subjects, harassed by 
 unrighteous oppression, were eager to cast off the 
 rule which his father had usurped. What had he, 
 with a better claim to the throne, done to lighten 
 the burdens of the men who had served his grand- 
 father, to improve their condition, to lessen their 
 discontent? He was but a mere youth, but 
 already a voluptuary. Wives and concubines had 
 been gathered for his pleasures ; but we read of no 
 wise step taken by him for the nation's good, of 
 no brave energy used in the nation's defence. But 
 amid the low rumblings of the earthquake, warn- 
 ing him that some dreadful convulsion was at hand, 
 he makes a great banquet that he may insult a brave 
 but fallen nation, now incorporated among his sub- 
 jects, and that he may add to his voluptuousness 
 and sloth the graver sins of impiety and sacrilege. 
 " Found wanting ; " such was the verdict of 
 
250 DANIEL. 
 
 justice after carefully weighing his clangers and his 
 difficulties, the excuses that might be made for 
 him, even his natural defects of character, and all 
 that could be said in his defence. Even of the 
 heathen God is a lenient judge, and long-suffering ; 
 nor does He exact of any that which is beyond 
 their powers. Of this untutored youth He would 
 require far less than of us ; for the stripes of 
 punishment are few or many according to the 
 knowledge that men have of the Divine will. But 
 whatever be the measure of our knowledge, finally 
 for all, the time of weighing comes, and we shall 
 have to give account of the grace vouchsafed us, 
 of the aid which God grants to His people, and 
 of the full knowledge bestowed upon us of the 
 way of salvation through Jesus Christ our Lord. 
 Well may the thought of this weighing make us 
 humble and careful, yet full of calm hope, as we 
 call to mind God's many mercies. Here one was 
 weighed whose path had been illuminated by no 
 such bright light as shines upon us ; and had there 
 been in him a love for righteousness, the verdict 
 would have been one of mercy ; but "he was 
 weighed in the balance and found wanting." 
 
 " PERES ; Thy kingdom is divided, and given to 
 the Medes and Persians." In verse 25 the writing 
 is said to have been " Upharsin," literally " and 
 
MENE, MENE. 251 
 
 dividers," but with an evident allusion to the 
 Persians. Here, nevertheless, we find the Medes 
 (or Madai, as they are called in the cuneiform 
 inscriptions) placed first, while in the Book of 
 Esther Persia has the supremacy (Esth. i. 3, 18, 
 19), as that state, after a very few years, deprived 
 the Madai of their ascendency. Even then, in this 
 slight matter, we cannot help noticing the extra- 
 ordinary accuracy of Holy Scripture ; and had the 
 Book of Daniel been written, as the negative critics 
 assert, in the time of the Maccabees, the writers 
 would naturally have used the order of precedence 
 which had then long been current. 
 
 Instead of Upharsin, Daniel takes the singular 
 Peres, a passive participle signifying " Divided," 
 and so agreeing with Numbered, Weighed. Now 
 the reason of this change may be to show that the 
 time of fulfilment had actually come. The king 
 knew before that outside the walls were men eager 
 to strip him of his realm and share it among them- 
 selves. And Daniel says that it is done. The num- 
 bering is over, the weighing finished, and because he 
 has been found wanting, the sentence must at once 
 be executed. His kingdom is taken from him, and 
 divided between the Medes and Persians. 
 
 The interpretation is over ; the dread meaning of 
 the words explained ; Belshazzar is a king no longer, 
 
2o2 DANIEL. 
 
 and his realm is bestowed upon his foes. But still 
 he keeps his royal word. Unbending and stern as 
 had been the prophet's words, yet must he have 
 the stipulated reward. " Then commanded Bel- 
 shazzar, and they clothed Daniel with scarlet, and 
 put a chain of gold about his neck, and made a 
 proclamation concerning him, that he should be the 
 third ruler in the kingdom." 
 
 For Belshazzar to have withheld the promised 
 honours would have been unworthy of a king, and 
 he may possibly have even hoped to propitiate 
 Israel's God by honouring His prophet. For Daniel 
 to have refused them would have been churlish and 
 altogether wrong. True, he had haughtily put them 
 aside when as yet no one knew what the strange 
 writing might mean ; but after words of such utter 
 condemnation and the foretelling of so miserable 
 a reverse of fortune, it would have been mean, and 
 a sin against charity, unnecessarily to grieve and 
 harass the king, and put himself in hostile oppo- 
 sition to him. And, moreover, the fact that Bel- 
 shazzar had conferred upon him these high honours 
 would be witness to the reality of what had 
 occurred. The news of it would doubtless be 
 carried to the conquerors, and the great favour 
 shown by Darius to Daniel, and by Cyrus to the 
 Jews generally, was very probably connected with 
 
253 
 
 Daniel's interpretation of the handwriting. For 
 from the date of the death of Evil-Merodach until 
 now the prophet had been living in seclusion. 
 Most men probably knew of him only as one of the 
 great men of Nebuchadnezzar's time. Suddenly 
 under the Medes he is the trusted counsellor of 
 Darius. Now, even if the Jews had been strong 
 partisans of the invaders, and prime agents on this 
 eventful night, it would not be enough to explain 
 the elevation of Daniel to so high a post under the 
 conquerors. But if the story of this banquet were 
 told, with all the particulars of the king's terror, 
 and the failure of the wise men of Babylon to 
 read the mysterious writing, and the testimony of 
 Nitocris to Daniel's ability, and his interpretation 
 of the words, attested by the royal gifts and 
 honours ; Darius, when he learned all this, and 
 the meaning put upon the writing, predicting 
 his immediate victory, would surely wish to know 
 more about this great sage, and would inquire 
 into his past history. And thus, when we reflect 
 upon the narrative, we begin to see that the 
 purpose of this occurrence was not merely the 
 vindication of Jehovah's majesty and the punish- 
 ment of sacrilege, but was part of that mysterious 
 Providence which watched so carefully over the 
 fortunes of the Jews at Babylon. 
 
254 DANIEL. 
 
 For the exile at Babylon was a formative time, 
 like the sojourning in Egypt. By the latter Israel 
 was made into a nation ; at Babylon it was formed 
 into a church. It went there weighed and found 
 N wanting ; it returned stamped with deep penitence 
 and earnest piety, and cured of its love for the 
 base pleasures and the superstitions of idolatry. 
 And of this change Daniel was the chief instru- 
 ment. His great authority and power at the court 
 of Nebuchadnezzar was bestowed upon him not 
 merely that he might protect God's people, but 
 that his own personal piety and that of his com- 
 panions might the more deeply influence the minds 
 of his countrymen. And when for many years he 
 had been moulding them afresh to God's service, 
 he was laid aside. His work seemed done, except 
 so far as he could influence them by setting them 
 the example of a pious life in a position of com- 
 parative obscurity. Israel learned, during this 
 period, to stand alone, and to depend upon itself. 
 And this seclusion continued for nearly twenty 
 years, and then a new time of change and public 
 trouble arrived, and Daniel was suddenly called 
 out of obscurity by the Babylonian king. Bel- 
 shazzar's last act was to remove the veil which 
 had so long concealed the great Hebrew who, in 
 the crisis of their first removal to Babylon, had 
 
MENE, MENE. 255 
 
 "been the strength and comfort of his people, in 
 order that he may again be their stay in the 
 transference of empire to a new race, and aid in 
 bringing about their return to their old country, 
 though too advanced in years to accompany them 
 in person. 
 
 We cannot then regard Daniel in any other light 
 than as one specially raised up to work that change 
 in the heart and inner life of the Jewish Church 
 which was effected at Babylon, and which was, in 
 fact, the great purpose of the exile. And just as 
 the former marvellous occurrences during the reign 
 of Nebuchadnezzar were divinely ordered to invest 
 Daniel with power and influence to be used for the 
 good of the Jews during their seventy years' banish- 
 ment from their country, so this event was for the 
 furtherance of their return to their land. As 
 for Belshazzar, his sins and impiety were justly 
 punished, but the handwriting had higher purposes 
 than to warn him and lead to his repentance. He 
 had no such grand qualities as those which dis- 
 tinguished his grandfather, and his record is 
 abruptly closed. " In that night was Belshazzar 
 the king of the Chaldeans slain. And Darius the 
 Median took the kingdom, being about threescore 
 and two years old." 
 
256 DANIEL. 
 
 Even before the discoveries of the Cyrus cylinders, 
 it was the opinion of commentators that Belshazzar's 
 death was the result of a conspiracy, and that this 
 great banquet, and the summoning of a thousand 
 lords from their posts, gave the desired opportunity 
 for the attack. Some even of the lords present 
 may have been among the conspirators, and the 
 confusion and excitement and dismay which fol- 
 lowed upon Daniel's interpretation of the writing 
 may have encouraged them to carry out their plans 
 at once. And so, while some opened one of the 
 city gates to admit the enemy, others seized upon 
 the royal palace, and the king was slain. Thus 
 dismally ended the banquet in which the sacred 
 vessels of Jehovah were exposed to mockery, and 
 the Jews scornfully reminded that the city which 
 they so loved, and the Temple of their God, had 
 lain in ruin for seventy years. The statement in 
 the last verse that a particular person — Darius the 
 Median — took the kingdom, and not the Mecles 
 and Persians generally, is intended to prepare the 
 mind for the close relation in which we imme- 
 diately find Daniel and this prince, and helps to 
 justify our preceding remarks that the chief pur- 
 pose of this miracle was the raising of Daniel to 
 such power and authority under the conquerors as 
 
MENE, MENE. 257 
 
 would enable him to protect the Jews ; to exercise 
 once again among them a predominant influence, 
 and to be the instrument of carrying out the 
 Divine purpose of restoring Israel to its land, as a 
 necessary condition for the coming and ministry of 
 Jesus Christ our Lord. 
 
( 258 ) 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 THE FALL AND RISE OF EMPIRES. 
 (Daniel vi. 1-3.) 
 
 OHOET was the delay between the deciphering 
 of the handwriting and the fulfilment of the 
 ruin it threatened to the Babylonian empire. And 
 Darius the Mede, having taken the kingdom, next 
 proceeds to make wise arrangements for the orderly 
 administration of its affairs. 
 
 " It pleased Darius to set over the kingdom a 
 hundred and twenty princes, which should be over 
 the whole kingdom " (ver. 1 ). 
 
 The head of gold, then, has fallen. The first of 
 the four great earth-monarchies has had its little 
 day, and the second has taken its place. It is now 
 the breast of silver, with the strong arms of Elam 
 and the Madai, which dominates the Eastern 
 world, and holds the reins of empire for its allotted 
 season. 
 
 There is much food for serious reflection in this 
 brief record of the transference of power. Is it the 
 
THE FALL AND ELSE OF EMPIRES. 259 
 
 will of God that the centre of earthly dominion 
 shall be ever changing ? Is first one race and then 
 another to bear the responsibility of rule ? And 
 is the time in each case to come when the domi- 
 nant power will seek to evade its responsibilities, 
 and give itself up to the selfish enjoyment of the 
 power and wealth already acquired ? It is the 
 pressure of responsibility which makes a nation 
 great, as it makes a man, who has the right metal 
 in him, great also. One who in youth is placed 
 in a position of trial and difficulty, if he be a man 
 of worth, rises to the level of his responsibilities, and 
 is ennobled in character by having all that was best 
 in him called out into active exercise. One great 
 value of our Indian empire is that it trains so 
 many brave men for noble work, by laying upon 
 them when young such vast responsibilities. And 
 that which calls forth the best energies of a man, 
 forms also and exalts a nation if the burden be 
 nobly borne. By the pressure of onerous duties 
 and grave responsibilities a nation is urged onward 
 to greatness ; or if it prove unequal to the task of 
 bearing them, it falls into the rear, and a stronger 
 nation takes its place. For what are these respon- 
 sibilities but opportunities and powers of working 
 for God ? 
 
 In the Bible we see a rapid succession of great 
 
HGO DANIEL. 
 
 earthly powers. Omitting the empire of the Hit- 
 tites, now so remarkably brought to light, there is, 
 first, a long struggle between Egypt and the two 
 Assyrian cities of Nineveh and Babylon. Finally, 
 Babylon becomes all-powerful, but its supremacy 
 lasts only for the lifetime of a single man. Imme- 
 diately upon the death of Nebuchadnezzar internal 
 corruption saps the power of his kingdom. An- 
 archy and murder prevail. Everywhere there is 
 luxury among the rulers ; discontent among the 
 ruled, and a general loosening of the bands of society. 
 Nebuchadnezzar, with all his greatness, seems to 
 have had no idea of civil government. Everything 
 depended upon the mental vigour of a despot. And 
 when that despot was a weak voluptuary like Evil- 
 Merodach, all went to pieces. This centralisation of 
 power is ever the weakness of a despotism ; and even 
 when, as in the case of Napoleon I., the despot is 
 an able civil governor, yet the concentration of 
 authority in one hand so enfeebles the rest of the 
 body politic, that when " the head of gold " is 
 gone, the empire falls at once into decay. The 
 higher the single pillar rises and overtops the rest, 
 the more certain is its overthrow. 
 
 In the narrative before us we see that Darius 
 was anxious to provide for the good government of 
 ais vast dominions, and to train men in the duties 
 
THE FALL AND EISE OF EMPIRES. 261 
 
 of political life. The Persian empire consequently 
 had a longer duration of rule than the Babylonian, 
 but fell finally through the ambition of its rulers 
 and the effeminacy of its people. Next follows the 
 outburst of Greece from its petty cradle, carrying a 
 high civilisation with it and a glorious language as 
 the choice gifts of its conquering arms ; and finally 
 there was the iron rule of Eome. Since the Chris- 
 tian era began we see a constant change going" on. 
 At one time Italy sways the destinies of mankind ; 
 then Germany under Karl the Great ; then Spain, 
 then Austria, then France under Louis XIV. In 
 the beginning of this century France was all- 
 powerful under Napoleon, but its supremacy has 
 passed away, and Berlin is now the seat of the most 
 mighty continental power. England, to whom God 
 has given so vast a colonial empire, has attained 
 to a foremost rank among nations only in recent 
 times ; and to us it is a serious question whether 
 our power is temporary only, and whether the day 
 is coming when our glory, like that of Babylon, 
 and Macedonia, and Eome, will be a thing gone by. 
 Now the examples of the past all lead to the 
 conclusion that the centre of power and influence 
 is always shifting. But the history of Daniel 
 teaches us also plainly two great truths : the first, 
 that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, 
 
262 DANIEL. 
 
 and giveth it to whomsoever He will ; and the 
 second, that while earthly kingdoms wax and 
 wane, there is one enduring kingdom which is 
 ever growing, which overcomes all resistance, and 
 which must last for ever. Now these great prin- 
 ciples make it plain that an earthly empire will 
 last so long as it does God's will. The continu- 
 ance of England's empire does not depend upon 
 the supply of coal and iron. It does not depend 
 upon the energy even of its people, or the large- 
 ness of its trade, or the greatness of its colonies. 
 All these are things useful and precious, but they 
 will prolong our empire only if they are rightly 
 used. The one tiling that will maintain our 
 dominion will be our obedience to God and our 
 usefulness in carrying out His merciful purposes 
 for the good and the salvation of mankind. 
 Should England become a sceptical and unbe- 
 lieving nation, it will no longer be capable of 
 doing God's work, and will be laid aside. But if 
 an empire be a trust given by God to be used for 
 His purposes, then to refuse responsibilities may 
 possibly be the refusal to work for God ; and as 
 a necessary result the responsibility, and with it 
 the power of doing God's work, will be offered 
 to some other nation. If our empire in India 
 corrupts instead of Christianising the people 
 
THE FALL AXD RISE OF EMPIRES. 263 
 
 entrusted to our care, the Indian empire will be 
 taken from us and given to others. And when 
 so given their responsibility begins, and the trial 
 whether they are fit or not to be God's ministers 
 and do His work. This shifting of power means 
 the successive trial of nations by Him who ruleth 
 in the kingdom of men ; and by it they are called 
 one by one into prominence, and made the arbiters 
 of the destiny of feeble nations, both for their own 
 moral elevation and for proof whether they are fit 
 to do God's will. And if there is one grand Old 
 Testament lesson plainly writ upon every page of 
 that wonderful book, it is that nations prosper or 
 decay according as they are true or false in their 
 allegiance to Him who both made this world and 
 now rules it for the spiritual good of His creatures. 
 And to this we must add the second great 
 truth, that the " God of heaven has set up a 
 kingdom which shall never be destroyed, nor 
 shall it be left to other people, but it shall break 
 in pieces and consume all earthly kingdoms, and 
 it shall stand for ever" (chap. ii. 44). There is, 
 then, permanence somewhere. Continuance is 
 possible, but only in certain relations. As far 
 as any earthly empire is doing God's work here 
 below, so far it shares in the enduring nature of 
 His kingdom. As far as the objects of any 
 
264 DANIEL. 
 
 kingdom are the upholding of faith in God, and 
 of virtue and morality among men, as long as its 
 rulers promote chastity, temperance, justice, self- 
 restraint, honesty, and other such virtues, so long 
 it partakes of the nature of a Church, and will 
 share in the Church's charter of continuance. 
 Christ's Church exists for the highest of all 
 purposes, the salvation of the souls of men ; 
 earthly kingdoms occupy only a lower sphere, 
 and have for their immediate object the good of 
 man in his temporal state. If the rulers have no 
 other conception of this good than man's physical 
 well-being, then but a brief continuance will be 
 granted to their dominion ; for it is of the earth, 
 earthy. If they aim at the moral well-being, 
 and the attainment of a higher degree of virtue 
 by the people, then the state which they govern 
 becomes in its degree a church, and will abide. 
 But they cannot promote morality and be in- 
 different to religion ; for there is no firm basis for 
 morality except the fear of God. 
 
 The history of the Church teaches us the same 
 lesson. Each national Church is a candlestick, 
 whose one purpose of existence is to raise aloft the 
 beacon light of Christ. Let it grow cold and 
 selfish, and indifferent to the spiritual welfare of 
 the masses round it ; let it become formal, and 
 
THE FALL AND KISE OF EMPIRES. 265 
 
 care more for decorous services and ritual than for 
 winning souls for its Master ; let it cease to preach 
 the Gospel to the poor, or feed them with husks 
 instead of the livino; bread and water of Bible 
 truth, and its candlestick will be taken away. We 
 need not go far abroad to find lands where glori- 
 ous Churches once shone brightly, but which are 
 now dominated by unbelief ; and in all such lands, 
 though the form of the candlestick may remain, no 
 Gospel of light and truth is held aloft by it. 
 
 We cannot leave this subject without noticing 
 another great fact in Holy Scripture, and it is 
 this : the Jewish nation formed by God for the 
 highest and noblest use never was a great earthly 
 power. Under David it attained to some degree 
 of local preponderance, but even then its dominions 
 were very limited. I suppose that David's subjects 
 were, at most, but a few millions. Yet in one 
 respect the destinies of the world were in their 
 hands ; for their task was to tell men the truth 
 about God's nature, and to teach them how to 
 serve Him in holiness. Now, though placed in the 
 very pathway of war between the great powers of 
 Egypt and Assyria, yet God gave them a wonderful 
 continuance of independent existence ; but it was 
 conditional upon their true service to Him. When 
 He had taken them to Babylon for their moral 
 
266 DANIEL. 
 
 and spiritual good, He even brought the kingdom 
 of Nebuchadnezzar to an early end, in order that 
 they might be restored to their own land. We 
 know of no race which emerged from the ruins of 
 Babylon to a renewed existence but the Jews. 
 And now, of all the nations of whom we read in 
 ancient history, the Jews alone survive. Arabs 
 wander where once the Assyrian ruled ; Albanians 
 people Greece ; the Eomans had died out long 
 before their empire fell under the attacks of the 
 barbarians. The Jews lead a charmed life, and 
 St. Paul teaches us in Eomans xi. that this is so 
 because God has still work for them to do, and 
 purposes of mercy for them, for their fathers' 
 sake. 
 
 We conclude, therefore, that this summoning 
 first of one nation to the front, and then of an- 
 other, is for the general progress and advancement 
 of mankind. And next, that though earthly king- 
 doms rise or fall into decay, God's universal Church 
 cannot fall, but will continue to grow and spread 
 its influence among mankind, yet slowly, perhaps, 
 because, as the pages of history too uniformly 
 attest, earthly powers are more eager after wealth 
 and extended dominion than for doing the will of 
 God in the lands belonging to them. We have 
 seen, too, that a very small kingdom may be God's 
 
THE FALL AND EISE OF EMPIRES. 267 
 
 chosen instrument for the very highest purposes, 
 and that a very ennobling responsibility may rest 
 upon a people which possesses no widespread do- 
 minion nor physical power. And, finally, we must 
 urge this important point of difference between 
 these old-world empires and Christian powers now, 
 that they wrought unconsciously, but rulers now 
 consciously. God had purposes for those heathen 
 kingdoms, and Greece especially and Kome were 
 necessary factors in the preparation for Christ's 
 coming. But they did not know it themselves, 
 nor could their wisest men advance farther than 
 to general commonplaces as to the superiority of 
 virtue over vice, and the certainty that iniquity 
 and inner corruption prepare the way for the down- 
 fall of a state. To us so much has been revealed 
 that the Christian statesman works consciously, and 
 any one who is not content to regard himself as 
 God's instrument, and be ready to do the Divine 
 will, incurs, as the certain verdict on himself and 
 his policy, Tekel — Weighed in the balance, and 
 found wanting. 
 
 This had been the verdict upon the Babylonian 
 monarchy, and as soon as the sentence was passed 
 the whole Assyrian race fell into decay. For cen- 
 turies the mighty cities on the Euphrates and Tigris 
 had dominated the Eastern world. They stood on 
 
268 DANIEL. 
 
 the highway of the trade between the East and 
 West, and the manufactures of Greece crowded 
 their marts side by side with the produce of the 
 looms of India. The soil, watered by a vast net- 
 work of canals, was fruitful beyond measure, and 
 the teeming population supplied their chiefs with 
 armies wherewith to enforce their rule on nations 
 far and wide. The cuneiform inscriptions show 
 how cruelly they had desolated the regions around 
 them, and how, for century after century, they 
 had been a scourge to mankind. Now all is over. 
 Never since the day of Belshazzar's feast has the 
 seat of empire been situated in the Mesopotamian 
 plains. It is transferred, for the present, to the 
 races inhabiting the hills of Elam and Media. 
 
 And while the real power rested with Cyrus, a 
 shadowy Darius held the reins of nominal authority, 
 with, possibly, some measure of administrative 
 command. Mr. Sayce asserts that according to 
 the cuneiform inscriptions the Persian empire was 
 really founded by Darius, the son of Hystaspes. 
 The king here mentioned is not the Persian son of 
 Hystaspes, but a Mede, and apparently Cyrus used 
 him for the internal management of the kingdom 
 while he was occupied with war. 
 
 And with him we find ourselves on a higher level. 
 He is not only a humane man, though one too 
 
THE FALL AND RISE OF EMPIRES. 269 
 
 easily imposed upon, but he is a statesman. We 
 find that subsequently Darius Hystaspes arranged 
 his vast dominions into twenty satrapies, with a 
 system of posts and couriers to keep those at head- 
 quarters fully informed of all that went on. We 
 find little statesmanship in the annals of Ninevite 
 and Babylonian kings, and Nebuchadnezzar's sys- 
 tem of tearing people from their homes to people 
 his vast city was a sure way to make his conquests 
 valueless. It deprived them of their inhabitants 
 to surround him with bitter enemies, and fill his 
 city with races which could never coalesce. 
 
 The more usual mode of ancient conquerors was 
 to leave each race in possession of its own laws and 
 customs, and to interfere as little as possible with 
 their native rulers. But over these the hundred 
 and twenty princes appointed by Darius would 
 each have the supreme authority in his own district, 
 would collect the revenues, command the army, 
 administer justice, especially in cases of appeal, 
 and would be careful to overawe the larger cities, 
 and prevent them or any of the native nobility 
 from raising the standard of revolt. But Darius 
 attempted more tban this. For he wished to bind 
 the whole realm together, and provide means for 
 making his princes each do his duty, and probably 
 upon an uniform plan. "For over them he set 
 
270 DANIEL. 
 
 three presidents, of whom Daniel was first, that 
 the princes might give accounts unto them, and 
 the king should have no damage" (ver. 2). 
 
 Now these presidents would insure a due sub- 
 ordination and obedience to the central authority 
 on the part of these princes. Without it each one, 
 unchecked and supreme in his own district, would 
 govern after his own fancy. But the king now 
 took care that their decrees and edicts in all matters 
 of importance should be submitted to the presi- 
 dents ; and further, general orders would be sent 
 down to them from the centre, and thus a certain 
 degree of uniformity be secured. And of these 
 Daniel was one, but not, as the Authorised Version 
 says, " the first." More probably each president 
 had his own department. They were the three 
 principal secretaries of state, of equal rank with 
 one another, and each bound to report to the king 
 all matters of importance in his own special pro- 
 vince. One would certainly have charge of the 
 revenues, another of the administration of justice, 
 and so on. The army was probably under the 
 immediate control of Cyrus. 
 
 The appointment of Daniel was probably the 
 natural consequence of the high position he had 
 held under Nebuchadnezzar, coupled with the ser- 
 vices of the Jews in obtaining the admission of the 
 
THE FALL AND PJSE OF EMPIRES. 271 
 
 Median army into Babylon, and with Daniel's own 
 conduct upon that eventful night. And at first it 
 was probably popular with all parties. His high 
 fame and reputation, his noble history, his acquaint- 
 ance with Babylonian policy and its rule in the 
 days of its grandeur, and his personal dignity and 
 great wisdom, all marked him out for eminent 
 office. But envy gradually stole into men's minds 
 because of his probity and success. For " this 
 Daniel was preferred above the presidents and 
 princes, because an excellent spirit was in him ; 
 and the kin^ thought to set him over the whole 
 realm" (ver. 3). 
 
 The words do not mean, as our version suggests, 
 that Daniel was preferred by being made the first 
 of the three presidents, but that he was so wise and 
 thoughtful and upright, and so able and skilful in 
 all the affairs of his department, that he grew daily 
 in favour. The preference was gradual. Each 
 day the king gave more heed to his advice, and in 
 difficult matters it was to Daniel that he chiefly 
 went for counsel. After all, this was but natural. 
 Daniel was of great age, at least eighty. He was 
 a man of vast experience, who had held weighty 
 offices of trust from his youth. His younger col- 
 leagues might, at all events, have waited till the 
 increasing burden of years made him withdraw 
 
272 DANIEL. 
 
 from office. But no ! They could not bear to see 
 his growing influence with their sovereign. They 
 belonged, most of them, to the dominant race. 
 Like the king they were Medes. What was the 
 good of victory if a man of a race vanquished 
 by those whom they had conquered was to rule 
 them ? Envy is the mean reptile that ever crawls 
 after the good and wise, when success and reputa- 
 tion are won by them, and tries to tarnish the 
 lustre of their fame. So now it was creeping after 
 Daniel ; and in our next study we shall see it 
 choosing its occasion, and gratified with a short 
 triumph, only to fall into merited disgrace and 
 punishment. 
 
( 273 ) 
 
 XIX. 
 
 THE HOUR OF DANGER. 
 
 (Daniel vi. 4-10) 
 
 TT is the penalty of greatness that envy ever 
 follows in its path. Nor is goodness any 
 protection. For it is not personal wrong, but 
 the contrast between the merit that has raised 
 to honour, and the commonplace qualities of the 
 envier ; between the success that has followed 
 upon high desert, and the obscurity of the envier's 
 lot, that arouses his jealousy ; and it burns with 
 rage though there be no injury received, nor any- 
 thing blamable in the person envied. In Daniel 
 there was very much to abate envy. His was no 
 sudden advancement, whereby he had been pro- 
 moted over men long in the royal service ; on the 
 contrary, he had been the prime minister of the 
 greatest of Babylon's kings. He was no young 
 man, likely long to stand in the way of others, but 
 one so old that naturally he must soon give place 
 to them. Nor was his appointment contrary to 
 
274 DANIEL. 
 
 policy : for he was likely to win for the new king- 
 dom the goodwill of the many transplanted races, 
 whose festering discontent had been the chief cause 
 of the easy victory of Cyrus. Their envy had no 
 just ground, but was roused and made malignant 
 by the double fact that Daniel was a man of 
 extraordinary merit, and that his merit was known 
 and valued. 
 
 It was probably upon its becoming manifest 
 that the king intended to raise him to still higher 
 honour, and " set him over the whole nation," that 
 the anger of the satraps became too violent for 
 restraint. They resented it, not because they were 
 corrupt, and Daniel's honesty kept them from 
 enriching themselves ; but more probably because 
 they were ambitious, and deemed that it was a 
 slight to the conquerors to give the highest office 
 in the realm to one of a race vanquished by those 
 whom they had now defeated. Daniel was a slave 
 of slaves in their eyes, and was he now to rule 
 over those who had beaten his masters ? National 
 antipathies are ever things difficult to control, with 
 which reason has nothing to do, but which, rooted 
 in passion, strongly bias and sway the will. And 
 they have a good side ; for patriotism is closely 
 allied with them, and poor and barren is the nature 
 of the man who will not bear all and risk all for 
 
THE HOUR OF DANGER. 275 
 
 his country's good. But pride of country, rather 
 than love of it, took with these men the form of 
 hatred and injustice, and they sought occasion 
 against Daniel at the very time when he was doing 
 their nation good service. 
 
 They sought their opportunity, first of all, in 
 matters respecting the kingdom. Eagerly they 
 watched his administration, and hoped to find 
 something neglected, or some failure. For want of 
 good fortune is often more severely visited upon a 
 ruler than wilful wrong. His high rank ought to 
 be justified by abilities which command success. 
 There was no probability of their discovering 
 corruption or partiality, but they did hope to 
 find something that might have been managed 
 more skilfully. And they sought in vain. Even 
 with the aid of the result, which enables men 
 afterwards to see so clearly what ought to have 
 been done, they could detect no error, no mistake, 
 in his measures, nor was there any fault, anything 
 that they could fairly blame in his conduct. Eager 
 and clear-eyed in their scrutiny they found only 
 wisdom, justice, integrity, success ; and instead of 
 praising him and abandoning their wicked purpose, 
 they were only the more embittered against him. 
 
 " Then said these men, We shall not find any 
 occasion against this Daniel, except we find it 
 
276 DANIEL. 
 
 against him concerning the law of his God " 
 (verse 5). 
 
 The word used for the law is not the old Hebrew 
 name Thorah, but a late word used only here and 
 in Ezra and Esther. Of the Thorah of Moses these 
 men knew nothing, but they had heard of Daniel's 
 religious practices, and felt that dislike with which 
 men commonly regard the rites and usages of 
 other forms of worship. And one thing is very 
 remarkable. They were convinced that Daniel so 
 valued his prayers and devotions that he would 
 endure any loss or punishment rather than dis- 
 continue them even for a time. Doubtless they 
 called him a fanatic, and despised him for being 
 narrow-minded. But fanatic is a term often 
 applied to men of strong convictions ; and Daniel, 
 to us, is an example of the real believer, whose 
 prayers are no hollow forms, but a true com- 
 munion with God, and therefore a privilege so 
 precious that no earthly good or pleasure is com- 
 parable with it. 
 
 In carrying out their purpose " these presidents 
 and satraps assembled together " (or came tumult- 
 ously) " to the king, and said thus unto him, King 
 Darius, live for ever. All the presidents of the 
 kingdom, the governors and the princes, the 
 counsellors and the captains, have consulted to- 
 
THE HOUR OF DANGER. 277 
 
 gether to establish a royal statute, and to make a 
 firm decree, that whosoever shall ask a petition of 
 any god or man for thirty days, save of thee, 
 King, shall be cast into the den of lions. Now, 
 King, establish the decree, and sign the writing, 
 that it be not changed, according to the law of the 
 Medes and Persians, which altereth not" (verses 
 6, 7, 8). 
 
 The margin is right in rendering the Hebrew 
 verb " came tumultuously." It literally means " to 
 storm ; " and similarly the German verb stiirmen, 
 means "to throng," "come with a rush." Now 
 this suggests to us the method of their action. 
 They pretended that a sudden ebullition of feeling 
 had arisen among them, filling them with an eager 
 desire to honour the king with thirty days of exclu- 
 sive supremacy, during which he alone should be 
 the granter of petitions, and neither god nor man 
 besides. The thing was monstrous and absurd. 
 But they represented it as a sort of inspiration, by 
 which they were lifted out of themselves and raised 
 above the level of ordinary reasoning. Strange 
 and even unwarrantable might seem their request, 
 but they were urged and driven by a fervid zeal to 
 honour their beloved Darius in this extraordinary 
 way, and had come with a rush to the royal palace, 
 breaking through all the usual etiquette which 
 
278 DANIEL. 
 
 fenced the king's person from intrusion, in order 
 that their desire might be carried by acclamation. 
 There must be no weighing of arguments, but an 
 instant concession of their unanimous wish. They 
 had consulted among themselves, and had been 
 moved to make this urgent demand by an outburst 
 of feeling which had hurried their whole body to 
 this tumultuous proceeding. 
 
 And among them were the presidents, Daniel's 
 two colleagues in the highest office. It is remark- 
 able that the Septuagint ascribes the whole con- 
 spiracy to these " two young men," jealous of 
 the growing respect shown by Darius to the man 
 associated with them. It limits also the punish- 
 ment to them ; it is the two presidents only, and 
 their wives and children, who are thrown into the 
 den of lions. But the other versions agree with 
 the Chaldee in describing the conspiracy as general, 
 and not only the great officers of state in civil 
 matters, who saw in Daniel a rival, but even the 
 satraps and pashas took part in it. For they 
 regarded him as a man of a subject race, set over 
 them because of his integrity and ability, matters 
 with them of very small account compared with 
 their pride of birth. We are not, of course, to 
 understand that the claim of the conspirators that 
 " all the presidents, the governors, the princes,' 
 
THE HOUR OF DANGER. 279 
 
 &c, was actually true. We know that Daniel, 
 himself a president, was not consulted, but pro- 
 bably enough of each class were privy to their 
 deed to justify their claim to their own minds. 
 Of course, also, the conspiracy was confined to 
 those present at Babylon. Eeadily enough, per- 
 haps, most joined in this attempt to get rid of this 
 noble alien, and having formed their plan, they 
 stormed the royal palace, and so wrought on the 
 vanity of Darius that their request was granted. 
 
 For the outward semblance of the request was 
 permission throughout a lunar month to acknow- 
 ledge Darius as the sole deity to be invoked in 
 prayer. The Persian kings claimed to be repre- 
 sentatives of Ormazd, and as such had a sort of 
 right to divine honours. But when kings were 
 despotic the natural tendency of court flattery was 
 to raise them above the level of humanity; and 
 besides, the ancients did not draw that sharp 
 distinction between the human and the Divine 
 which is natural with us. Their gods were poor 
 creatures, and it was not, after all, so very great 
 a compliment to place a king on a level with them. 
 The Eomans had the grace generally not to do it 
 until the emperor was dead, when it was esteemed 
 only due civility to call him Divus. This epithet 
 was even applied in the Church to great saints, 
 
280 DANIEL. 
 
 and we read of Divus Augustinus, Divus Grego- 
 rius, and so on. But as men attained to nobler 
 conceptions of the Deity, conscience forbade this 
 confusing of the finite with the Infinite. In those 
 days it was only the Jew who felt the incom- 
 mensurable greatness of God ; for his Jehovah was 
 the Creator of the heaven and the earth. 
 
 To Darius this deification of his person seemed 
 not unreasonable. His great officers were loudly 
 clamouring for it, and it had a political value. 
 His subjects would submit the more readily to 
 his yoke if thus divinity hedged him around. But 
 vanity was probably the more powerful factor in 
 obtaining his consent. As his flatterers urged 
 upon him this exaltation, too readily he " assumed 
 the god," and knew not that he was really the 
 victim of a mean trick. For thirty days he was 
 to receive divine honours, that they might get 
 rid of a rival ; and that rival the wisest and most 
 just and upright of the king's counsellors. 
 
 Darius must have gnawed his very fingers in 
 vexation when he found out how he had been duped. 
 He, a god, to fall into such a shallow pit ; to be 
 made the sole object of prayer for thirty days 
 simply that they, his flatterers, might carry out a 
 scheme of villainy. No wonder that his night was 
 sleepless after he had found out their wickedness ; 
 
THE HOUR OF DANGER. 281 
 
 no wonder that he put them all to death. For 
 they had done that which no potentate can brook 
 — they had made him ridiculous. 
 
 But vanity is for the time in the ascendant ; 
 he listens to their tumultuous cries, fancies that he 
 is a very god upon earth, and signs the decree, 
 binding himself with bonds which he could not 
 break. For, once stamped with the royal seal 
 and entered on the records, the decree could 
 never be recalled, but remained in force for all 
 time. 
 
 There was some wisdom in this rule ; for it saved 
 the people from the danger of perpetual change 
 and fickleness on the king's part. It implied also 
 care and reflection before the enacting of a decree 
 which the king could not withdraw. But Darius 
 had used no deliberation. He had not even sent 
 for Daniel, the most trustworthy of his ministers. 
 He was satisfied with first impressions. His coun- 
 sellors besought him for thirty days to be their 
 sole god. It pleased him personally. These men 
 must see some grand qualities in him, when they 
 so desire him to proclaim himself divine. And the 
 people would thus feel his greatness. Men must 
 pray, and for a month they would address their 
 supplications to Darius, their god, the representa- 
 tive, the personification of Ormazd, and for other 
 
282 DANIEL. 
 
 nations, of whatever was the being they wor- 
 shipped. 
 
 And the rest were well content ; " Let Darius, 
 our king-god, live for ever." One man there was, 
 who was not content. Perhaps the Jews in large 
 n ambers followed Daniel's example ; but certainly 
 he stood firm as a believer in one God only. For 
 " when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, 
 he went into his house : and his windows bein^ 
 open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled 
 upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and 
 gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime" 
 (ver. 10). 
 
 Now, first of all, we see that Daniel does not go 
 out of his way to show his determination to honour 
 his God before his king. There is no bravado, no 
 wilful opposition, no setting up of his own will. 
 He simply persists quietly in a practice which he 
 felt to be his duty, and which he could not con- 
 scientiously abandon. The worship of God was his 
 constant habit, and he continued it, not merely be- 
 cause communion with God was to him happiness, 
 but because he felt it to be a thing commanded. 
 Come what would, he must honour God at any 
 risk and at every cost. But he prayed where he 
 might well have escaped observation, though still 
 at his usual place of prayer, neither shunning nor 
 
THE HOUR OF DANGER. 283 
 
 seeking notice from others. On the flat roof of 
 his house he had constructed a little oratory, with 
 movable lattices to its windows. It was his closet, 
 into which he withdrew at stated times, that he 
 might there be alone with God. His enemies knew 
 what was his habit, and doubtless had spies on the 
 watch to see whether he would do as he had been 
 wont to do before. And it came to pass as they 
 expected. "With the lattices open towards Jeru- 
 salem, he prayed to his God thrice in each day. 
 We learn from the Psalms (v. 7 ; xxviii. 2, &c.) 
 that it was an old custom of the Jews to look in 
 prayer towards the temple, or, as more exactly ex- 
 pressed in Psalm xxviii. 2, " Towards the innermost 
 place of God's sanctuary." It was God's special 
 presence there which dictated this custom. He sat 
 enthroned on the mercy-seat between the cherubim, 
 and as he had deigned to take up His abode there 
 for them, it was only due to Him to turn to the 
 place which He had ennobled by placing there the 
 Shechinah as the visible manifestation of His glory. 
 When the temple was burnt by Nebuchadnezzar, 
 that glory had departed. The loss of the Shechinah 
 was one of the H.Ye things in which the scribes 
 noted the inferiority of the second temple. They 
 refused to acknowledge that to that second temple 
 the Immanuel had come in person, and that, there- 
 
284 DANIEL. 
 
 fore, the glory of the second house far exceeded 
 that of Solomon's building. For Daniel there was 
 still the invisible and spiritual presence of God, 
 though the type had disappeared. 
 
 We will now notice but one more thing. Daniel 
 prayed thrice in the day. We might naturally have 
 expected that his hours of prayer would have been 
 those only of the morning and evening sacrifices. 
 And consequently the objection has been made that 
 this was not a Jewish but a Parsee custom. It 
 appears, however, that the Persians worshipped the 
 three portions of the day as a sort of minor divini- 
 ties, and not that they worshipped at them. More 
 probably the words illustrate a principle often at 
 work, namely, the literal enforcement of the words 
 of holy Scripture. David in Psalm lv. 17, says, 
 " Evening and morning and at noonday will I pray 
 (or rather moan), and God shall hear my voice." 
 The Psalmist meant that continually and all the 
 day through, the low sound of his repeated ejacula- 
 tions would mount up to God. But the words 
 suggested midday prayer as well as at the two 
 solemn times when the lamb was offered, and we 
 find Peter practising it (Acts x. 9) as well as Daniel. 
 This power of God's word is marvellous, and as 
 Daniel was probably doing what had become cus- 
 tomary with all pious Jews, we surely gather that 
 
THE HOUR OF DANGER. 285 
 
 the words of Psalmist and Prophet had with the 
 Church of old that same force of inspiration which 
 they have with us. What in an ordinary book 
 would have been a mere poetic phrase, becomes in 
 the Bible an abiding law to God's people. It is 
 full not merely of direct instruction, but of sugges- 
 tions and hints, not obligatory on the conscience, 
 but helpful to our soul's needs. And Daniel's 
 prayer three times a day justifies us in similarly 
 using for our good, and giving new applications 
 and fresh force to words which differ from all other 
 words by having been spoken by the Holy Spirit 
 of God. 
 
( 286 ) 
 
 XX. 
 
 THE NEMESIS OF FLATTERY. 
 (Daniel vi. 11-14.) 
 
 « rpjJEN these men assembled, and found Daniel 
 praying and making supplication before 
 his God " (ver. n). The word assembled, as we 
 have seen on verse 6, means " to storm," or make 
 a sudden rush upon any one. The princes, as we 
 there read, had come in wild haste into the royal 
 chamber, violating the strict etiquette of the 
 Persian court, which punished even with death the 
 unbidden entrance into the king's presence. But 
 their haste was premeditated. If the king had time 
 for consideration he would, they feared, consult 
 Daniel, who was his chief officer, and even, as the 
 Septuagint calls him in verse 13, the king's friend ; 
 and as this would spoil their plot, they came 
 tumultuously, as men moved by an irresistible 
 impulse, and desired for thirty days to have no 
 god but Darius. And the weak king consented. 
 
THE NEMESIS OF FLATTERY. 287 
 
 To be accounted divine and infallible was a bait 
 too tempting, and so he yielded, and the retri- 
 bution soon came, and the deified king found 
 himself in a trap from which there was no 
 escape. 
 
 And now it was Daniel whose presence they 
 stormed. We may well suppose that they had 
 watched him. Scholars tell us that there was 
 a regularly organised system of espionage in the 
 Medo-Persian kingdom. Probably it is a thing 
 inseparable from every system of despotic govern- 
 ment. "Where freedom does not exist, and public 
 life is suppressed, there smouldering discontent 
 will ever seek relief in secret plotting. And the 
 government will endeavour to counteract this by 
 espionage. Probably in the household of Daniel, 
 and in that of all the princes, there were spies in 
 proportion to their rank, not because they were 
 distrusted, but because it was part of the system 
 to watch all in authority. And as the chief officers 
 of the secret department were, we may be sure, 
 privy to the conspiracy against Daniel, the reports 
 from the spies in his household would quickly be 
 communicated to the other nobles. 
 
 As for Daniel, he neither sought publicity nor 
 avoided it. He was too well acquainted with the 
 methods of Oriental government to suppose that 
 
288 DANIEL. 
 
 his disobedience to the king's decree could be 
 concealed. And if he had chosen to make excuses 
 with his conscience, he might have argued that it 
 would be no great harm to offer his prayers for one 
 short month silently, and abstain from the outward 
 forms of devotion. God sees the heart, and it is 
 the heart He claims. But it was just because 
 Daniel had, given God his heart that he sought no 
 evasions. He would have been untrue to his own 
 feelings if he had cared for his own selfish ease and 
 safety more than for God's honour. He must put 
 God first and himself second. Still he made no 
 parade or ostentatious exhibition of his piety, but 
 simply persevered in his wonted habit of with- 
 drawing to the housetop thrice in the day; and 
 there he offered his supplications and recited his 
 psalms of thanksgiving in the little oratory, just 
 as he had done aforetime, with its lattices open 
 towards Jerusalem. 
 
 Note, then, that amidst all the weighty cares 
 and pressure of public business, this holy man 
 found time for regular prayer. From his office, 
 crowded with secretaries recording on tablets of 
 clay the events notified from every part of the 
 realm, and inscribing with their chisels on other 
 tablets the answers given by the chief president, 
 Daniel, to despatches from the provinces, or the 
 
THE NEMESIS OF FLATTERY. 289 
 
 king's commands to his lieutenants far and near ; 
 and from this anxious business Daniel at stated 
 times withdrew, and his secretaries all knew the 
 reason, and probably in his absence talked among 
 themselves, and discussed his conduct, blaming, 
 perhaps, his hardihood, yet respecting him, and 
 anxious for his safety. But his thoughts were 
 far away. As he knelt he would bend his face to 
 the earth when asking forgiveness of sin and in- 
 firmity ; and then his gaze would turn to the city 
 so dear to every Jew because of the Temple of the 
 Lord their God. And if Daniel sorrowed at the 
 thought of the Temple in ruins, and of the deep 
 silence which now for nearly seventy years had 
 enwrapped the holy mount, where erewhile there 
 had been all day long the sweet chanting of 
 David's Psalms, yet there would be comfort in 
 the thought that God's past mercies are ever the 
 pledge of mercies in store. 
 
 We may feel sure that when Daniel thus looked 
 towards Jerusalem he had in his heart the words 
 of Solomon, when at the dedication of the Temple 
 he had prayed that should Israel sin against Je- 
 hovah, and be, therefore, carried captive into a 
 land far or near, and shoufd there bethink them of 
 their country, and repent, and return unto God 
 with all their heart, and pray toward their land 
 
290 DANIEL. 
 
 and toward their city and toward the House of 
 their God, that their God would hear them from 
 heaven, His dwelling-place, and forgive His people 
 their sin (2 Chron. vi. 36-39). Daniel, too, would 
 remember Jeremiah's prophecy of the seventy 
 years, and feel that the set time had now nearly 
 come ; perhaps, as a high officer of state, he had 
 some inkling of the royal purpose to set Israel free, 
 and knew that his people had well earned their re- 
 storation by the services they had rendered to the 
 conquerors. It was hard not to be allowed to live 
 long enough to see his countrymen raised once 
 a^ain from the condition of slaves to that of a free 
 people, and to aid in this second exodus from the 
 house of bondage. But he would have felt himseli 
 unfit for this privilege if he had purchased it by 
 failing in his duty. He went, therefore, as usual, 
 to his house of prayer upon the housetop, and 
 there the conspirators, admitted by those in 
 Daniel's household who w T ere privy to their design, 
 rushed upon him, and found him in the very act. 
 Nor did he seek to conceal his conduct from them, 
 but met them calmly in that martyr spirit, which 
 filled with mingled admiration and rage the perse- 
 cutors of the Christians. 
 
 " Then they came near, and spake before the king 
 concerning the king's decree ; Hast thou not signed 
 
THE NEMESIS OF FLATTERY. 291 
 
 a decree that every man that shall ask a petition 
 of any god or man within thirty days, save of thee, 
 king, shall be cast into the den of lions ? The 
 king answered and said, The thing is true, accord- 
 ing to the law of the Medes and Persians, which 
 altereth not. Then answered they and said before 
 the king, That Daniel, which is of the captivity of 
 Judah, regarcleth not thee, king, nor the decree 
 that thou hast signed, but maketh his petition three 
 times a day. Then the king, when he heard these 
 words was sore displeased with himself, and set his 
 heart on Daniel to deliver him ; and he laboured 
 till the going down of the sun to deliver him" 
 (vers. 12-14). 
 
 Alas, poor king ! But a day or tw T o ago he had 
 scaled the giddiest height of human ambition. His 
 courtiers had made him divine. They had hailed 
 him as Darius the god ! Darius the infallible ! It 
 must be very trying to an infallible personage to 
 have any of the ills that human flesh is heir to — 
 say a headache — and not be able to predicate for 
 certain what will cure it. The contrast between 
 the poor, feeble body, suffering, perhaps, from an 
 attack of the gout, and the power of declaring ex 
 cathedra absolute truth, must be very painful. 
 But here there was something worse. These cour- 
 tiers, who had exalted him to a level with the 
 
292 DANIEL. 
 
 Deity, now show plainly that they had done it, 
 not for his sake, but for their own. They had 
 snared him with his own vanity. So much adula- 
 tion for bait, and when it was taken the trap would 
 fall, and the king be caged. It was hard to find 
 himself so very fallible, and so easily deceived. 
 And when he called to mind the flattery that had 
 pleased him so well, and now knew that it was not 
 real, and inspired by his merits, but intended to 
 make him a mere tool and cat's-paw, the remem- 
 brance must have been bitter indeed. But the 
 rule of Medo-Persian law, which forbade the with- 
 drawal of an edict once signed and published, 
 rendered him impotent. He might repent, but 
 repentance availed nothing. 
 
 We may well believe that this rule generally 
 worked well. For, as we have seen, it was intended 
 as an obstacle to the too hasty enactment of a law. 
 There are always seasons of panic both with men 
 and states, and enactments made at such times are 
 usually fraught with evil. In a despotism, also, 
 the monarch is ever in danger of being deceived by 
 designing people, and cajoled for the selfish ends of 
 others. Delay and care are thus needful and salu- 
 tary. This with us is effected by requiring that 
 an act of parliament shall be debated and passed 
 several times before it proceed even from one 
 
THE NEMESIS OF FLATTERY. 293 
 
 branch of the legislature to another. In despotic 
 realms the seal of the king is enough, and we learn 
 in the Book of Esther that a decree for the destruc- 
 tion of a whole nation might be obtained by a court 
 favourite, without much trouble. It was hoped, 
 therefore , by the framers of the Medo-Persian laws, 
 that the knowledge that a decree once signed could 
 not be revoked, would make kings careful and 
 anxious not to put forth hastily commands which 
 they could not recall. But the tumultuous entry 
 of the conspirators demanding leave to pay him 
 extravagant honour, was too much for Darius' pru- 
 dence. He fondly imagined that their flattery was 
 genuine, and that it arose from heartfelt respect 
 for his great qualities. And now he was " sore 
 displeased with himself," for he felt that he had 
 been weak indeed. He had let himself be duped. 
 Had he reflected, his common sense would have 
 told him that there was some covert purpose in 
 their noisy outcry. But he had not reflected, and 
 had let them raise him to a level with the gods, 
 that in a few hours he might feel himself humbled 
 to the level of a slave ; for was he not now sold 
 into their hands, to do what they wished, but what 
 he grieved over ? And all day long he fretted and 
 mourned and sought for some means of escape from 
 the meshes of the net in which they had entangled 
 
294 DANIEL. 
 
 him. Could not his wise men devise some plan of 
 keeping the law in the letter, and breaking it in 
 the spirit ? Might not some other decree in some 
 indirect way make it impossible to keep the first ? 
 Portia found out an expedient to render Shylock's 
 bond invalid. When Cambyses wanted to marry 
 his sister, contrary to Persian law, the magi found 
 out a law which made it possible. We find by his 
 subsequent treatment of them that Darius did not 
 fear these princes, but the custom of his nation he 
 could not break. There is something grand and 
 admirable in this, and something weak and pitiful. 
 It is a great thing that men obey laws written and 
 unwritten as a matter of course. It may be painful 
 and even injurious so to do, but they obey, never- 
 theless. Were it not so, social life would be diffi- 
 cult or impossible. But men do not submit because 
 they feel it to be upon the whole good and right 
 that they should yield, but because habits and 
 customs are bonds which it is very difficult to 
 break. Many a man has destroyed himself because 
 he had violated some rule or etiquette of his pro- 
 fession or of society. The shame is too great to 
 bear, though the act in itself might have been vir- 
 tuous. But men do not ask whether the rule be 
 right or wrong. It is enough that their associates 
 expect submission to it from them. Only a few 
 
THE NEMESIS OF FLATTERY. 295 
 
 years ago life would have been unendurable for an 
 officer who had refused to fight a duel ; but since 
 then moralists have leavened society with a purer 
 creed, and broken this chain of bondage. Now 
 Darius was in much the same state as that of an 
 officer who, fifty years ago, had been challenged to 
 fioht a duel. He did not at all like it. In this case 
 he knew that he had been deceived, and tricked 
 into being a party to a deliberate murder. Yet 
 he could not withdraw, and murder seemed better 
 than to violate the etiquette of the kingdom. In 
 fact, he imagined that he had no choice. So Herod 
 was grieved when his rash promise was abused by 
 Herodias ; and yet he put John Baptist to death 
 rather than have it said that he had broken his 
 word. In both it was a case of conscience, of con- 
 science misinformed and unenlightened, but those 
 were not days when an immoral act was as such 
 unlawful and out of the question. Nor had people 
 then much respect for the rights of others. Daniel 
 must die a malefactor's death because the king's 
 conscience would not permit him to violate a state 
 rule. John Baptist must die because Herod's con- 
 science would not let him break his promise. Both 
 grieved at what they had to do, but both obeyed a 
 call to do what they supposed to be right, just as 
 a man accepted a challenge, because the act was 
 
296 DANIEL. 
 
 believed by him to be a duty. But neither Darius 
 nor Herod had advanced so far along the road of 
 ^ morality as to know that they had no right to shed 
 innocent blood. Both were unwilling agents, but 
 neither rebelled. It was a terrible crime which each 
 committed, and each shrunk from it, but yet did it 
 in the belief that it was something due to their 
 kingly office. 
 
 It is a remarkable saying of the philosopher 
 Kant, who had advanced no further than a belief 
 in a moral law of nature, that Christianity alone 
 had enabled the light within us correctly to distin- 
 guish between right and wrong. Kant did not 
 believe in the divinity of Christ, nor in the inspira- 
 tion of the Apostles ; but he saw and acknowledged 
 that the morality of the New Testament was some- 
 thing infinitely more pure and unselfish and en- 
 nobling than that attained to by any heathen 
 moralist. And the law of our moral nature, thus 
 cleared and raised and enlightened by Christ's 
 teaching, seemed to him now enough. Man, he said, 
 needs no more. He did not see that man needs also 
 a motive, and a power to make him love and obey 
 the moral law. Men do not sin because they imagine 
 sin to be virtue, but because the temptation and 
 the desire overpower their better feelings, and each 
 time they fall they sink to a lower level, and become 
 
THE NEMESIS OF FLATTERY. 297 
 
 ^ an easier prey to meaner temptations. The strength 
 of Christianity lies not in its pure morality, but in 
 Christ's death ; and its lessons of holy living are 
 for those who have died with Christ to rise a^ain 
 by the power of His resurrection to a spiritual life. 
 
 To Darius no such lessons of pure morality had 
 been revealed, nor had he been taught the secret of 
 a renewed life. His conscience was unenlightened, 
 yet there it was. He had been brought up to 
 regard a royal decree as a thing inviolable. To 
 recall an edict was a crime such as no kins before 
 him had committed. He could not do it. It seemed 
 to him a smaller crime to shed innocent blood than 
 to break through this hereditary custom. And so 
 all day long he racked his brain for some expedient, 
 for some way of solving the dilemma ; but none 
 could be found. His friend, his wise counsellor, 
 must be sacrificed, and all because he had swallowed 
 the bait of a coarse flattery. A day or two ago he 
 had fancied himself a god ; and now he felt himself 
 a dupe, and " fallen from his high estate." 
 
 So generally our sins and even our follies punish 
 us with just retribution. For vain Darius there 
 was self-contempt ; for Herod, pleased with wanton 
 dancing, there was the sight of the gory head of 
 one whose counsels he had often heard gladly. 
 The graceful witchery of Salome's movements 
 
 -/ 
 
298 DANIEL. 
 
 pleased for the moment, but memory would not 
 care to treasure them up ; while conscience would 
 often bring before the gaze of his mind the ashy 
 features of the man whom he had respected, and 
 who had seemed to him to occupy so far higher a 
 moral elevation than his own. By a just retribu- 
 tion God uses our own vices and weakness as the 
 scourge wherewith He punishes us. Were we wise 
 we should take the warning. But it is in vain that 
 the moralist warns us that only the edge of folly's 
 ' cup is tinged with honey, and that the long draught 
 which follows ever grows in bitterness, and must 
 be drained to the last foul dregs. But this, with 
 us, is not inevitable. We do not stand, like Darius, 
 sorrowful, reluctant, displeased with ourselves, 
 labouring to escape, but with no outlet for deliver- 
 ance. For us Christ has died, and He is our way 
 of safety, our door for admittance into the fold of 
 the free, and also our strength. For He does not 
 command only, but enables us to obey. He gives 
 swiftness to the weary feet, power to the feeble 
 arms, peace to the aching heart. And to those 
 who accept Him He gives the glad power to ex- 
 claim, " I can do all things through Christ that 
 strengthened me." 
 
( 299 ) 
 
 XXL 
 
 THE RIGHTEOUS DELIVERED. 
 
 (Daniel vi. 15-22). 
 
 THERE is much perhaps unconscious irony in the 
 words " Then these men assembled unto the 
 king, and said unto the king, Know, king, that the 
 law of the Medes and Persians is, That no decree 
 nor statute which the king establisheth may be 
 changed" (v. 15). Thrice in the first few words 
 Darius is called the king. He is at the very sum- 
 mit of earthly power, and invested with absolute 
 authority. All that he says is law ; " whom he 
 wills he slays, and whom he wills he keeps alive ; 
 whom he wills he sets up, and whom he wills he 
 puts down." So vast is his authority that what 
 he has once spoken may not be altered. It is like < 
 the voice of the Most High, and abides unchange- 
 able for ever. 
 
 There is this difference. The word of God does 
 not change, because God changeth not. He is 
 perfect in all His attributes, and therefore there 
 
\ 
 
 300 DANIEL. 
 
 can be no growth of knowledge, and no variableness 
 of sentiment, and no newness of object to alter 
 His will. He necessarily is " the same yesterday, 
 to-day, and for ever." Not so Darius. In the 
 midst of his great earthly power and dominion he 
 was but a man, full of human weakness, and swayed 
 by human foibles. What he wishes to-day may be 
 cast away with hatred to-morrow, or some other 
 fancy may have taken its place. And now this 
 attempt to make frail man's word unchangeable as 
 the word of Deity recoils upon himself. His vanity 
 has been played upon by astute and designing 
 men ; and he finds that this claim to the attribute 
 of unchangeableness binds him round in fetters 
 strong as iron, and instead of being as God he is a 
 slave. What he idly uttered yesterday is a yoke 
 upon his neck henceforth. For he may not break 
 a rule handed down to him from the kings that 
 were before him. Painful as was his situation, he 
 could no more set himself froe from bondage to his 
 own spoken word than a courtier could violate the 
 etiquette of the royal presence-chamber, or a lady 
 the laws of fashion. King though he be, he must 
 submit. The situation is not impossible now, nay, 
 perhaps is common. For a man may easily find 
 himself in similar straits for fear of acknowledging 
 that he has learned better and changed his mind. 
 
THE RIGHTEOUS DELIVERED. 301 
 
 Perhaps on some public occasion lie lias expressed 
 himself in strong terms, and hastily adopted some 
 extreme o}3inion. He knew but one side of the 
 question — had only heard the advocate of one 
 party. With increased knowledge and time for 
 calmer judgment, he becomes aware that what he 
 affirmed was far from the truth, and he would 
 gladly recall his assertions. Or he may have 
 written a book, and others better informed may 
 have criticised it and shown its unwisdom. But -/- 
 pride will permit no backward step. He must not 
 lose his character for consistency. It would often 
 be far nobler to own one's mistake, and withdraw 
 one's hasty words ; and the humiliation would 
 purify and strengthen that part of our moral nature 
 which before was weak. But no ! Self-love is too 
 strong. What we have said we have said. We 
 show ourselves as unbending as the laws of the 
 Medes and Persians, and while we preserve our 
 consistency we condemn our truthfulness and 
 honesty to be cast into the den of lions. Eeally, 
 whenever we have made a mistake, the one right 
 thing to do is to acknowledge it, and humbly 
 retrace our steps. 
 
 And now the king could not retrace his steps, 
 but must pay the dire penalty of his folly. " Then 
 the king commanded, and they brought Daniel, 
 
302 DANIEL. 
 
 and cast him into the den of lions. Now the king 
 spake and said unto Daniel, Thy God whom thou 
 servest continually, He will deliver thee. And a 
 stone was brought, and laid upon the mouth of the 
 den ; and the king sealed it with his own signet, and 
 with the signet of his lords ; that the purpose might 
 not be changed concerning Daniel" (vers. 16-17). 
 It was usual in old time that the order for an 
 execution should be carried out immediately. As 
 the king laboured unto the going down of the sun 
 to deliver Daniel (ver. 14), it seems as if evening 
 w r as the usual hour with the Medes for putting 
 political offenders to death ; or, more probably, one 
 condemned could not be allowed to live beyond the 
 day of his sentence. The lords, therefore, protest 
 against longer delay, and require that their victim 
 be cast at once to the lions. Whether these lions 
 were kept for the purpose of such executions, or 
 whether they were for hunting, is uncertain. If for 
 the latter they might nevertheless be used on great 
 occasions to execute the royal anger, whenever it 
 was deemed expedient to strike terror into the 
 minds of others. For this reason, perhaps, this 
 mode of death was chosen by the conspirators as 
 indicating to Darius the great importance they 
 attached to the matter. The word rendered den 
 does not mean an arched vault, from which idea 
 
THE RIGHTEOUS DELIVERED. 303 
 
 some commentators have drawn curious conclusions 
 about the lions being stifled for want of air, and 
 so on. It means a cistern, or tank, and is rightly 
 so translated in the LXX., both here and in many 
 other places. The idea of a vaulted den is derived 
 from an entirely false derivation, which is the more 
 unjustifiable, as the word used here, guba, is com- 
 mon in the sense of cistern to the Hebrew, Syriac, 
 and Arabic languages, as well as the Chaldee, which 
 is the language of our text. Levy, who is the chief 
 authority in Chaldee words, distinguishes the roots 
 clearly enough, and says in his Lexicon that guba 
 means " something deep." The lions were kept in 
 what had once been a reservoir for water, and such 
 cisterns were often of large size, as the rain falls in 
 Palestine only in two seasons of the year, and has 
 to be stored not only for domestic purposes, but 
 also for irrigation. In such a cistern, though the 
 word used there signifies one of the ordinary and 
 smaller size, Jeremiah was imprisoned (Jer. xxxviii. 
 6), and into another such cistern Ishmael cast the 
 bodies of seventy murdered men (ibid. xli. 7). The 
 Syriac Version calls both these cisterns guba. The 
 cisterns in Babylonia were on an equally large scale, 
 and were used for storing water from the time of 
 the periodical floodings of the Tigris and Euphrates 
 until the season came round again. 
 
A 
 
 304 DANIEL. 
 
 There were three hours of prayer, and if Daniel 
 was discovered praying at noon, the conspirators 
 must have been in eager haste when in spite of 
 the king's reluctance they were thus hurrying their 
 victim to death at sunset. And Daniel we may 
 feel sure was calm and tranquil in the midst of 
 their violence and cruelty. For he lived in the 
 daily practice of prayer. Those knees bent by him 
 so regularly in supplication before the heavenly 
 mercy-seat meant a life of preparedness for the 
 better world. It was as one who every day walked 
 very near to God, that he was permitted to speak 
 more clearly than any other of the prophets about 
 the resurrection. It was his office to foretell that 
 "many who sleep in the dust of the earth shall 
 awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame 
 and everlasting contempt " (chap. xii. 2). The 
 certainty of an everlasting life was not an assured 
 conviction of God's saints generally then as it is 
 with us now. They felt sure of God's mercy, and 
 that there would be some sort of waking up, when 
 they would be satisfied with His likeness. But it 
 was only very slowly that the veil was drawn back, 
 and God's people permitted to have a more clear 
 gaze into the world beyond the grave. And this 
 privilege was granted very fully to Daniel as one 
 " greatly beloved," and he feared not the lions' 
 
THE RIGHTEOUS DELIVERED. 305 
 
 den, because death to him was not annihilation, 
 but the passage into that happier region where 
 the saints shine "as the brightness of the firma- 
 ment." 
 
 He moves on with firm heart and tranquil step 
 to the den of lions. Though probably not a very 
 painful kind of death, it is one that would strongly 
 affect the imagination. The terrible roar of these 
 fierce creatures, their vast strength, their sudden 
 spring, the laceration of the limbs, their angry 
 growl as they seize and devour their prey : all this 
 and more would be present to the mind, and beat 
 down the courage of the bravest heart when led 
 forward unarmed and defenceless to a death so 
 violent. But Dr. Livingstone has assured us that 
 when he was seized by a lion, all fear and pain 
 passed away with the shake which the lion gave 
 him ; and he thinks that this is a merciful arrange- 
 ment of the God of Nature to make the death of 
 animals when seized by the carnivora as painless 
 as possible. But it was meant by those men at 
 Babylon to be a cruel and painful death, and was 
 doubtless so regarded by those who w T ere so un- 
 happy as to be condemned to it. And then there 
 was no sepulture ; no laying of the mortal remains 
 in the grave amid the tears of loving friends and 
 relatives. 
 
30 G DANIEL. 
 
 But while Daniel was brave and tranquil, the 
 king was racked with grief. Yet he had some 
 hope. Perhaps he had heard of the three Jewish 
 youths walking unhurt in the midst of the fiery 
 furnace. Too many wonderful events had happened 
 in connection with Daniel for Darius to doubt that 
 he was high in favour with Israel's God, and that 
 his God was one both loving and powerful. It was 
 not without some degree of hope that he gave him 
 words of comfort. " Thy God whom thou servest 
 continually, he will deliver thee." 
 
 The cistern or tank apparently was of large size, 
 and the lions, when so numerous a concourse of 
 people came to the entrance, would crouch in what- 
 ever cover or hiding-place there was for them. 
 Over its mouth or entrance, constructed originally 
 for the purpose of obtaining water from it, there 
 was laid a stone, probably one regularly used to 
 close it, but now more carefully secured to prevent 
 any possibility of escape. For it was sealed with 
 the royal signet, that no one might enter without 
 the king's permission ; and with the signet of the 
 lords, to render any attempt on his part to rescue 
 his faithful minister impossible. The seals of both 
 parties were thus a safeguard against unfair dealing 
 and interference on either side, and left Daniel 
 with no hope of mercy except from God. 
 
THE RIGHTEOUS DELIVERED. 307 
 
 " Then the king went to his palace, and passed 
 the night fasting ; neither were instruments of 
 music brought before him : and his sleep T\ent 
 from him. Then the king arose very early in the 
 morning, and went in haste to the den of lions. 
 And when he came to the den, he cried with a 
 lamentable voice unto Daniel : and the king spake 
 and said to Daniel, Daniel, servant of the living 
 God, is thy God, whom thou servest continually, 
 able to deliver thee from the lions?" (ver. 18-20). 
 
 The word dakhvan, rendered " instruments of 
 music," is a hopeless puzzle. The versions generally 
 understand by it " food," " cooked meats," but the 
 Eevised Version puts in the margin "dancing girls," 
 or bayaderes, which is the rendering of Saadias. 
 This is a very probable meaning, but we must wait 
 till the word appears in some cuneiform inscription 
 for its certain explanation. 
 
 But the night thus spent fasting and without his 
 usual amusements, was a sad change from the pride 
 of the night before. He had then been proclaimed 
 a very god upon earth, to whom alone for thirty 
 days prayer was to be offered. He has now learned 
 that this was no homage to his merits, but a mean 
 trick, and that as the price for this adulation they 
 had obtained from him what otherwise he would 
 never have granted. Envious men had made him 
 
308 DANIEL. 
 
 their tool in order to rob him of the wisest and 
 most honest of his counsellors. And all the 
 night through he tossed upon a sleepless bed, 
 smarting with double grief. For there was real 
 sorrow for Daniel's fate, and indignation at the 
 injustice and spite of which he was the victim ; 
 and there was shame for his own weakness, and 
 vexation at the ignoble part he had been made to 
 play. But there was not absolute despair. His 
 conduct shows that his words to Daniel were 
 genuine. He had some hope that this God of 
 Daniel, of whose great doings he had heard 
 so much, would protect his faithful and pious 
 servant. Surely those prayers, offered thrice a 
 day, and persisted in at the very peril of his life, 
 would not be disregarded. 
 
 The suspense was insupportable, and with the 
 first breaking of the clawn he arose, and forgetting 
 his royal state, went hastily to the den of lions. 
 As he approached it his hope grew less and less. 
 No one ever yet when made to enter that cage of 
 fierce wild beasts, had survived destruction. The 
 lions had often held their revel over human flesh 
 before, and would gather to their feast, and snarl 
 and quarrel in their haste to seize the hapless 
 wretch cast to them. The experience of the past 
 would make it impossible for Darius to expect this 
 
THE RIGHTEOUS DELIVERED. 309 
 
 feeble old man to escape their hunger. And his 
 lords and satraps as they marked his departure 
 would quickly follow. The king could not long 
 be left alone. And carefully as they would sup- 
 press their feelings, and compose their looks to out- 
 ward sympathy with the anxiety of their master, 
 yet in their hearts there would be triumph ; and 
 his feeble hope of Divine intervention would give 
 zest to their enjoyment, and move them to secret 
 mockery. They had no doubt but that they had 
 got their incorruptible president out of the way. 
 Ere this the lions would have feasted upon him, 
 and now they might rob and plunder the royal 
 treasury without fear, and use their feeble sovereign 
 for their own greed and selfishness. Little did 
 they imagine how closely punishment was folio wing- 
 in the track of their sin. 
 
 No sooner has he reached the den than the king 
 cries' aloud with a lamentable voice. He cannot, 
 nor does he wish to conceal his grief. Every hour 
 through the sleepless night he had felt more and 
 more strongly how unworthily he had acted, and 
 how great was his personal loss. Still he had faith 
 enough to come to the den of lions, and would 
 trust no one but himself. He had learned that 
 any one who at the royal court was incorruptible 
 had there only enemies. There was no one but 
 
310 DANIEL. 
 
 himself to care about and look after his minister's 
 fate ; and though his hope of safety for him was 
 small, yet he had some hope, and knew that that 
 hope would be frustrated if he sent princes and 
 high officers to learn what had happened to the 
 man whom he knew to be faithful to him. He 
 uses of Daniel's God a phrase which proves that he 
 had no unworthy conception of Him, and some 
 reason for his hope and faith ; for he calls Him 
 " the living God." As regards this, we mast bear 
 in mind that the creed of Zoroaster, which the 
 Persians accepted, is far more spiritual than the 
 mythology of Greece and Eome. If Ormazd was 
 limited in his power by reason of there being 
 a spirit of evil which struggled with him and 
 thwarted him, yet to Ormazd himself they applied 
 titles which prove that they regarded him as a 
 being infinitely pure and good. To thoughtful 
 men there must have been something very painful 
 in that dualism which made the Medes and Persians 
 see in this world two mighty opposing powers 
 struggling for mastery, and man crushed and 
 trampled under foot in the strife. But they had 
 noble conceptions of Ormazd, and one derivation of 
 the name is " the great giver of life." And so then 
 here. The God of Daniel was no lifeless idol to 
 Darius, but a being with a real existence, like the 
 
THE RIGHTEOUS DELIVERED. 311 
 
 deity whom he worshipped himself. For life 
 means action. A state of quietude and torpor is 
 not life, but its suspension. If Daniels God he 
 alive, He will now prove His existence, and save 
 His servant. And Darius does not doubt His 
 willingness, but asks, " Is thy God able to deliver 
 thee from the lions ? " His own god had but a 
 limited power, and was held in check by Ahriman. 
 Was Daniel's God similarly limited ? Would the 
 evil power prove to be the stronger, and Daniel 
 be the lion's prey, because they were things which 
 his God might will, but could not accomplish ? 
 
 The answer is not long delayed. The voice of 
 Daniel is heard from the den, and he says : " 
 king, live for ever. My God hath sent his angel, 
 and hath shut the lions' mouths, that they have 
 not hurt me : forasmuch as before him innocency 
 was found in me ; and also before thee, king, 
 have I done no hurt" (ver. 21, 22). 
 
 We may well understand the joy and also the 
 astonishment of the king. Yes. Eight had pre- 
 vailed, but it was not by his agency. He had- 
 betrayed his faithful servant ; but the God whose 
 ability he had doubted, yet in whose interference he 
 had never ceased to hope, He had delivered Daniel. 
 In the case of the three Jewish youths, Nebuchad- 
 nezzar had seen walking with them in the furnace 
 
312 DANIEL. 
 
 One whose form was " like a son of the gods " 
 (chapter iii. 25) ; and there, too, the phrase is 
 used that " God had sent His angel and delivered 
 his servants " (verse 28). We are not indeed to 
 suppose here that Daniel had seen any visible 
 appearance. His words rather point to the cause 
 which underlies all that happens upon earth. " God 
 maketh the winds to be His angels, and flaming fire 
 His minister " (Ps. civ. 4). What we call natural 
 agencies are truly and really the workings of God's 
 presence ; and the laws of the universe are almighty 
 and unchanging because they obey the commands 
 of Him with whom is " no variableness neither 
 shadow of turning." The omnipresence of God is 
 the presence everywhere of infinite wisdom and 
 power, carrying on not only all Nature's works, but 
 even those of which man seems to be doer. There 
 is no power but of God, and nothing can be done 
 apart from Him. And His will is unchanging. 
 Every word which He spake in creation is still 
 creation's law, and by virtue of His successive 
 commands there is light, and an earth fitted for 
 man's abode, and vegetation perpetually springing 
 up, and the animal world obedient to the instincts 
 which He has impressed upon it. In God, and by 
 God, all things live, and move, and have their 
 being in physical and organic nature as well as in 
 
THE KIGHTEOUS DELIVERED. 313 
 
 man. Were there no God there would exist only 
 a desolate void. 
 
 But Daniel was not thinking of natural, but of 
 spiritual agencies, employed only on special pur- 
 poses, and for extraordinary ends. These natural 
 laws and agencies are for the maintenance of this 
 material world, and the world exists for the train- 
 ing of human souls. As far as men's bodies only 
 are concerned the laws of Nature are enough. 
 They maintain this present state of things, and 
 supply us with all things necessary for our bodily 
 life. Nay, they do more. They supply us with 
 fitting materials for our mental activity. In the 
 world around us we have whatever is requisite for 
 all the physical sciences. The crust of the earth is 
 the subject of innumerable arts and studies, such 
 as agriculture, mineralogy, geology, and the like. 
 If we look upwards we have astronomy ; if around 
 on the formation of the composite bodies which 
 give us our atmosphere, our oceans, and even the 
 earth itself, we have chemistry. If we look at 
 man we call our records of his actions history ; of 
 his motives philosophy ; of his social wants and 
 government politics. In these and all other similar 
 things we need nothing more than natural laws as 
 they govern things around us and ourselves. And 
 so great is the Divine goodness that Nature, as we 
 
314 DANIEL. 
 
 call it, supplies not only our needs, but gives us 
 many pleasures, and a never-ending supply of 
 things to think about, and classify, and observe, 
 and learn. 
 
 And with this many of our scientific men seem 
 content. "With brave energy and unwearied labour 
 they search out the laws which govern the world 
 around them, and the students of social philosophy 
 study with equal industry the laws that regulate 
 human thought and action. But there is a question 
 far more important than any of these. Is man 
 simply a being of this earth ? Is he the result 
 simply of high organisation slowly moving forward 
 by unceasing evolution to a more complex and 
 elaborate existence, but still at last merely an 
 organisation, and not higher in kind than the germ 
 at the other end of the long scale ? The materialist 
 answers this question in the affirmative. Man is 
 to him a fully developed monkey and no more. 
 Or to speak more exactly, he is a galvanic battery, 
 which has somehow become possessed of sensation, 
 power of motion, and will. The Christian says 
 that there is a difference in kind, and a gulph of 
 separation which evolution could never cross. For 
 him man has a spiritual as well as a material exist- 
 ence ; not a wonderfully elaborate body only, but 
 also a soul. This is the real point at issue. If 
 
THE RIGHTEOUS DELIVERED. 315 
 
 man has not merely an existence in time, but also 
 in eternity ; if he is of God, and through God, and 
 going to God, then miracles and revelation and 
 supernatural agency are all not merely reason- 
 able, but an essential part of this present scheme. 
 Miracles and revelation are both out of the question 
 if man is the mere result of evolution, and if 
 evolution is the mere blind working of an im- 
 personal power, and not the present will of God 
 carrying out calmly and irresistibly His own 
 Divine purpose. St. Paul formulated for our use the 
 Christian's theory of this world, and of our relation 
 to God, when he said to the Corinthians, " To us 
 there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all 
 things, and we in him : and one Lord Jesus Christ, 
 by whom are all things, and we by Him " ( i Cor. 
 viii. 6). 
 
 Daniel, like St. Paul, regarded God as the centre 
 of all things. "Without Him there is nothing : all 
 is mere emptiness and non-existence, the tohu and 
 bohu of Gen. i. 2. Though as yet unspoken, he 
 believed the substance of St. Paul's words that " of 
 God, and through God, and to God are all things" 
 (Eom. xi. 36). The world is God's world, created 
 by Him for Divine ends, and man is His special 
 workmanship, formed for high and noble use. If 
 we believe that St. Paul's theory of the relation of 
 
316 DANIEL. 
 
 the world to God is the true theory, then there is 
 a sufficient reason for miracle and the bestowal of 
 knowledge by the Holy Ghost. 
 
 And because Daniel believed the world to be 
 God's world, and himself to be God's servant, 
 holding to Him a close spiritual relationship, there- 
 fore he recognised God's presence and agency in 
 the course of events. God was necessarily and of 
 right the cause of all causes. And his deliverance 
 from the lions was God's doing. " He hath sent his 
 angel and shut the mouths of the lions." 
 
 I will only add now that the strength of most of 
 the arguments of materialists, and the real cause of 
 the doubts they occasion, consists in our own want 
 of spirituality. If our lives were lived in the power 
 of the Spirit, and our daily walk was like Enoch's 
 in the company of the Divine Father, agnostic and 
 scientific difficulties would have no power over us ; 
 for they would belong to a low stage of thought 
 and action, which we had long left behind. The 
 spiritual life is the antidote for materialism ; and 
 our duty and privilege is to aim far higher than 
 we too often do. For our Master has commanded 
 us even here on earth to seek to be one with God. 
 " That they all may be one : as thou, Father, art 
 in me, and I in thee, that they may be one in us." 
 It is the realisation of this union in God, and the 
 
THE RIGHTEOUS DELIVERED. 317 
 
 consequent knowledge, really and personally, of 
 the Father and the Son, which is the pledge and 
 surety of our acceptance. " For this is life eternal, 
 to know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, 
 whom Thou hast sent" (John xvii. 3, 21). If we 
 have attained to this, God will be the Alpha and 
 Omega of all earthly things, the beginning and the 
 end, and we shall see Him present in all things ; and 
 in many a circumstance of our own lives shall venture 
 reverently to say, " God hath sent His angel " and 
 saved me from this danger, or given me this happi- 
 ness ; and to Him I commit myself, and am pre- 
 pared in all things to say, " Lord, undertake for 
 me;" and " to Thy name be the glory for ever, 
 Amen." 
 
( 318 ) 
 
 XXII. 
 
 RIGHTEOUS RETRIBUTION. 
 (Daniel vi. 22-28.) 
 
 TI7E have already seen that in ascribing his 
 deliverance from the mouths of the lions 
 to an angel sent by God, Daniel professes his faith 
 in the active intervention of God in the affairs of 
 men. And this belief separates the religions from 
 the irreligious. Call him by what name you will, 
 the irreligious man is one whose life has no higher 
 principle than such as grows out of human nature 
 itself. Juvenal in old time summed up the philo- 
 sophy of irreligion in the words, " Nullum numen 
 adest si sit prudentia rerum : " " You may dis- 
 pense with a deity if you manage your affairs with 
 prudence." Good sense was his deity; in our days 
 it is fixity of rule, the reign of laws unchanging 
 alike in Nature and in the moral world ; and all 
 that the wise man has to do is to bring his con- 
 duct into accord with this fixed and unalterable 
 mechanism which is ever grinding onward in its 
 
RIGHTEOUS RETRIBUTION. 319 
 
 dull, unintelligent way. The Bible from first to 
 last is a revelation of God's active, personal, and 
 intelligent presence in the affairs of men ; and its 
 elementary principles, without which all approach 
 to God is imjDossible, are, first, that there is a God, 
 and secondly, that He rewards and punishes (Heb. 
 xi. 6). 
 
 Take away the presence of God, and we can find 
 no reason for man's existence. He becomes the 
 mere plaything of Nature, the chance product of a 
 machine without a mechanist, which, devoid of 
 sense and reason, is ever " evolving" something 
 higher and higher, though why it should do so, 
 and how it began this process, and what is the 
 purpose of its evolution, no one can even guess. 
 That very wise law called "the survival of the 
 fittest," which provides for constant improvement 
 — for the removal of the bad and commonplace, and 
 the substitution of the better — is, we are told, the 
 mere result of an arrangement of atoms which 
 came into existence no one knows how, and which, 
 without intelligent will and conscious purpose, 
 moves onward to no definite or intended result, 
 though somehow or other it always manages to 
 arrange itself better and better. What will happen 
 when nothing exists but the one thing fittest to 
 survive everything else no one can tell us, because 
 
320 DANIEL. 
 
 the conclusion is so infinitely absurd. Possibly the 
 machine will evolve back again, and produce that 
 which is worse. But when man's place is taken by 
 some result of evolution as much superior to man 
 as he is to his simian progenitors, this noble crea- 
 ture will be just as much without a reason for his 
 existence as man is now. If the question be asked, 
 Whence he came ? the sole answer would be that 
 he has been developed out of the dust of the earth 
 by some unknown force acting uj^on him through 
 countless ages. If you ask Why ? For what pur- 
 pose or intent ? there is no answer. The oracle of 
 physical science is as dumb or ambiguous as that of 
 the Delphian Apollo. 
 
 The Bible sets man before us as having his origin 
 in God, and as moving onwards towards God. And 
 throughout its pages it shows us a higher power 
 than that either of Nature or of man actively pre- 
 sent in the world, and always making for right and 
 truth. And in God man finds his explanation, and 
 the world its use. Man is placed here that he may 
 struggle onwards to peace and happiness and per- 
 fection in God. And to aid him in the effort 
 required for his upward course a wonderful scheme 
 of redemption has been divinely made known to 
 him, such as especially warms his affections and 
 draws his heart towards the Deity, known to him 
 
RIGHTEOUS RETRIBUTION. 321 
 
 no longer as the Author and Euler of Nature, but 
 as a loving Father, who saves His people from sin 
 and danger through the gift of His Son, Jesus 
 Christ our Lord. 
 
 Daniel recognised the presence of this Divine 
 power when he said that " God had sent His angel, 
 and shut the lions' mouths." Left to their natural 
 instincts these fierce beasts would have torn Daniel 
 to pieces, and feasted upon his remains. They 
 would have been forced to do this by the law of 
 their being ; but the reign of law had in this case 
 been broken. Something higher and more mighty 
 than Nature had intervened, and had overpowered 
 their indomitable instincts. Daniel felt no doubt 
 as to whose this power was. A message had come 
 to the lions from God, and they perforce must 
 obey. The same thing may happen now, though 
 we call it simply providence. But providence 
 means forethought ; that God cares for men, and 
 so regulates the inferior powers of Nature and 
 human conduct as is best for the spiritual interests 
 of His people. The sole difference between miracle 
 and providence is, that in the former case the ordi- 
 nary laws of Nature are suspended and interfered 
 with by the higher power ; in the latter Nature is 
 made to do the will of God in conformity with its 
 usual way of working. And these two ways of 
 
322 DANIEL. 
 
 acting have had each a suitableness for the times 
 when God used them. Miracle and prophecy had 
 a special value before the scheme of redemption 
 was complete, because they arrested men's atten- 
 tion, and upon fit occasions gave them, as it were 
 by force, the evidence necessary to produce the 
 conviction of God's active and personal rule over 
 men and the world. They have great teaching 
 power now, and attested as they are both by sound 
 reason and adequate proof, they are sufficient to 
 maintain in thoughtful minds the required belief 
 in those fundamental principles required as indis- 
 pensable for every one who comes unto God (Heb. 
 xi. 6). With the whole plan of redemption made 
 known to us, and God's revelation complete, such 
 startling events as miracles would now be out of 
 place. They were a compensation in old time for 
 the partial light then vouchsafed ; as wrought by 
 our Lord, they were the necessary effects of His 
 divinity ; for us there is the full light of revelation, 
 the full teaching: of Him who is " the Light." We 
 have what is sufficient, and the extraordinary help 
 given occasionally in old time would interfere with 
 the salutary and adequate influences which are so 
 richly granted to us. But God is equally present 
 with His people now, only He orders all things for 
 them by His providence, and leads them by gentle 
 
RIGHTEOUS RETRIBUTION. 323 
 
 guidance and ordinary help to their final home in 
 that world which is the consummation of this lower 
 existence. But a providential deliverance is as real 
 an intervention of God as one miraculous, and St. 
 Paul acknowledged no difference of kind between 
 his deliverance from the Emperor Nero and that of 
 Daniel (2 Tim. iv. 1 7). 
 
 The reason of this deliverance Daniel finds in the 
 just government of God. He was doubly innocent, 
 for he had not been remiss or negligent in his duty 
 to God, and as regards the king, this anxious visit 
 of Darius in the early morning to the lions , den 
 was proof enough that he acquitted his minister of 
 all offence. God, therefore, as the just Euler of 
 the world, had protected Daniel from all harm, and 
 had done so by a miraculous intervention. But 
 the intervention is no less real when God saves 
 men without a miracle. When a Christian asserts, 
 in the Psalmist's words, that " the angel of the 
 Lord encampeth round about them that fear God, 
 and delivereth them " (Ps. xxxiv. 7), it is not only 
 the expression of firm faitb, but is his testimony to 
 a fact. For in the history of his past life he finds 
 frequent occasions on which his prayers have been 
 answered, and deliverance vouchsafed. 
 
 " Then was the king exceeding glad for him, and 
 commanded that they should take Daniel up out of 
 
324 DANIEL. 
 
 the den. So Daniel was taken up out of the den, 
 and no manner of hurt was found upon him, because 
 he believed in his God (ver. 23), 
 
 The joy of the king was in proportion to the 
 sorrow which had made him pass the night watch- 
 ful and fasting. And, moreover, the extraordinary 
 way of Daniel's deliverance would increase his hap- 
 piness, for it was proof both of innocence and of 
 Divine favour. It was the attestation of Heaven 
 that the minister so faithful to him was greatly 
 beloved of God. But most worthy of our atten- 
 tion is the reason given for an event so contrary to 
 ordinary experience. When Daniel was cast into 
 the lions' den, looking so old and feeble, so unfit 
 physically to cope with those fierce wild beasts, 
 there was, nevertheless, present in his heart a power 
 that can remove mountains. That power was faith. 
 The king had some small hope, but it was as 
 nothing compared with the fears and doubts which 
 filled his mind. Daniel had no fear nor doubt. 
 He knew in whom he had believed, and that night 
 passed among the lions was one of quiet and sweet 
 confidence. And how great the contrast ! The 
 king is sick at heart, miserable and careworn amid 
 all his regal splendour ; while happiness and peace 
 and contentment are bestowed upon the man whose 
 lot we should call so terrible, and who had been 
 
RIGHTEOUS RETRIBUTION. 325 
 
 brought by malignant enemies to so cruel a fate. 
 Happiness does not depend upon outward circum- 
 stances, but upon the heart ; and Daniel enjoyed 
 it " because he believed in his God." 
 
 " And the king commanded, and they brought 
 those men which had accused Daniel, and they cast 
 them into the den of lions, them, their children, 
 and their wives ; and the lions had the mastery 
 of them, and brake all their bones in pieces or 
 ever they came at the bottom of the den " (ver. 
 
 24). 
 
 It was a fearful retribution. They had digged a 
 pit and fallen into the midst of it themselves. With 
 cool forethought and premeditation they had plotted 
 the murder of the chief minister of the realm ; and 
 in his wonderful preservation both the king and all 
 who had not shared in the crime saw emphatic 
 proof of the guilt of the conspirators. Their owm 
 execution was most just, but our feelings revolt at 
 the inclusion in the sentence of their wives and 
 children ; but it was the Persian custom, and may 
 have grown out of the feeling generally prevalent 
 in old time, that the son was bound to avenge the 
 shedding of the father's blood. To spare the chil- 
 dren was thus to leave a crop of blood-feuds. But 
 the sense of the sacred ness of human life is the 
 slow result of Christian teaching, while it is a debt 
 
326 DANIEL. 
 
 which we owe to the Eomans that no man should 
 be condemned without being allowed to speak for 
 himself. Bespect for law was the great lesson which 
 the Eomans were employed to teach mankind. 
 Among the Persians and many other ancient nations, 
 justice rose no higher than retaliation. It was 
 public and authorised revenge. And in this whole- 
 sale execution the people in those days would see 
 only a cause for rejoicing. It was right triumphing 
 over wrong, and they would have no scruples about 
 including those personally innocent. 
 
 There is, too. another side in this solidarity of 
 interest between the members of the same family 
 or of the same nation. The sins of one member of 
 a family often involve all in ruin. A whole nation 
 has to pay the penalty of the fault of its statesmen ; 
 a whole army is destroyed by the incapacity of its 
 general. But equally all share in the results of the 
 virtues, the wisdom, the ability of their leaders, and 
 it would be a poor world if it were not so. In the 
 Old Testament this close union of men in families 
 and states, and their responsibility for one another's 
 conduct, is put as prominently forward as our per- 
 sonal responsibility to God each for our own conduct 
 is taught in the New Testament. Not that men 
 were not warned of this by God in old time. 
 Ezekiel especially (see chap, xviii.) was commis- 
 
RIGHTEOUS RETRIBUTION. 327 
 
 sioned to correct the one-sided appreciation by 
 the people of the former truth, and bring out its 
 other side into due prominence. To the Per- 
 sians a man's wives and children were one with 
 himself, and must share his lot. The same feeling 
 made it the law with the Hindus for the wife to 
 share the husband's funeral pile. They were cruel 
 and abominable exaggerations of a right funda- 
 mental principle ; but a wife and children starved 
 or brutalisecl by the drunkenness of a husband is 
 a thing quite as revolting, and the education of the 
 community in Christian feeling has not advanced 
 far as long as such a crime is possible among us. 
 As for the number of those put to death, the con- 
 spiracy was probably confined to Daniel's two 
 fellow-presidents and their immediate followers. 
 It was a powerful court intrigue, but did not ex- 
 tend beyond the chiefs and nobles in attendance 
 upon the king's person. 
 
 " Then king Darius wrote unto all people (the 
 peoples, E. V.), nations, and languages, that dwell 
 in all the earth ; Peace be multiplied unto you. I 
 make a decree, that in every dominion of my king- 
 dom men tremble and fear before the God of 
 Daniel : for He is the liviog God, and steadfast 
 for ever, and His kingdom that which shall not be 
 destroyed, and His dominion shall be even unto 
 
328 DANIEL. 
 
 the end. He delivereth and rescueth, and He 
 work e tli signs and wonders in heaven and in earth, 
 who hath delivered Daniel from the power of the 
 lions" (vers. 25-27). 
 
 In making this proclamation, Darius was fol- 
 lowing the custom of Nebuchadnezzar and other 
 Oriental monarchs, who from time to time took 
 their subjects into their confidence, and made them 
 acquainted with events of more than common im- 
 portance. We owe to this custom the inscriptions 
 upon rocks, and the records upon the Assyrian 
 tablets, which preserve for us such valuable facts of 
 history. When printing was introduced, monarchs 
 published their messages in gazettes, and it is now 
 the office of newspapers and journals to keep the 
 people informed of all matters of local or general 
 interest. Darius made known what had happened 
 by a special decree, and this is a proof to us of the 
 importance he attached to it, as only events of 
 extraordinary interest would be deemed worthy 
 of so special a record. 
 
 It has been noticed that the decree is not so 
 truculent as that of Nebuchadnezzar, who threatened 
 to cut men in pieces and make their houses a dung- 
 hill if they spake words of disparagement of the 
 God of Shadrach (chap. iii. 29). It is much more 
 in the spirit of chap, iv., which is the expression of 
 
RIGHTEOUS RETRIBUTION. 329 
 
 Nebuchadnezzar's thankfulness to the God of Daniel 
 for mercies received. But these edicts had a hio-her 
 use than the mere recording of a monarch's grati- 
 tude. The Jews held a special position upon the 
 earth as the representatives of the unity of the 
 Godhead, and as the keepers of the inspired oracles 
 (Rom. iii. 2). Bat the glory of their realm had 
 departed. The empire of David, the wisdom and 
 splendour of Solomon, had given place to tw r o petty 
 realms ever weakened by their own dissensions, 
 and finally trampled under foot by the boot of the 
 Assyrian. How could the crushed remnant of this 
 small people, itself daily more and more absorbed 
 in the world's trade and merchandise, discharge its 
 special function ? Their wonderful genius for com- 
 merce made them an important element in every 
 great city, and so gave them a post of vantage 
 everywhere, and special opportunities. But com- 
 merce was no more sanctified to God then than is 
 British commerce now, and the Jewish trader was 
 in danger of forgetting that he had a mission for 
 mankind. Depressed therefore by national misfor- 
 tune, and debased by a multitude of petty cares, 
 the people of Jehovah seemed only too likely to 
 waste away and be lost in the vast heathen world 
 which had so tightly enveloped them. It was not 
 without a purpose, therefore, that again and again 
 
330 DANIEL. 
 
 there pealed forth from the centre of government a 
 summons to respect and reverence the Jewish God. 
 Twice did the haughty Nebuchadnezzar acknow- 
 ledge that Jehovah was more mighty than any 
 earthly throne or empire. Arid when his king- 
 dom had fallen before the conquering Medes and 
 Persians, again sounds forth the homage to the 
 God of Daniel, the living God, the God true and 
 steadfast, and whose dominion is everlasting. And 
 Darius claims to speak as the head of the whole 
 habitable world. His proclamation is addressed to 
 all the peoples, nations, and languages that dwell 
 in all the earth. He was claiming more than he 
 had a right to geographically ; but morally and 
 providentially he was the earth's monarch, and the 
 supreme governor of the second world-power. It 
 was thus the homage paid by the habitable world 
 through its king to the Jehovah of Israel, and it 
 acknowledged Him as a Being of higher and more 
 Divine attributes than any of the gods of the 
 heathen nations. There was in this more than a 
 compensation for the loss of national independence 
 and military achievement. The Jew began to learn 
 that his God was his strength, and slowly and 
 surely they were formed into a people of mis- 
 sionaries, whose office it was to bear far and wide 
 God's truth. 
 
EIGHTEOUS RETRIBUTION. 331 
 
 We often wonder at the tenacity of the Jews, at 
 their firmness and heroism, and their extraordinary 
 power of bearing all kinds of calamities and sur- 
 viving them. Perhaps we do not wonder so much 
 as w^e ought at twelve Galilean fishermen being fit 
 to evangelise the world. If the highly educated 
 and gifted Paul laboured more abundantly than 
 they all, yet the highest products of a nation 
 always stand in relation to the general average. 
 And if we except St. Paul's indefatigable activity 
 and his largeness of view, he does not surpass either 
 a Peter or a John ; and they, too, have their special 
 excellences. Now national qualities do not come 
 by chance. They are slowly formed, and chiefly so 
 by mental influences. The Jews were formed to 
 be God's missionaries by their prophets, and when 
 prophecy ceased then came these wonderful events 
 at Babylon, and then the Maccabees. The Jewish 
 is a wonderful history, forming a wonderful people ; 
 and these three decrees coming one after another, 
 and speaking especially to the heart of the Jews, 
 raised them up from their depression, and made 
 them bold both to do and to speak -for God. 
 
 Wonderful, therefore, as are the events recorded 
 in the Book of Daniel, they were not without their 
 justification. God does not work "signs and won- 
 ders in heaven and in earth " without a purpose ; 
 
332 DANIEL. 
 
 and Daniel was raised up, and Lad so extraordinary 
 a history, and was again and again so marvellously 
 rescued, as part of that special training required by 
 and given to the Jews as the destined missionaries 
 of our blessed Lord. 
 
 And is there no purpose in their special pre- 
 servation and training now ? Yes, verily, God 
 never works in vain ; and we know that all Israel 
 is to be saved (Eom. xi. 26) ; and that the receiv- 
 ing of them into the Church will be to the Gentile 
 world like life from the dead (ibid. 15). 
 
 " So this Daniel prospered in the reign of 
 Darius, and in the reign of Cyrus the Persian" 
 (ver. 28). 
 
 His special work was done, and God granted his 
 faithful servant a calm and peaceful close to his 
 chequered career. He had seen many monarchs 
 come and go. He had been hurried as a child 
 from the devastated homes of the kin^s of Judah, 
 his ancestors. He had attained to high rank 
 in the court of the conqueror, and outlived him. 
 He had passed through the troubled times of 
 murder and anarchy which followed, and again 
 had been brought out of obscurity to be the 
 central figure in the strange scenes which brought 
 the Babylonian monarchy to an abrupt end. In 
 the court of the conquerors his merit had raised 
 
RIGHTEOUS RETRIBUTION. 333 
 
 him to the foremost place, and then came a fearful 
 proving in the fiery furnace of trial. But inno- 
 cency was found in him both toward God and man. 
 Henceforward there was the calm, peaceful eventide 
 of life, with its warm brilliance and steady glow of 
 light and golden sunshine, fit harbinger for the 
 prophet of the resurrection of that awakening, 
 when "the wise shall shine as the brightness of 
 the firmament ; and they that turn many to right- 
 eousness as the stars for ever and ever" (chap, 
 xii. 3). 
 
 And step by step we have followed him from the 
 day when as a handsome youth he stood before 
 Melzar, and in what must have seemed to the old 
 steward mere childish enthusiasm, petitioned that 
 he and his boy friends might have pulse and water 
 for their food instead of the wine and dainties sent 
 them from the king. We have seen him grow in 
 knowledge and power, until he became the chief 
 minister of the mighty despot who was the golden 
 head of the first universal monarchy, and then of 
 the conqueror who had crushed that empire to the 
 dust. And from first to last there was the same 
 simple piety, the same unswerving obedience to 
 the dictates of his conscience, the same unwaver- 
 ing trust in God as had marked his youthful years. 
 
334 DANIEL. 
 
 Power had no corrupting influence over him, nor 
 did he as he grew unto worldly greatness, fall away 
 from his early virtue, but on the contrary ever 
 walked nearer unto God, and increased in faith and 
 holiness. In following this noble life we have 
 endeavoured to draw from it some of the many 
 morals it contains. The incidents recorded are 
 startling and extraordinary, but not without a 
 reason. Daniel lived at a time when the chosen 
 people seemed doomed to destruction, and their 
 work to failure. He saved them ; under God's 
 good providence he made them more fit to carry 
 on their appointed work. Had we in our wisdom 
 had the ordering of events, we should have given 
 the chosen people a grand empire, faultless kings, 
 an intense appreciation of the holiness of their 
 work, great opportunities for good. God gave them 
 the exact reverse ; but His training made Galilean 
 fishermen fit apostles for the Lord, and the Jews 
 generally able to comprehend and preach the pure 
 truths of the Gospel. In this training Daniel 
 was a great factor. Our object has been to 
 gather from his life such lessons as may aid us in 
 walking worthily of that high vocation which we 
 have inherited from the Jews ; only we possess the 
 truth in its perfection and fulness, while they had 
 
RIGHTEOUS RETRIBUTION". 335 
 
 it as it was gradually revealed, " in many portions 
 and divers ways." If any of God's people are 
 aided and strengthened in the Christian life by 
 any words we have written, our object will have 
 been attained ; and to God be the glory. Amen. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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