tihvavy of Che 'theoloojical ^tminavf PRINCETON • NEW JERSEY v*y vss." FROM THE LIBRARY OF THE REVEREND CHARLES ROSENBURY ERDMAN D.D., LL.D. ^51555 .3 4b 7fJ^- ;^^, oV/"-^-^ . Voices from Babylon; tCv nr r;«',-;7^ .THE f FEB 12 1952 _^ ; Records of Daniel the Prophet. BY JOSEPH A. SEISS, D.D, Pastor of the Church of The Holy Communion, Phii^ada. AUTHOR of 'a miracle in stone," "last times," " LECTURES ON THE GOSPELS," ETa With the ancient is wisdom."— Job xii. 12. PORTER & COATES PHILADELPHIA. Copyright, 1879, by PORTER & COATES. PREFACE. The name of Babylon stands for the oldest of earthly cities and the first and most illustrious of earthly empires. It filled a large place in the early history of our present world, and possibly may fig- ure again in its final years. According to its na- tive etymology {Bab-El), it means The Gate of God. Gates, in Oriental times, were the places of judg- ment. It was in the gates that authority spoke, whence the laws and ordinances were given out, and where causes were heard and decided. As the places of public concourse, they were also used by prophets and sages for the delivery of their messages to the people. And it is a singular fact that the great prophetic judgment upon the succes- sion, career and final termination of worldly sove- reignty was given out from the original head of world-empires, and from a primal capital whose very name denotes The Gate of God. Equally striking is the further fact that the holy prophet through whom these divine decisions and fore-announcements were made was not only an illustrious sage and courtier in this Gate of God, but that his name (Dan-i-El) means God's Judge, Thus, by a group of coincidences which could hard- ly have been accidental, we have God's judge in 4 PREFA CE. the Gate of God giving forth the pre-deterniiiiatioiis and decrees of God with regard to the whole course of earthly political power. These Voices of God from the Gate of God, through the judge of God, it is the object of this book to describe. The intensity of their interest to our day and generation, when fairly and fully in- terpreted, cannot well be exaggerated. Daniel is peculiarly i\\Q prophet of the latter days. Augus- tine speaks the language of all Christian antiquity, as" well as of all the prophetic foreshowings, where he says : ^^ As the world a2:)proaches its end errors w^ill increase and impiety and infidelity will abound ;'' and Daniel is pre-eminently the man of God to in- struct and stay the heart of faith in evil times. Such was his office to God's erring people in his own day ; such was the effect of his prophecies in the period of the Seleucid deceivers and oppressors; and such his Book is meant to be to us as the shadows of the coming judgment gather upon the w^orld. Nowhere does the Spirit of prophecy and miracle stand out more illustriously in the eyes of men than here. Nowhere is there a more marvellous demonstration to mankind of tlie power, providence and presence of God in human affairs than in this Book. By astounding wonders, themselves luminous with celes- tial and moral teachings, the attention is drawn to the prophet's utterances, and by the accurate ful- filment of his predictions through the entire roll of the ages since, those miracles are ever more and more confirmed. And it is hard to conceive what PREFACE. O sort of divine manifestations could be better adapt- ed to encourage and establish God's people in these latter days, to fortify them against the materialistic and deceptive philosophies in vogue, to nurture that fulness of faith which alone can withstand the Anti- christian storms whose tempestuous darkness is al- ready thickening around us, or to enable suffering devotion to look beyond all present adversities and perturbations to that heavenly light and eternal calm ^vhich kept the spirit of the prophet, and which are at length to take possession of this af- flicted and misruled earth. Unfortunately, however, these Voices from Baby- lon have not been receiving the sort of attention to which they are entitled. Modern theology in gene- ral has so dwindled and sunk away from the original and proper faith of God's Word that the spirit of this Book has become estranged and uncongenial, if not of- fensive, to it. Criticism, instead of endeavoring to bring out its sublime teachings, has labored rather to encourage unfounded suspicions of its genuineness, to reduce its terms and imagery into conformity with a few flat and self-invented prepossessions, or to de- plete it by way of apology for its presence in the holy Canon. Even when taken in hand by earnest believers, the treatment has mostly been either so superficial and partial as to belittle while attempt- ing to expound and exalt, or so polemico-scholastic as to destroy all proper exegesis, or so very deferen- tial to the shallow rationalism of the w^orshippers of human progress as to stifle the very soul of the 6 PREFACE. prophet's crowning presentations. What the world and the Church need with regard to this Book is, that it be released and emancipated from all such imposed clogs and fetters ; that the great Daniel be made to speak for himself in the majesty of his own inspired words ; that those sublime foreshowings vouchsafed to him by the God of heaven be recalled and restated as they were, and were meant and re- ceived at the beginning ; and that the invincible demonstrations which forced their way to victory over the pagan soul of Nebuchadnezzar be let forth again in all their divine reality upon the proud, skeptical and God-defying spirit of this evil age. The treatment of these sacred Voices in the follow- ing Lectures is but little in the vein of most of the commentaries and treatises on the subject. Whilst the best and worst of modern criticism and exegesis on Daniel have been consulted, and much of real worth has thus been found and appropriated, the pur- pose has rather been to restate the contents of the Book in the direct import of its own terms, and thus to revive and vindicate the older and truer conceptions of the Church with regard to these magnificent prophecies. There can be no question that all doctrines legiti- mately claiming the authority of Holy Scripture must ultimately rest on the grammar of the lan- £>:uao^es in which the sacred revelations are 2:iven. What is against the laws and usages of those lan- guages as employed by the Holy Ghost can never be the true meaning. Grammatico-historieal criti- PREFACE. 7 cism cannot therefore be dispensed with in ascertain- ing the teachings of Biblical writers. All right in- terpretation of the divine Word is unavoidably bound to it. No mere theological or traditional arguments are competent to establish an article of faith, or to refute w4iat claims to be one, without being able to ground itself clearly upon a " Thus saith the Lord " grammatically determined. Due attention has ac- cordingly been given to this requirement, and a new critical translation of the Book of Daniel, embody- ing all known results of any worth in that^ depart- ment, is appended to these Lectures. But something more, and of equally indispensable necessity in all right exposition of the sacred writings, is required. " No pi^ophecy of the SGripture is of any private interpretation J^ 2 Pet. i. 20. As no such prophecy is from the individual will or wisdom of the writer, so neither is the composition in which it is given an isolated thing to be treated by itself alone. As the sacred writers were all moved by ** the same Spirit," their several productions are only so many parts of one organic whole. Though each has his own particular standpoint, surroundings and objects, which must never be lost sight of, yet no in- dividual presentations are disconnected from what others have written on the same subject. The utter- ances of one dare not be put over against the utter- ances of another, nor the one be exalted to the de- preciation of the other; but all must be taken to- gether, as equal in authority and dignity and as mutually explanatory. 8 PREFACE. There is also a correspondence, analogy, interior coherence and harmony of Scripture with Scripture as to the substance of every subject, which, if once truly reached at one place, evokes a common re- sponse and attestation from every other place, and thus begets a clearness of conviction beyond all that the most elaborate discussions can impart. Nor can any interpretation be the true mind of the Spir- it which will not fairly construe with the analysis of all the passages relating to the same topic. It is upon this basis and method of ascertaining the purport of God's revelations, rather than on mere scaffoldings of individual textual criticism, or on any artificial system of theological architecture, that the main reliance is here placed. The critically-revised translation is principally the work of the author's friend and co-laborer, Rev. R. F. Weidner, a. M., whose special studies in an- cient Oriental languages and Biblical criticism well qualify him for such work. That he has done good service in this case will be recognized and acknow- ledged by all competent to judge of such matters. The Index to the w^hole has likewise been chiefly prepared by him. Thus constructed and thus completed, this book is offered to the public, with the earnest prayer that it may be blest of God to the instruction and edifi- cation of many souls, and to the praise and glory of His own great and ever-adorable Name!. Philadelphia, Epiphany Season, 1879. CONTENTS LECTUKE FIRST. THE FORMING PROPHET ; OR, DANIEL IN THE ROYAL COLLEGE. PAGE The Book of Daniel and its critics. — Other Daniels. — The prophet's early history. — His natural qualities. — Selected for service in the palace. — Change of his name. — Importance of names. — In the king's college. — The king's victuals. — Daniel's high principle. — The root of his greatness. — The modesty of his spirit. — A grand example for young men. — The foundations of true success 15-33 LECTURE SECOND. THE VISION OF EMPIRE; OR, NEBUCHADNEZZAR'S DREAM. The scene of primeval history. — Babylon's beginning. — Nim- rod. — Names of succeeding Babylonian monarchs. — Nebu- chadnezzar, his conquests and his greatness. — His public works. — His dream of tlae future of empire. — Plis earnest- ness in seeking for its meaning, — The masters of Chaldean wisdom. — Nebuchadnezzar's severity toward them. — In- competency of man without divine revelation. — Unspeak- able worth of the Bible 34-51 LECTURE THIRD. THE SUCCESSION OF KINGDOMS; OR, THE FOUR GREAT SOVE- REIGNTIES. Daniel surprised. — Engages to tell and explain the king's dream. — Resorts to prayer. — Answers the king's wishes. — 10 CONTENTS. PAGE Treats the dream as from God. — Dreams and tokens. — Ne- buchadnezzar a proper organ for this revelation. — The mo- mentousness of the disclosure. — An outline of all political history. — Babylon. — Medo-Persia. — Macedonian empire. — Kome. — A constant deterioration. — All actors and agencies work out God's predictions. — History not accident. — Inspi- ration a reality 52-73 LECTUKE FOUKTH. THE FINAL DOMINION; OK, THE KINGDOM OF THE STONE. All worldly empire in the figure of a man. — The Roman do- minion still exists. — To be followed by a new and peculiar power. — A real outward kingdom. — Entirely supernatural. — Is not the United States. — Is not Christianity as now in the world. — Christ its Head.— Christ the Stone in three re- lations. — The Stone kingdom now forming. — Will be mani- fested only in the judgment-time. — Prophecies concerning it. — A cavil on the subject 74-95 LECTURE FIFTH. THE GOLDEN MEMORIAL ; OR, NEBUCHADNEZZAR'S GREAT IMAGE. Nebuchadnezzar's character. — His wisdom as a king. — His motive in setting up the golden image. — A memorial of the Jehovah-power. — His good intentions in demanding homage to it. — Awakened no scruples in the Chaldeans. — Was contrary to the divine law. — The trial to Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. — Their steadfastness.— The king's anger. — Their miraculous preservation in the furnace of fire. — Vindication of the miracle. — Lessons from it 96-115 LECTURE SIXTH. THE GREAT MAN HUMBLED; OR, THE KING'S INSANITY. An ancient state paper. — Omens and tokens. — A second pro- phetic dream of the king. — Daniel's feeling interpretation of it. — The cares and honors of the world adverse to piety. — Nebuchadnezzar's grand achievements. — His self-glorify- CONTENTS. 11 PAGE ing pride. — Is overtaken with sudden judgment. — A case akin to lycanthropy. — The sad picture. — The recovery.— r Good results of the affliction. — Was Nebuchadnezzar a converted man? — Warning against pride 116-138 LECTUKE SEVENTH. THE DOOM OF SACRILEGE; OR, BELSHAZZAR'S FEAST. Who Belshazzar was. — His character. — Nature of his " feast." — Exceedingly ill-timed. — Sacrilegious excesses of. — The writing on the wall. — Tiie king's terror. — The queen- mother. — Daniel summoned. — A sermon in the royal ban- quet-hall. — Belshazzar's end. — God weighs men. — Is spe- cially strict with those in power. — Hates sensuality. — Holds accountable for warnings neglected. — Belshazzar's sacrilege in modern forms. — Admonition from his example 139-160 LECTURE EIGHTH. THE MEDO-PERSIAN PRIME MINISTER; OR, DANIEL'S FAITH TESTED. The change of government. — Darius the Median. — Selects Daniel for high office. — Malicious envy against Daniel. — His faultlessness. — Malignity the more inflamed in view of his impeccable worth. — Tiie plot to destroy him. — Its flattering hypocrisy. — Daniel's steadfastness. — The king's sorrow. — Daniel cast into the lions' den. — His miraculous preservation. — There is a righteous and merciful God at the helm of things. — To fear, love and trust Him above all things, man's highest wisdom 161-182 LECTURE NINTH. THIS WORLD'S GOVERNMENTS; OR, THE VISION OF THE FOUR BEASTS. A new division of the Book. — Daniel's dream of the four monsters from the agitated sea. — World-power viewed from the prophet's stand-point. — Babylon, the winged Lion. — Medo-Persia, the Boar. — Alexander's dominion, the foui- 12 CONTENTS. PAGE headed Leopard. — Rome, the terrible nondescript. — The judgment. — Good and evil. — Coming of the Son of man. — The future kingdom. — The high portion of the saints.. 183-205 LECTURE TENTH. THE WORLD-POWERS AND ISRAEL; OR, THE RAM, HE-GOAT AND LITTLE HORN. Daniel's second vision. — The same powers again. — Harmonies. Three different aspects of contemplation. — The world-pow- ers with respect to the Jewish people. — Change of the sym- bols. — Medo-Persia. — Alexander and the Jews. — Division of his empire. — The Little Horn. — Antiochus Epiphanes. — Duration of his afflictions of Israel — His miserable end. — The type of another oppressor yet to come. — Instructions and warnings from his career as the type of the Antichrist. — The Jewish apostasies. — Signs of similar defections in our day. — Effect of the vision on Daniel. — The study of prophecy 206-230 LECTURE ELEVENTH. THE CHOSEN PEOPLE'S FORTUNES; OR, THE SEVENTY WEEKS. The inner life of the prophet. — His devotions intensified by the study of unfulfilled prophecy. — His great prayer. — God's acceptance of it. — Gabriel sent to make known the truth. — The prophecy of the seventy sevens. — Relates exclusively to the fortunes of Israel. — What those seventy sevens were to bring. — Messiah Prince. — Years from the word to rebuild Jerusalem to His presentation to Israel. — How cut off. — Results of, to the Jewish people. — The final seven. — The final Antichrist. — Resume of the contents of this chapter 231-256 LECTURE TWELFTH. THE PICTURE FILLED IN ; OR, THE VISION OF THE HIDDEKEL, The Greek version of this Book. — Questions concerning por- tions of chapters x., xi. — Attempts to expurgate the sacred CONTENTS. 13 PAGE Books.— No vital points involved in omittina^ the disputed paragraphs in these chapters. — Daniel's great fast. — The vis- ion which followed it. — The prophet's suffering from the vision. — The costs of divine revelations. — Offices and do- ings of the angels. — Conflicts with spiritual Powers. — Succession of kings in Persia. — The riches of Xerxes. — Decadence of Persian dominion from the battles of Mar- athon and Salamis. — Alexander and his en)pire. — ''The king of the south" and "the king of the north." — God with His people. — Angels their helpers. — Tlie vanity of earthly riches and glory 257-278 LECTURE THIRTEENTH. THE REIGN OF THE ANTICHRIST; OR, THE WILFUL KING. An Antichrist yet to come. — Biblical descriptions of him. — The Christian Fathers on the subject. — " The king." — The last bestial power on earth. — An individual person. — Opinions whence he shall come. — Wilfulness his great characteristic. — His self-exaltation above everything. — Patronizes a god. — His injustice and misrule. — His end. — Signs pre-intimating his coming. — Spirit of the times. — "The Coming Man." — Mistaken hopes 279-302 LECTURE FOURTEENTH. THE FINAL OUTCOME; OR, THE GREAT CONSUMMATION. False impressions touching the shutting up and sealing of these visions. — True meaning of the angel. — The time of the Antichrist a time of unprecedented trouble. — The Jews under him. — Duration of his reign. — The standing up of Michael. — What it includes. — Ending of " the times of the Gentiles." — A time of blessed resurrections. — The reign of death. — Its destruction. — The eternal rewards. — The con- ditions on which they depend 30^329 A Critically-revised Translation 831-377 List of Authors 379-383 Index 385-391 VOICES FROM BABYLOiN LECTURE FIRST. The Forming Prophet; or, Daniel in the KoYAL College. Daniel 1 : 1-21. IF God will, I propose to give at such intervals as may be convenient a course of somewhat special Lectures on the Booh of Daniel. It is a part of Holy Scripture, perhaps the most interesting and valuable of all the prophetic books — one remarkably well suited for the determination of some of those questions which modern skepticism has raised, and one very full of just such truth as is most suitable for the consid- eration of men in our day, whether believers or un- believers. Quite a number of the brightest lights of our mod- ern world, as distinguished for their erudition as thor- ough in their piety, have devoted some of their best efforts to the study of this Book, and given their united testimony to its excellence, its instruct- iveness and its value as a clew to the knowledge of God's purposes and dispensations as they run through the whole course of time. Though many 15 16 VOICES FROM BABYLON. critics have arisen who have brought all the aj^pa- ratus of modern learning, and much "science false- ly so called," to the work of discrediting it as the production of the great man whom it claims as its author, the result has been to exhibit with aug- mented clearness, and to establish all the more firm- ly, not only the genuineness and authenticity of this Book, bnt the certainty of its inspiration, the im- portance of it in the canonical record, and the cen- tralness of its place in the revelations of God to man. " Happily for the present age," says Words- worth, '^the shafts of a skeptical criticism, which a few years ago were discharged in a volley against the Book of Daniel, appear now to be almost spent. Its quiver seems to be empty. The attacks made upon this Book with much eagerness and activity have stirred up able champions of the fiith, and thus, by God's providence overruling evil for good, the assaults of unbelief have been made the occa- sions and means of strengthening our belief in the genuineness, authenticity, and inspiration of the Book of Daniel, and have secured to the Church those spir- itual blessings which may be derived from a careful study of it." A few passages may have crept into the text on which some reasonable doubt may rest, but the limits of them can be clearly defined, and their elimination, if we must needs let them go, not only does not touch a single item of importance in the Book, but tends to set out in far more intelligible- ness, consistency, conspicuity and elegance the grand and noble presentations of the great i)rophet-statesman THE FORMING PROPHET. 17 of Babylon whose name it bears. With all that an inimical criticism and a perverted erudition have been able to accomplish, we may still take up the exclama- tion of Bishop Newton : " What an amazing prophecy is this, comprehending so many various events, and extending through so many successive ages, from the establishment of the Persian empire, upward of five hundred years before Christ, to the general resurrec- tion ! What stronger and more convincing proofs can be given or required of a divine providence and a divine revelation, that there is a God who directs and orders the transactions of the world, and that Daniel was a prophet inspired by Him ! No one could thus declare the times and the seasons but He who hath them in His power.'^ And, as Sir Isaac Newton, " who explored the firmament with unwearied wing, and made an apoc- alypse of the stars, felt that he was sounding a great- er depth and rising to a loftier height when he sat down, a patient student of this Book, to ascertain the mind and make plain to less gifted souls the meaning of the Spirit of God '' which herein speaks, it surely cannot be beneath us, or a waste of time and energy, or anything less than a pleasant duty and a high priv- ilege, to devote ourselves with some degree of special- ness to what God has here caused to be written for our learning upon whom the ends of the world have come. May the God of Daniel guide and help us in the attempt ! It has been the pleasure of a certain class of minds to assume that we know almost nothing of Daniel, the He- 2 18 VOICES FROM BABYLON. brew captive and exile, to wlioin this Book is ascribed. Tlie evident reason has been, not that ample records are wanting, but that the admission of those records carries with it the infallible certainty of miracle, in- spiration, and prophecy, of which many would like to be rid. The skeptical Gibbon enunciated a larger and deeper truth than he was perhaps aware of, when, unable to see any escape from the contemporary evi- dence for a fact, or from its miraculousness if true, he said, " The stubborn mind of an infidel is guarded by a secret incurable suspicion.^' And it is this "suspicion,'' incurable save by the subduing influence of the Holy Ghost — this wilful shutting of one's self up against un- welcome truth— this foregone conclusion against the possibility of miracles and inspired prophecy — this exaltation of a supercilious rationalism against every- thing above it — which has been the spring of all the adverse criticism on this Book, and the cause of the difficulty in finding authentic information concerning " Daniel the prophet." The truth is, that we know more of him than we know of Adam, Noah, or Job — as much as we know of Joseph, Isaiah, Ezekiel, or Herod the Great — and nearly as much as we know of Moses, David, St. Paul, or Napoleon. There are three Daniels spoken of in the Scriptures — one, a son of David, born in Hebron of Abigail the Carmelitess, referred to in 1 Chron. iii. 1 ; another, a son of Ithamar, who went up with Ezra after the Babylonish captivity, and of whom we read in Ezra viii. 2 and Neli. x. 6 ; and the third, the great Daniel, the prophet of God, who lived one of the most orig- THE FORMING PROPHET. 19 inal and extraordinary of lives, and wrote one of the most important and remarkable books of the inspired Canon. It is this last alone with whom we have here to do. This Daniel was descended from one of the highest Jewish families in the last period of the Hebrew mon- archy. He was almost certainly of royal blood, born at Jerusalem during the days of Jeremiah. He was among the captives whom Nebuchadnezzar, then at the head of the Babylonian armies, carried away from Judea to the Chaldean capital on the Euphrates. He was then a boy about fourteen years of age. Of all the Jewish youths thus, transported, he was tlie foremost in every quality both of body and mind. He was without blemish, comely in person, skilful in wisdom, cunning in knowledge, quick of understanding, and having ability in him. And as it was the custom of Oriental monarchs to select the most likely of their captives taken in war for their own particular service, DaniePs royal blood, culture, and excellent physical and mental recommendations soon pointed him out as one destined so to be employed. The better to fit him for the king's service, he, together w^ith three other Hebrew youths, was put under the charge of the Babylonian eunuchs to undergo a special train- ing of three years. It had been prophesied by Isaiah to Hezekiah : ''Of thy sons which shall issue from thee, which thou shalt beget, shall they take away, and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon." Isa. xxxix. 7. The inference is, that in Daniel this pre- 20 VOICES FROM BABYLON. diction was fulfilled, ils Josephus also states, and that in suffering and privation he was formed for the place in which he became so conspicuous and notable. An attempt was likewise made to obliterate his Judaic prepossessions and opinions by assigning to him a different name. It has been observed that while the king of Babylon liked DanieFs pleasant face and scholarship, he did not like his religion. As men of the world delight in the erudition, eloquence, and attainments of Christian ministers, if only spared these continual appeals to conscience and the everlast- ing urgency of the Gospel in its claims to the practical mastery of the heart and life, so the king of Babylon would gladly avail himself of DaniePs science and grace if he could only separate from them everything relating to Daniel's God. Daniel's name had in it a reference to Jehovah, as also the names of his three Jewish comrades. As this would be to them a con- stant reminder of the worship of their fathers, and Bomething of a standing protest against the gods and idolatries of the Chaldeans, it was anything but agree- able to the proud court of Babylon. Hence other names were given to these youths. Daniel means GocVs judge ; so this name was changed to Belteshaz- zar, which means Befs prmce, or he whom Bel, the chief god of Babylonian worship, favors and exalts. Hananiah means Jehovah^s gift; so this name was changed into Shadrach, which means the kiiig^ s friend. Mishael means the incomparableness of God; so this was changed to Ifeshach, which means the gentle one, or the one devoted to the s^oddess Shesach. Azariah THE FORMING PROPHET. 21 means Jehovah our help ; so this was changed to Abed- nego, which means the servant of the star, or of the god Mercury. In other words, all four of these names ' were completely heathenized by cutting out of them all references to the God of Israel, and inserting cor- ; responding references to the idol gods of Babylon. There might seem to be but little in a name, but it is not a matter of total indifference. A fortunate or unfortunate name may have an important effect on the history of him who bears it. The very sound of the designation by which one is perpetually called will have its influence, and cannot be without some moral effect, either favorable or unfavorable. Whole histories and vast circles of ideas are often treasured up in a name ; and names should never be given without consideration. If they can be made suo-o-es- tive of noble principles, examples, or memories, so much the better. Parents may be shaping the des- tinies of their children and affecting their whole life by the names they fix upon them. In the vocabulary of heaven we have reason to believe that names are the significations of things. God wished His Son to be called Jesus, because He was to save His people from their sins. And when the court of Babylon wished to blot out from these Hebrew youths the memory of their fathers and of the worship of the God of Israel, the very first thing was the changing of their names to correspond with the object desired. But the expedient in this case did not succeed. Babylon began too late with these youths. Their names were changed, but their principles did not 22 VOICES FROM BABYLON. yield to the enchantment. Early instructions are not so easily obliterated. The impressions of childhood are always tlie most lasting. They engrave them- selves upon the whole formation of the man ; they constitute the mould of one's being. They may be weakened and overlaid^ but not extinguished. They are like words spoken in a whispering-gallery, which may not be heard near where they are uttered, but are produced in far-distant years and go echoing along the remotest paths of life. A child's heart is plastic, and the form to which it is once set is the hardest thing in the world to change. These youths had been brought up in the knowledge and worship of the true God, and had been taught His word and law; and their early teachings abode with them and remained proof against all the subtle seductions and expedients of a heathen court. They quietly took the new names assigned them, for they could not help themselves. Those names were indeed lies as applied to them, but they were obliged to submit, as the good and pious of every age have had to bear the ill names which the world has put upon them. It is not possible for God's people to escape the re- proaches of the wicked. Paul was called a madman, and Christ himself was called a glutton, a wine- bibber, and a devil. Both meekly endured it in the blessed consciousness of its utter falsity. And so these Hebrew youths took the base cognomens dic- tated by their heathen conquerors, but under those offensive names still lurked the holy teachings of their childhood. Tyrants might change their names, THE FORMING PROPHET. 23 but their hearts remained loyal to the God of their fathers. Teach your children the fear of the Lord and the truths of revelation from their earliest in- fancy. Even if they cannot fully understand them, imbue their young natures with them ; and in after years, when you are no longer present to direct, they will be like the lodestone to the mariner in navi- gating the trackless sea. It may seem like casting your seed upon the waters, but some of it will find a lodgment where it will grow to beautify and bless long after your voice has become silent in the grave. It was not long before a test occurred to prove how firmly rooted in their hearts were the sacred teachings which had been early imprinted upon these youths. The more to draw and attach them to their royal conqueror, the king appointed them a daily provision of meat from the royal table and of the wine of which he himself drank. It was a mark of most particular favor and condescension — a regal generosity — intended to win their hearts and excite their admiration, gratitude, and affection for their master. One writer thinks it was as much as to say, " If you will become priests of our temple, we will give you an endowment from the state." It was at least a token of gracious preferment to impress them with an idea of their sovereign's goodness, and to show them what they might expect by loyally identifying themselves with Babylon's king and Babylon's institutions. It was a most enticing ap- peal to the ambition of these young men. In the king's school, chosen for the king's service, and fed 24 VOICES FROM BABYLON. and feasted from the king's table with the food and drink of which the king himself partook, it would be difficult to imagine what could more stir and in- flame the aspirations of their youthful hearts. What might they not hope when thus noticed and honored from the throne ? But, whilst duly sensible and appreciative of the royal favor, '' Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king's meat, nor with the wine which he drank." To partake of these royal viands was, to him, contrary to his religion and his conscience. It was the com- mon custom among the heathen, when they sat down to a meal, to offer or dedicate a portion of the pro- visions and drink to the gods. In the place of our asking a blessing, they had a ceremony of acknow- ledgment or dedication to their household deities. Paul refers to this, and, on the ground of Christian principle, forbids participation where eatables are thus devoted to idols. The Jewish law was still more rigid, and strictly prohibited certain classes of food altogether, and other classes also if not pre- pared in a prescribed way. There was no security, therefore, that, in every mouthful he might take of this meat, and drink from the table of the king, Paniel would not be violating the laws of his God. The question consequently Avas, whether he should consult his conscience or his appetite and comfort — whether or not he should let his religion go and accept common cause with idolaters — whether he should relinquish fidelity to the throne of his Maker THE FORMINO PROPHET. 25 or risk his good standing with the king, wlio was disposed to favor him. Had he been one of those easy-going Christians of our day who are ready to make any worldly pleasure, gain, or convenience an ample excuse for setting aside any claims or duties of religion, we should never have heard of any scruple on the subject ; but then we never should have had the illustrious Daniel. It takes sterner stuff to make saints, prophets, and holy princes than that which shuts its eyes and asks no questions, and is content to accommodate itself to almost any thing; and any place. Abraham^s conscience would not let him stay in Ur, though his going out would lead him he knew not whither. Moses' conscience would not allow him to accept Egypt's throne and riches, though it sent him an exile for forty years in the wilderness. Paul could not permit himself to confer with flesh and blood, though at the sacrifice of every- thing earthly. And any one who would be a true man of God must be willing to risk all, and even life itself, rather than go against conscience and the clear will of Jehovah. The worldly-wise may call it squeamishness, and sneer at it as a straining at gnats, that Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the viands of the king's table ; but it was the great foundation-stone of all his greatness. Principle is never small. It is even greater when exhibited in little things than in matters so imposing that there is scarcely room for trial. And he that is faithful in little is thereby also faithful in much. The man who has no regard for })ence is not to be trusted for 26 VOICES FROM BABYLON. pounds. Our own history has shown us how^ a mighty revolution and the creation of a great and glorious nationality may be wrapped up in a box of tea. Daniel took his stand for God, conscience, and righteousness even in the little matter of his meat and drink, and thus laid the groundwork of a character which passed untarnished and unscathed through seventy years of political life, which out- lived envy, jealousy, and dynasties, and which stands out to this day the brightest on all the records of humanity. We wonder and gaze with awe upon him as we contemplate his sublime career. Elevated from his early youth to the presidency over all the colleges of Babylon's wise men, then to the judge's bench, then to the headship of all the governors of an all-conquering empire, and holding his place amid all the intrigues indigenous to Oriental despotisms through three successive monarchies ; hon- ored during all the forty years of Nebuchadnezzar's reiorn ; entrusted with the kino^'s business under the insolent and sensual Belshazzar ; acknowledged by the conquering Medo-Persians ; the stay and protector of his people under every administration through all the dreary years of their long exile; dwelling with the great in the most dissolute as the most grand and powerful of all the old heathen cities; invulnerable to the jealousies and envies of plotting satraps, and maintaining himself unspotted to the end as a wor- shipper of Jehovah in a court and empire made up of idolaters, — Daniel's life presents an embodied epic of faith and greatness, and exhibits one of the rarest pic- THE FORMING PROPHET. 27 tures ever shown in any mere man. And yet the whole of it had its root and beginning in his youtliful resolve not to defile himself with the portion of the king's viands ! Joseplius resolves the whole matter into the wisdom of a vegetarian diet for success in study. But Jose- phus wTote as a sycophant and a craven. He knew better, but wished to avoid reflections upon the idol- atry of the emperors and people whom he desired to propitiate and please. Had he possessed a spark of Daniel's devotion and honesty, he never would have perpetrated such an absurdity. The question was not about what sort of diet is most conducive to learning, but about the requirements and commands of God ^vith res])ect to things offered to idols and contrary to tlie Law. It was not a question about vegetable food or of total abstinence from vinous drinks, but one of loyalty to his Maker, to his conscience, and to the ordinances of Heaven. It was not a question of dietetics, but one of high religious principle and duty. Daniel might have kept himself to pulse and water all his days and never been more of a man than Josephus was ; but he had learned the statutes of Jehovah, and kept himself devoutly to them. Hence the blessing of his humble fare, and of himself in the use of it, which turned deficnencies into successes, weaknesses into power, and adversities into glorious triumphs. It is not meat and drink that make men prosperous, wise, and great. It is not the eating of the king's portion, nor abstinence from it, but solemn, self-sac- rificing devotion to sacred principle, which develops 28 VOICES FROM BABYLON. Daniels, Haiiaiiiahs, and noble masters of wisdom and saints of God. But it was not in offensive self-assertion that these youths declined the king's viands. An obtrusive piety is never of God. True religion is always courteous, modest, and anxious to avoid unnecessary collisions. With all its inflexibility it is always amiable and kind. There be some who seem to think they cannot be faithful without being rude, or true to God without harshness toward men. But here we have all the modesty and politeness of genuine refinement, and all the courtesy of an accomplished courtier, with all the steadfastness of the most devoted piety, evincing the genial sincerity, and heralding in its simplicity the future greatness of the man. Daniel showed no acerbed temper. He did not fly into an indignant passion about his religion and his God. He did not break out in declamation against Babylonian ways and idolatries. He did not feign himself insulted by the offers of his king because they did not harmonize with his views and feelings. There was no bravado, no insolence, no defiance. That would have been as wrong as to eat of the king's meat. It would not have recommended him or his cause, and could only have made matters worse. Therefore, with the mod- esty of a true man, with due regard to the situation, and with that humility of spirit which considers the rights and feelings of others while yet faithful to prin- ciple, he put the whole thing in the shape of mild and gentle request that he and his three friends might be permitted to live on pulse and water, if only by way THE FORMING PROPHET. 29 of experiment for ten days. And such entire con- fidence had he in God's favor to those who honor His statutes that he cheerfully stipulated to accept what- ever should be judged right if at the end of that time he and his friends did not prove as fair and fat in flesh as any of his schoolfellows who had no scruples about the portion of the king's meat. In all these particulars we behold the sound and refined religious character of the man, and the putting forth of those shoots of moral stamina which made Daniel one of the noblest and most successful of men. And what an illustrious example have we here for the imitation of all young men ! You have been in- dulging many a fond and anxious dream of success, honor, and greatness in the world. You would like to do something good and noble for yourself and for your race. You are often absorbed with thinking over plans, movements, and methods of operation by which to conciliate the favors of fortune, to reach dis- tinguished positions in life, and to leave behind you some good record when your race is run. If it is not so, I would not give much for your prospects. And as you think, all the warmth and zeal of your young nature kindles at what you propose to accomplish and make of yourself. I find no fault with this. It is all right enough, and what becomes youthful years. I would have you think with all seriousness, make up your plan of life with the deepest fixedness of purpose, and then pursue it unswervingly through thick and thin, never faltering and never surrender- 30 VOICES FROM BABYLON. iiig. Your life will come to nothing without this. True and great men and great and honorable successes never come by accident. And one all-conditioning thing in a successful life is deep-rooted and inflexible devotion to correct religious princi^^le. This made the Daniels, the Pauls, the Luthers, and the Wash- ingtons of history. He who leaves out of his plans and purposes an honest and devout regard for his soul, his God, and eternal judgment, leaves out the very seed-grain from which all true greatness and all real success grow. You may not like such sentiments. You may think it merely professional in me to state them as I do. You may consider it manly and inde- pendent to throw oif restraints and shackles of this cliaracter, and despise them as only in your way. But let me tell you that all the proper success and glory of your life is wrapped up in them. You make a sad and deplorable miss-shot of your being if you propose to realize your golden dreams without them. Tliere is no right life in merely caring for this dying body and pandering to its appetites, while the soul and its high being are w^ilted by starvation and neglect. It is not right life merely to till the earth, and cover its hills with cattle, and make its fields glad with har- vests, while all the sublime domain of the immortal spirit is left to waste and desolation. It is not right life merely to build houses, cities, and railways — to unchain the imprisoned spirit of steam — to dig up metals and pound them into shapes — while the moral nature is abandoned to chance or stagnation, with all its nobler treasures neglected, overlaid, and lost. It THE FORMING PROPHET. ^1 is not right life merely to become rich, famous, or even learned, if the momentous things of God and immortality are disregarded or despised. What mat- ters it to pass with sublimest brilliancy through the few years of stay on earth if it must end in an eter- nity of darkness and despair? With tremendous urgency, and for ever, rings out that unsolved ques- tion oif the Master of all wisdom : " What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul ?" Better fail a thousand times, and fail in everything else, than attempt to shape for yourself a life without God, without hope in Christ, and with- out an interest in heaven. No one can afford such an experiment. It will unmake you if you try it. It will turn your life into nothingness and your being into an ever-greatening curse. You may think it in- dependent, dignified, and noble, but you can no more succeed in it than you can dwell with devouring fire. What young men generally are mostly concerned about is capital. They think if they only had capital they would accomplish wonders. And so they can, if the'word be taken in its right sense. They understand by it a full and heavy pocket, but, properly, capital does not mean balances in bank, bonds, and letters of credit. Its true meaning is a right head. If you have this, you are prepared for the business of life, and equipped to make the most of.it, no matter about other things. If only the head is right, and the man 'is not awry or wrong in his upper departments, he has capital, and may be sure of triumi)hant successes. But a man who ignores God and disregards the stat- 32 VOICES FROM BABYLON. iites of Deity and moral right, is not in his right mind. He mutilates his being ; he damages his manhood ; he mars the nobility of his nature ; he throws out of gear his intellectual constitution ; he puts from him that very capital out of which alone his life can become a success. A man who has not learned to know, feel, and obey the Truth, who fails in a just recognition of his Creator and his Creator's will, who lives only by veering impulse, without a settled faith and aim ad- justed to the verities of his position in the universe, can by no possibility have reason and sanity on his side. He is more or less beside himself. His head is not right. He is in measure a weakling, an imbe- cile, a moral cripple, a spiritual dwarf, disabled from the noblest activities of a proper man ; and he never can be great. What men need to make them men is a firm anchorage on God, a modest, sincere and unflinch- ing adherence to the laws of righteousness, and such a devotion as would at any time rather live on pulse and water with a good conscience than to sit down at the table of the king with a debauched soul. With such capital it matters not what seeming odds may be against a man. The laws of the universe are in his favor. No storms or revolutions can ever wreck his good fortune. The throne of Heaven stands pledged to keep him in safety. And beyond the hills wliich bound our present horizon — beyond the stars which look down so lovingly amid these anxious night- watches — beyond these competitions, doubts, struggles, aches and ills, when this world's bloom is goi^e, its pleasures past, its fortunes worthless, its cha})lets with- THE FORMING PROPHET. 33 ered, its joys and sorrows over — there still remains a realm of light, beauty, victory, and glory, where they that have sown to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. LECTURE SECOND. The Vision of Empire; or, Nebuchad- nezzar's Dream. Daniel 2 : 1-35. IT is well worthy of notice that the three principal events in the primeval history of man connect with the confluence of tw^o rivers, a very celebrated mountain w^iich those rivers drain, and a very cele- brated plain which those rivers water. Where the Euphrates and the Tigris join is where Eden bloom- ed, where man was made, and where his dreadful fall occurred. The mountains from wliich they descend include Ararat, where the Ark of Noah lodged when the all-engulfing flood subsided. The plains through which they meander to the sea are the plains of Shinar, Avhere tlie race halted in its first migrations after leav- ing the Ark, where the great defiant tower was at- tempted to be built, and where the Lord interposed to confound the language of men and to scatter them abroad upon the face of the earth. The date of the Flood has been much debated and variously represented. But if we take the mean of the two reckonings given in the two principal versions of the ancient Scriptures, or the best deductions from the historical and monumental remains of the various original tribes and peoples, or the indications embodied ;;4 THE VISION OF EMPIRE. 35 in the Great Pyramid of Gizeh, by each of these methods we are brought to the coocurrent date of two thousand eight hundred years before Christ, or near about four thousand six hundred and seventy- eight years ago. It was in the sixth generation from Noah, about three hundred years after the flood, that the great dispersion of his descendants occurred, for it was in the days of Peleg that "the earth was di- vided." But in two generations earlier than Peleg we already read of the city and kingdom with which the history of Daniel connects, and the culmination of which was represented by Nebuchadnezzar. There is no older known city — no older known kingdom — than Babylon. From the tenth chapter of Genesis we learn that Gush, the son of Ham, begat Nimrod ; that " he began to be a mighty one in the earth ;" that " he was a mighty hunter before the Lord," whose doings became proverbial in all after-time ; and that " the beginning of his kingdom was Babel \_Babylon'], and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar." The name and fame of this Nimrod, under whose administration the building of the Great Tower was undertaken, still resound all over the Mesopotamian region and live in the traditions of the people whose forefathers deified and worshipped him as a god. Many of the remarkable mounds and ruins of that ancient country are named after him. The ancient Chaldean astronomers placed him in the heavens as the constellation of Orion. The present inhabitants of the regions over which he reii2:ned never mention 36 VOICES FROM BABYLON. his name but with reverence and awe. And up to the time when the tenth chapter of Genesis was written there was no other model of greatness and dominion to which mankind were so accustomed to refer as '^ Nimrod, the mighty hunter before the Lord/' The disaster of the confusion of tongues, while it caused the leaving off of the building of the city for a time, did not destroy the kingdom which this man founded. The names of not less than twenty-six Babylonian monarchs have been exhumed within the last quarter of a century, the earliest of them dating back very near to the time of the Dispersion itself. From these recently-recovered remains it now ap- pears that a certain Ismi-Dagon was on the Chal- dean throne one thousand eight hundred and sixty- one years before the birth of Christ, and that he was preceded by at least four monarclis, whose names have likewise been recovered. The oldest of these was Urukh, whose kingdom must have been very great and his reign long, for his name is upon the foundation-bricks of the greatest buildings in some three or four of the most distinguished of the ancient cities of that country. Even his own signet-cylinder has been found. His son jT/^z reigned after him, and very many others whose names have been discovered, indicating the existence of a Babylonian empire ex- tending, in one form or another, from Nimrod down to Nabopolassar, the father of the Nebuchadnezzar who figures so largely in this book of Daniel. Nebuchadnezzar was not yet properly the king of THE VISION OF EMPIRE. 37 Babylon at the time of the taking of Jerusalem, when the Jews were carried into captivity. In the opening of the account Daniel calls him " king,'' but it is partly by anticipation, as he became sole king at the death of his father, two years afterward, and partly because he was at that time something of a coregent with his infirm father, having been assigned the royal charge of the armies which he so victori- ously led. Daniel had been two years in the school of the eunuchs when Nabopolassar died ; and it was two years after Nabopolassar's death, the second year of Nebuchadnezzar's sole regency, that the things; narrated in this second chapter of Daniel occurred.^ The second year of Nebuchadnezzar's sole regency would then be the fourth from the time he began to* share the regal administration, thus leaving no room for the difficulties and cavils which have been raised respecting the chronology of these events. The greatness of Babylon and of tlie Babylonian empire is attested on all hands. This chapter treats of it, not only as the very head of all the great world-powers, but as a head of gold, to which other empires are only as silver, brass, iron, and clay. For a period prior to Nabopolassar it was a trib- utary to the Assyrian kingdom, wliich had its seat at Nineveh, Nabopolassar being at first only a sub- king of that dominion. But he instituted a rebel- lion, in which, by the co-operation of the Medes, he succeeded, made the grave of the great and glorious city of Nineveh, and annexed the Assyrian empire to Babylon, to which it had of old belonged. The 38 VOICES FROM BABYLON. triumphant expeditions of his son extended tlie Babylonian dominions still farther, even to the ut- most bounds of the earth. When Edom and Moab and Ammon and Tyre and Zidon sought to concert with the king of the Jews against Nebuchadnezzar, God, by His prophet Jeremiah, pronounced all such efforts vain. " I have made the earth,'' said He, " the man and the beast that are upon the ground, by my great power and by my outstretched arm, and have given it unto whom it seemed good unto me. And now I have given all these lands into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my ser- vant ; and the beasts of the field have I given him also to serve him. And all nations shall serve him, and his son, and his son's son, until the very time of his land come; and then many nations and great kings shall serve themselves of him. And it shall come to pass that the nation and kingdom which will not serve the same Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, and that will not put their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, that nation will I punish, saith the Lord, with the sword, and with famine, and with pestilence, until I have consumed them by his hand." Jer. xxvii. 4-8. All the na- tions to which Israel might look for help, including Egypt, are embraced in this description ; but Arabia, Kedar, and Hazor did not lie too deep away to be also reached by Nebuchadnezzar's victorious armies. The Indian histories tell of his power and successes eastward. Libya and Iberia were subdued by him. When Ezekiel pronounces the destruction of Egypt, THE VISIOJS OF EMPIRE. 39 he tells Pliaraoli that he will meet in the grave "Asshur, and all her company; Elam, and all her multitude; Meshech, Tubal, and all her multitude; Edom, her kings and all her princes ; the princes of the north, all of them ; and all the Zidonians, fallen by the sword'' — the sword of this same re- sistless power. The conquest of Tyre and Zidon naturally also involved the Phoenician colonies in Africa and Spain ; so that Philostratus declares Neb- uchadnezzar's dominion ^'' advanced to the Pillars of Hercules." He subdued Egypt, and set up over it a king subject to himself. Meshech, and Tubal, and all they of the north quarters, and their bands, are mentioned among the peoples brought under him, which would extend his dominion to the Caucasian Mountains, over the countries around the Black Sea, the Sea of Azof, and the valleys of the Don and the Dnieper, including much of the present empires of Russia and European Turkey. The enormous public works which he wrought suf- ficiently corroborate these accounts of his victories, resources, and vast dominion. He adorned and ex- alted Babylon with a magnificence befitting the me- tropolis of so mighty an empire. He built an enclo- sure around it so thick and high as to embody more solid masonry than the Chinese Wall. It took in not less than one hundred and thirty square miles. Through this wall were one hundred ])assage-ways, se- cured by ponderous gates of solid brass. Inside these walls were two palaces, themselves very wildernesses of architectural magnificence and artistic adornment, 40 VOICES FROM BABYLON. besides the famous artificial mountains and mighty temples, the mere ruins of which have left piles still one hundred and forty feet in height. Near to this city he made a reservoir one hundred and thirty-eight miles in circumference and twenty fathoms deep, into which to drain oif the river and retain its waters. He lined the Persian Gulf with great breakwaters against the irruptions of the sea. He cut various navigable canals, one of which remains to this day and is still called the '^ King's River.'' He walled up the sides of the Euphrates all along its course to the sea, casting up enormous embankments, some of which exist to this present. And all the great cities of Upper Babylonia he rebuilt, adorned with magnif- icent temples, and exalted with works which still tell of him to the antiquarian and explorer. Having made all these mighty conquests, become invested with the sole authority over the great empire of Babylon, and settled down now as the sublime lord of all this realm, riches, power and glory, Neb- ucliadnezzar began to think over his affairs. Being a man of breadth and seriousness of intellect, he was led to consider very profoundly the situation of things and to wonder about the end of all this magnificence, how he got it, what was involved in it, and what was to be the future history and outcome. He was yet young. All the known world was at his feet and subject to his will. He had been wonderfully suc- cessful and had reached very dizzy heights. Glory and dominion unparalleled were his. What was he to do with it? To what landing was this proud ship THE VISION OF EMPIRE. 4 J of state to come when once his little span of life was measured? What was to be in the hereafter? These were the "thoughts'' that came upon him. They came up even into his bed. His very sleep was disturbed as he thus contemplated the unknown and inscrutable Beyond. We are not informed whether there was anything in all this akin to the experience of King Richard III., of which Shakespeare makes him say — " Metliought the souls of all that I had murdered Came to my tent ; and every one did threat To-morrow's vengeance on the head of Eichard." But it could hardly be much otherwise. We may be sure, at least, that these invading ^' thoughts'^ had reference to the security and destiny of himself and his throne, including all the mysterious implications besetting such an administration. Out of these " thoughts " God also framed for him a dream-pic- ture of the whole matter, which disturbed him yet the more when the morrow came, even though he could not remember so as to describe it. A bright and mighty image stood before him with the outlines and lineaments of a man. The form of it was lustrous and terrible. The head of it was glittering with gold. The breast and arms were shining silver. The chest and thighs were glowing brass. The legs were pillars of ircm. And the feet and toes were mingled iron and clay. A mystic stone, self moved, rolled down from the mountain and struck the image on its feet, breaking them to 42 VOICES FROM BABYLON. pieces and grinding the whole image to dust, which the winds blew away, while the stone developed into a great mountain and filled the whole earth ! It was the image of worldly empire, from its beginning, through all its varying fortunes, down to the end of time, and of the supernal power which is then to sup- plant it. The king could not describe the vision when he awoke. It went from him with his recov- ering consciousness, as it had framed itself to his thoughts when he uneasily sank into those slum- bers. But the awfulness of it was upon his soul. It was such a strange and overpowering interming- ling with his thinking, and seemed so evidently a supernatural answer to his questions, that it stirred him profoundly. If in the power of man to recall that vision, he determined that it should be recalled and its meaning ascertained. Nor was it mere curiosity, but sober seriousness, which moved his anxiety. Nor can I but admire the earnestness of this man in this matter. It is just what ought to press most urgently upon the heart and conscience of every young- man as he moves out into the cares and responsibil- ities of life. Especially if our efforts have brought us great successes, honors, greatness and power, it sliould much occupy our thinking to know where we are, how it is likely to go with us, what rocks and quicksands may be encountered in our voyage, what precipices and dangers may be before us, how best to secure what is made dependent upon our will, and how to steer that thine^s mav have an honorable and THE VISION OF EMPIRE. 43 happy outcome. It belongs to every one's proper manhood to exercise himself well in this very way, and to be earnestly anxious in tliis very line. Many are born into this world, and live through it, and die out of it, and even take prominent part in its affairs, who never seem to become conscious of themselves, or to think whence they came, what they are, or what is to come of them or the things on which they are spending their energies. And though God comes to them with many a brilliant vision, many an imposing dream, and many a word of useful information, they let it go as if it concerned them not. Eternal Wis- dom condescends to put the sublimest teachings with- in their reach, but they care not to know what they are or what is to be in the future. Let this heathen king rebuke and shame their brutishness. ]^ot all his honors, greatness and power could divert him from solemn thought of what was to come. Upon his royal couch he seriously moralizes and thinks. He reasons and wonders and inquires about the end. And when sensible of some mysterious tokens from the Deity, he will not rest till he learns the import of the vouchsafed revelation. All the masters of sacred wisdom are sunimoned to help him to an understand- ing of the heavenly intimations. It was noble in him, and evinced the seriousness and dignity of a true man, who will rise up in the judgment and condemn those who never cast a thought upon the solemnities of life or care to learn what God has vouchsafed for their guidance to a happy destiny. Very incompe- tent, however, were the helpers to whom the kino; 44 VOICES FROM BABYLON. betook himself for the recovery and explanation of his dream. It was the custom of ancient monarchs to gather around them the best representatives of science and learning that could be found. It helped to dignify their thrones. Babylon especially had her orders of wise men, priests, and hierophants, supported by the state and held in the highest honor. The history be- fore us calls them ^Hhe magicians, and the astrologers, and the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans.'^ It Avould be useless to attempt to define exactly what was the office, pretension, or sphere of duty pertaining to each of these several classes. It is enough to know that they were the recognized keepers of the highest wisdom, the skilled dealers with all recondite things, the men set to ascertain and interpret the messages and will of the gods, the educated teachers and medi- ators on all subjects relating to the supernatural, the sacred, the invisible, and the divine. Among them they professed to know the mind of the gods, to read fortunes and events from the stars, to obtain oracles from the unseen powers, to explain dreams, visions and omens, to charm spirits, cure diseases, and pro- cure supernatural interferences and aids. They had reduced their sciences into systems, rules, and meth- ods, by which they claimed to do great wonders. The libraries of such practitioners at Ephesus — which, upon their conversion by the preaching of Paul, they publicly burned — were valued at fifty thousand pieces of silver. All these scientists, priests, diviners, and represent- THE VISION OF EMPIRE. 45 atives of wisdom and spiritual power the king sum- moned to the work of divining his dream and inter- preting its meaning. And so earnest and resolved was he that he made it a matter of life or death to them. He demanded of them either to make known unto him what had been shown him, as also the in- terpretation thereof, or be cut to pieces by the public executioner and have their houses destroyed. In vain did they remonstrate that he was asking too much, and tasking their science and power beyond reason. He was only angered and infuriated by their prevarication and delay, and gave forth the decree that they should all be slain. Much blame has been lodged against Nebuchadnez- zar for this, as having been quite too harsh, unreason- able, and despotic. That there was something of ca- price and inhuman tyranny in his nature is not to be denied. That there was a decided tinge of cruelty even in this case is also to be admitted. But Ori- ental despots were always cruel, and the same features shoAV themselves to this day among Persian, Indian, and Turkish rulers. I do not defend it, but neither do I share the feeling that the king was so seriously at fault. It may be true that the demand was an un- common one; that no king or dreamer had ever made such a requirement before; that no wise man, magi- cian, or astrologer had ever performed such a task as he laid upon these loud pretenders ; and that none but the gods could do what he required. Still, they pro- fessed to speak for the gods in other things. They claimed to be able to divine the mind, will, and pur- 46 VOICES FROM BABYLON. poses of the eternals. They held their places, honor, and living on the plea of being in communication with the spiritual powers. Even in this instance they alleged their ability to explain exactly what the vision meant if only the king would make it known to them. And if they were really in communication with the gods, and could infallibly tell what the dream meant, they could by the same means just as easily tell what the dream itself was. So the king reasoned, and with perfect right. If they could not, from communications with the gods, tell him what his dream was, he justly argued that neither could they tell him what it meant. In other words, they stood revealed to him as a set of impostors, whose pretension was all deceit and sham, and whose claims were nothing but a gigantic lie. In that case they merited his intensest resentment and richly deserved the severest of punishments. Bloody and extreme as the sentence was, it was founded in justice. Sincere as some of these men may have been, their profession was a deception and an imposture so far as regarded the exercise of any power from God. I sympathize therefore with the king's estimate of the matter. If he showed something of cruel harshness, he showed also his correct logic and sound sense. The matter for which he called them came fairly within their province. Not to be able to meet it was to for- feit all right to their proud place and influence. Whatever else they may have been, yet as exponents of the gods or as mediators of the sacred powers they were a failure; and, being a failure, they were a fraud; and, being a fraud, it was right that they should be THE VISION OF EMPIRE. 47 punished and swept away. And one day more would have made an end of them had it not been for the youthful Daniel, who came forward as God's true prophet, answered the king's demand, and saved the necks of these traders in imposition. If people can- not do what they profess to do, and what they have their living and their honor for doing, tliey ought to suifer; and that government is at fault which does not punish them. But the tiling has much deeper and farther-reach- ing implications. It furnishes demonstration of the incompetence of all mere human resources, learning, and power to ascertain the mind and will of God apart from His own revelations. Here was the full- grown heathenism of more than a thousand years. Here were the combined strength and wisdom of the most noted schools in the highest acme of their glory. Whatever ability existed in priest or savant, astrologer or necromancer, wise man or magician, apart from the anointed servants of the God of Israel, was here concentred and embodied. If these men failed, it was the laying prostrate of all the wisdom, power, and art of man. The case was legitimate. It was propounded by proper authority. It presented a fair test which they could not dis- regard, evade, or escape. Not only the honor of their profession, but their very lives and dwellings were put under forfeit. Every possible condition existed to bring out the utmost that could be done. And fault or failure in a trial so fair and so com- plete could only be because it is not in man, nor in 48 VOICES FROM BABYLON. all the science of man, nor in all liis occult arts, nor in all his command of oracles, incantations and priestly devices, nor in all his calculations of the stars, his consultations of the living or dead, his rites of inquiry of devils or of gods, nor in any- thins: that lies within his reach or control, to ascer- tain the mind, the will, and the purposes of Jehovah. But fail they did ; and themselves confessed the failure before the face of all the empire. " The Chaldeans,'^ the most renowned and exalted of all the orders of Babylon's sages, ^' answered before the king, and said. There is not a man upon the earth that can shew the king^s matter ; . . . there is none other that can shew it before the king except the gods, ivhose chcelUng is not with flesh J ^ I look upon these venerable colleges of sages, savants, priests, mantologists, and philosophers. I consider how much they were above and beyond all the rest of the heathen world. I trace how Phoe- nicians, Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans copied their systems, adopted their sciences, and followed their arts and inculcations. I see in them the full-orbed sun, around which all the mythologies and the- ologies and philosophies and religions and wisdom- treasures of the whole pagan world revolved and derived tlieir light. And when I read these words, formally given out by their very chiefs in the name of them all, and sorrowfully pronounced in the audience of the imperial majesty of the earth as tlie utmost they could do to save themselves from sum- mary destruction, I see a veil of darkness drawn over THE VISION OF EMPIRE. 49 all the wisdom, strength, and science of man which makes me shudder as I gaze. It shows me, in one single sentence, that all the astrology, necromancy, oracles, dreams, and mantic revelations of the whole pagan world for six thousand years is nothing but imbecilities and lies. It proves to me, in one brief utterance, that all the religions, arts, sciences, philos- (^phies, attainments, and powers of man, apart from God's inspired prophets and all-glorious Christ, are but emptiness and vanity as regards any true and adequate knowledge of the purposes and will of Jehovah or of the destinies of man. It demon- strates to me, in a few words of sad despair, that all the learned theorizings of this world's would- be wise, irom Babylon's magicians down to the Hobbes, Herberts, and Voltaires of the last centu- ries and the materialistic skeptics and pantheists of our own day, are but rottenness, rubbish, and damn- ing falsehood, in so far as they conflict Avith the revelations which the Almighty has given by His own anointed prophets. It is to the modest Daniels and to the humble Nazarenes, after all, that the proud world must come to learn the true God and to find out His mind and purposes. It is upon these that the self-glorifying wisdom of man must, after all, lean to save itself from being cut to pieces and blotted from the earth. And without these there is an impenetrable eclipse upon all the illuminating powers of our world, and nothing remains but de- spair and death even for the wisest and the best. I fear, my friends, that we do not half appreciate 4 50 VOICES FROM BABYLON. the unspeakable treasure wliich God has given us in the Holy Scriptures. I fear that even our most con- siderate, pious, and devoted believers do not begin to comprehend the desolation which would swathe tlie world if it were not for what God^s prophets and evangelists have testified and written for our learning. Have you ever thought what would be the result if these sacred testimonies were to be stricken out of being, with all that rests on them or has sprung from them ? Have you ever considered what an utter ob- literation of the highest intellectual and moral life of the race would attend such a calamity ? Have you ever reflected how it would silence every preacher of righteousness and salvation, abolishing at once his office and his text, stop every work of mercy and philanthropy that would bind up the wounds of suf- fering humanity, and quench every fond hope of the recovery of our afflicted world, the restoration of our dead, or a home in heaven when this poor life is over ? Ah me ! Extinguish the Bible and its teachings, and no star remains to cheer the tossed mariner on this troubled sea — no chart by which to direct his uncertain way — no known haven or blessed shores for which to steer ! Extinguish the Bible and its teachings, and the last appeal of the down-trodden and oppressed, the last check to the aggressions of power, the last bonds of restraint upon man^s depravity, are gone, clean gone, giving carnival to every lust and freedom to every beastly passion, without corrective, without limit, and without end ! Extinguish the Bible and its teachings, and light and comfort wilt away like THE VISION OF EMPIRE. 51 Jonah's smitten gourd, and leave man to drag out a hopeless orphanage while years continue, and then to gather himself up to die and perish like the brute ! Extinguish the Bible and its teachings, and des})air and wretchedness must settle on all hearts, as on the vanquished Chaldean sages under the decree of their inexorable king ! Ay, did men but understand it, there is no possession on earth like the deliverances which God has given us by His holy prophets. Treasure, then, the sacred record of them. The Bible is the Book of books. " Within this ample volume lies The mystery of mysteries. Happiest they of human race To whom their God has given grace To read, to fear, to hope, to pray, To lift the latch and force the way ; And better had they ne'er been born That I'ead to doubt, or read to scorn." LECTUKE THIRD. The Succession of Kingdoms; or, The Four Great Sovereignties. JDaniel 2 : 36-46 WE have seen that the great Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, dreamed a dream. It was one of the most original and significant dreams ever present- ed to the contemplation of man. It exceedingly im- pressed and startled the king to whom it was vouch- safed. But though deeply affected by it, when he attempted to recall it, its features proved so obscured to his recollection that he could not tell what it was. Satisfied that it was something very extraordinary, and that something divine was in it, he a|)pealed to the ministers of religion and to the most famous adepts in science and divinity — the magicians, astrologers, sorcerers and Chaldeans — to recover it for him and to give him the proper interpretation of it. But none of them were of any avail to him. And though he put them under pain of being hewn to pieces and their houses reduced to ruins if they did not tell him what it was and what it meant, they were obliged to confess that all their science and powers were totally incompetent to do for him what he required. Infu- riated at their failure in a matter so entirely within the province of their j)rofessions, he gave fortli the 52 THE SUCCESSION OF KINGDOMS. Oo decree that they should all be slain and their houses destroyed. And so sweeping was the edict that it also involved Daniel and his three friends. When notice of this bloody decree had come to Daniel, he wondered that the king should be so sum- mary in his action without further inquiry. He and his friends, though involved in the sentence, had not been at all consulted, and why should they be put to death for the false professions and incompetency of others? Daniel had a considerable likino^ for Nebuchadnezzar, because he was a really great man, and because his thinking was in general correct and just ; but liere was a case of manifest wrong, at least so far as he and Hananiah and Mishael and Azariah were concerned. Hence his surprise. Hence also he went in to the king — to whom he seems to have had ready access — modestly expostulating against the pre- mature execution of the decree, and pledging himself to make known to the king all that he desired. It was a very bold thing for Daniel to do, for as yet he was in total blankness as to what the king had dreamed or as to what was the meaning of the vision. He himself seems to have been no little shaken when he came to realize what he had taken upon himself. It had about it the air of the greatest presumption, which it would be very wrong to imitate except un- der corresponding circumstances. It reminds us of young David going out to fight the great Goliath of Gath, from whom all the mighty warriors in the army of Saul shrank away. But in both these instances we recognize a divine impulse quite above the reasonings 54 VOICES FROM BABYLON. and courage of mere man. Daniel liad confidence in the power and presence of God and in tlie divine suf- ficiency. He had had some personal experience of God's prospering providence, and felt the prc-inti- mations of the high office for which he was destined. The case also presented indications that God was spe- cially concerned in the king's vision, and hence would not fail to bring it all out. The superior honor of God and His confessors, as over against the deities of Babylon and their priests and servants, was also so clearly at stake that there was good reason to hope that it was a case in which the Almighty would not fail to interfere to help out those who put their trust in Him. In order, therefore, that the divine help might not fail him in this emergency, Daniel concluded to lay the matter before the Lord, and urged liis three friends to unite with him in supplications that God would be gracious to him, enable him to fulfil his pledge to the king, and thus save him and his fellows from the doom that impended. There is nothing like prayer. It is the ready resource of the saints in every time of need, and never fails to secure the most bless- ed results. The Christian poet did not overstate its worth and power when he said, " Prayer moves the Hand that moves the world." Neither did it fail in this instance, for '^ then M^as the secret revealed unto Daniel in a night vision." The dream which had been taken away from the king's recollection, that the imbecilities and deceits of pagan THE SUCCESSION OF KINGDOMS 55 priests and propliets might be detected and the ser- vants of Jehovah exalted, proved to be this : There stood before him a great image in tlie likeness of a liuman being, whose " brightness was excellent," but whose " form was terrible." The head of it was gold, the breast and arms silver, the abdomen and thighs brass, the legs iron, and the feet and toes mingled iron and pottery. Gazing upon this image, he saw a mys- tic stone from the mountain supernaturally fall upon the feet of the figure, shattering them to atoms and grinding up the whole fabric, so that the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver and the gold became like the chaif of the summer's threshing-floor, and the winds carried them away ; but the stone became a great mountain and filled the whole earth. The king at once recognized the whole descrip- tion, and was so thoroughly convinced of the true and real inspiration of Daniel that he bowed down before him and reverently acknowledged him to be a prophet of the most high God. And it is the ex- planation of this dream that we are now to consider. I. You will observe that Daniel regarded the dream as a communication from God. It was com- mon for the Almighty to communicate with men in this way. " In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the bed, then He openeth the ears of men and sealeth their instruction." Jol) xxxiii. 15-17. God said to ancient Israel, " If there be a prophet among you, I the Lord will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream." 56 VOICES FROM BABYLON. Num. xii. 6. Jacob was promised his portion in a dream. Joseph was foreshown his subsequent ex- altation in a dream. It was in a dream that God a})peared to Solomon and bade him ask what he wished. And so in hundreds of instances, both in the Old Testament and the New. Many believe that similar experience is constantly occurring. Nor would I undertake to deny it. There is a divine promise concerning the latter days, that God will pour out His Spirit upon all flesh, and the young men shall see visions, and the old men shall dream dreams. Acts ii. 17. Most frequently " a dream Cometh through the multitude of business'' (Eccles. v. 3), yet there are instances in which we have rea- son to believe that God does still interpose to in- struct, warn and admonish ])eople through the agency of dreams. We are not to look for illumi- nation in this way where we have the Holy Scriptures to guide- us ; neither are we to believe or follow our dreams in anything contrary to God's written word. It is easy to become superstitious in such matters, and to do ourselves and others much mis- chief by observing signs, omens, and supposed rev- elations. But in this case the dream w^as from the Lord. Daniel says of it, ^^God in lieaven maketh known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall come to pass — what shall be in the latter days." It was originally from God to the king, and when he failed in ability to recall it, it was God who made it known again to Daniel. Nor is it to be thought strange that God should THE SUCCESSION OF KINGDOMS. 57 select a lieathen king to be tlie organ of such a mighty revelation. He had in like manner em- ployed Pliaraoh to give warning of the famine that was about to come upon the world ; and in both instances the proceeding contemplated the bringing forward of His own chosen messengers as the only interpreters. Besides, the possession of political power and dominion connects very closely with the Al- mighty. Great potentates, whatever may be their personal character, still are, in a sense, God's agents, servants and appointed administrators. "The powers that be are ordained of God." Rom. xiii. 1. And it is not incongruous that a universal monarch, in the highest glory of the world's original kingdom, should be the seer of the course and end of all sec- ular dominion, particularly when earnestly con- cerned about the matter, and when God's own chosen prophet was to be the interpreter of it, to the great discomfiture of the necromancers arid blind guides of heathenism. II. You will notice also that Daniel regarded this dream as very momentous. When it was made known to him he broke into exultant adoration, not so much because he was the honored servant to whom it was revealed as for what it signified. It showed such a majesty above all the majesty of earth, such a plan in the course of all human gov- ernments and dominion, and such a power to handle and order all the potencies of time, that his soul was ready to break away from him when the mighty showing flashed upon his undersfcmding. It set 68 VOICES FROM BABYLON. every emotion and energy within hira on fire. He thanked and praised the God of his fathers for having answered his prayers and given him such wisdom, but first, and above all, for the showings of the dream itself. Sublime is the song he uttered : "Daniel answered and said, Blessed be the name of God for ever and ever : for wisdom and might are His : and He changeth the times and the sea- sons : He removeth kings, and setteth up kings ; He giveth wisdom unto the wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding : He revealeth the deep and secret things : He knoweth what is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth with Him." Such expressions could come only from an under- standing of what the dream signified. They tell of new views of the glory and attributes of God and His administrations in the affairs of earth. They tell of a sweep and mnjesty in Jehovah's plans, and of a sat- isfactoriness of outcome to them, which had not before been realized in Daniel's previous thinking. They tell of a new world of ideas, exhibiting the intelligence, the efficiency, the calculation, the potent activity, and the just and beneficent purposes of Jehovah in a vast- ness of stretch, and yet particularity of detail, not be- fore so clearly perceived. As Thomas, in the fnlness of his conviction when he beheld the risen Christ, broke out in the recognition of depths and glories in the Saviour's being which till then he had never half appreciated, so Daniel here exultingly broke forth in recognitions of the majesty of the living God, which he had never half comprehended till beheld in the THE SUCCESSION OF KINGDOMS. 59 prophetic picture of Nebuchadnezzar's dream. Nor need we look further than his own inspired interpre- tation of it to find ample justification for all this ex- ultant adoration. III. You will notice that it gives an outline of the history and destiny of all earthly dominion, from Nebuchadnezzar to the end of the present world, and for ever. The several metals of which the great im- age was composed designated a succession of universal empires. For this we have the authority of the prophet himself. The head was " fine gold ;'' and Daniel said to Nebuchadnezzar, " Thou art this head oj goldP There can therefore be no mistake in the application of this part of the vision. Babylon was the first and greatest of kingdoms, and Nebuchadnezzar was its sublimest king: the vision therefore begins with him. He and his successors, as long as his empire stood, constituted the head and neck of this image, the head empire of our world. The exalted character of it is shown in the part of the figure which it occupies — the head ; in the material of which it is composed — gold ; and in the particular description given by the prophet in his explanation : '' Thou, O king, art a king of kings : for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory : and wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field, and the fowds of the heaven, hath He given into thine hand, and hath made thee ruler over them all. Thou art this head of gold.'' The breast, shoulders and arms of this image were 60 VOICES FROM BABYLON. silver. From the finest of metals the descent is to a less valuable one. The gold gives place to silver. The great empire of Nebuchadnezzar is supplanted by another, less illustrious than his. Nor can we be at a loss to determine its identity. Daniel interprets it as meaning "another kingdom," and one which should arise in immediate succession to that of Baby- lon. Profane history amply tells what kingdom that was, but we need not travel beyond the records of the Bible to identify it. It is written in the second Book of Chronicles that Nebuchadnezzar carried away to Babylon such of the Jewish people as escaped the edge of the sword, '' where they were servants to him and his sons until the reign of the kingdom of Per- sla.^^ Even in this Book of Daniel, in the explana- tion of the handwriting on the wall at Belshazzar's feast, this same power is referred to as of " the Medes and Persians.'^ These were two nations, answering to the two shoulders and arms of the image, but l)ound together as one in Cyrus, the mighty con- queror, constituting what is known in history as the Medo-Persian empire, the second great universal cm- j)ire on earth. The conquests of Cyrus, the repre- sentative of this power, were second only to those of Nebuchadnezzar himself Herodotus writes that ^' wherever Cyrus marched throughout the earth it was impossible for the nations to escape him." Xen- ophon writes that '' he ruled the Medes, subverted the Syrians, the Assyrians, the Arabians, the Cappado- cians, the Phrygians, the Lydians, the Carians, the Babylonians, the Indians, the Ph'ienicians, the Greeks THE SUCCESSION OF KINGDOMS. 61 ill Asia, the Cyprians, the Egyptians, and struck all witli such dread and terror that none ventured to as- sail him. He subdued from his throne east, west, north and south." Seventy years from the beo:innin<»: of Nebuchadnezzar's reign did his dynasty run, till, under his grandson, the sensual Belshazzar, Cyrus gained possession of Babylon and established over it the great Medo-Persian dominion. About t^vo hun- dred years did this Medo-Persian empire stand ; and we need only refer to such of its sovereigns as Cam- byses, Darius Hystaspes and Xerxes in illustration of its vastness, wealth and power. But it too was to pass away and to l)e superseded by another. The abdomen and thighs of the image were of brass, Nvhich according to the explanation denoted " a third kingdom," which was likewise to '' bear rule over all the earth." In the somewhat parallel vision given in a subsequent chapter we learn what power is here denoted — to wit, "the king of Orecia," or the Grseco-Macedonian empire of Alexander the Great. A double line of monarchs had been holding petty sway over the turbulent Greeks for more than eight hundred years when Philip of Macedon, against whom Demosthenes so eloquently harangued, sub- dued the various Grecian states to his dominion. Alexander was his son, in whom the genius and spirit of conquest reigned and wrought with amaz- ing power. It was a little more than three hundred years before the birth of Christ that he set out in his great Eastern expeditions, conquered the Medo-Per- sians and took possession of Babylon, feeding the 62 VOICES FROM BABYLON. sti-eiigth of his own supremacy with the wrecl