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DEPOSITED BY THE

LINONIAN AND BROTHERS LIBRARY

WBMSatfj

DANIEL

THE BELOVED.

BY THE

REV. WILLIAM M. TAYLOR, D.D.,
MINISTER OF THE BROADWAY TABERNACLE, NEW YORK CITY;

AUTHOR OF
.11 ii ,

"PETER THE APOSTLE," "DAVID, KING OF ISRAEL,"
"ELIJAH THE PROPHET," ETC

NE W YORK:
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS,
FRANKLIN SQUARE.
18 7 8.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1878, by
Harper & Brothers,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

PREFACE.

THE story of Daniel has long been a favorite with chil
dren ; but, while giving due prominence to those chap
ters in his history which are particularly attractive to the
young, I have sought specially to emphasize the lessons
which it teaches to all who are engaged in business or in
public life.
It was no part of my intention, at first, to attempt any ex
position of the prophetic portions of the Book of Daniel ;
but, as I advanced, I found them so intimately connected
with his character and position that it would have been im
possible to form a correct estimate, either of the man or of
his influence, without taking them into account. I have
therefore given some attention to the visions which were
either interpreted by Daniel or given to him ; but I have no
ambition to set up for an apocalyptic oracle, and have con
cerned myself mainly with extracting and illustrating those
principles of permanent importance which seem to me to
underlie the prophecies themselves.
For the rest, I lay this book where I have laid the others,
at my Master's feet, and pray that he may use it for the fos
tering and encouragement of Biblical exposition in the pul
pits, and of Biblical study in the closets, of the land.
New York, 5 West Thirty-fifth Street.

CONTENTS,

Page
I. Daniel at College  7
II. The Forgotten Dream  24
III. The Dream Recovered and Interpreted.  40
IV. The Non-conformists of Babylon  56
V. Pride Abased.  72
VI. Belshazzar's Feast  90
VII. Daniel in the Den  105
VIII. The Vision of the Four Beasts  123
IX. Vision of the Ram and the He-goat.  144
X. The Seventy Weeks  164
XI. The Vision on the Banks of the Hiddekel.  181
XII. The Epilogue to the Vision  206
XIII. The Character of Daniel  222
INDEX  239

DANIEL THE BELOVED.

I.
DANIEL AT COLLEGE.
Daniel i., 1-21.
IN entering upon a short series of discourses on the life
of Daniel, I must take for granted the genuineness and
authenticity of the book which has been called by his name.
I am aware, indeed, that the predictions contained in this
portion of Scripture are so minute, and have been so exact
ly fulfilled, that many have not hesitated to affirm that they
must have been written after the occurrence of the events to
which they refer. But the raising of objections by adversa
ries has only had the effect of establishing beyond the pos
sibility of doubt the claims which have been put forth on
behalf of this book by all earnest believers in its credibility.
Those who wish to see what rationalistic writers have had
to say against it, from the days of Porphyry, in the third
century, down to those of the Essayists and Reviewers of
the present generation, and how their arguments have been
successfully repelled, even on the ground of criticism, may
consult Dr. Pusey's "Lectures on Daniel the Prophet,"*
* " Daniel the Prophet. Nine Lectures, delivered in the Divinity
School of the University of Oxford," by the Rev. E. B. Pusey, D.D.

8 Daniel the Beloved.
while such as have not access to that masterly work, by one
of the most accomplished Hebrew scholars in the world,
may find an excellent summary of both sides of the argu
ment in the introduction to Mr. Barnes's commentary on
Daniel.* But, satisfactory as all such treatises are, the humble
Christian needs no stronger assurance of the genuineness
of this portion ofthe Old Testament canon than that which
is afforded by the fact that our Lord himself refers to Dan
iel by name, and makes special allusion to his predictions in
his own prophecy concerning "the destruction of Jerusalem. f
This is enough. We believe in him who was and is him
self"//^ truth" and with us his word is a termination of all
strife. Without further preliminary, therefore, we proceed to our
labor, anticipating from it both the purest pleasure and the
richest profit.
In the days of Josiah, King of Judah, the sovereignty of
Western Asia was a matter of fierce contention between the
monarchies of Egypt and Babylon, and the southern portion
of Palestine, as lying between the two opponents, Was placed
in a position of peculiar difficulty. The Jewish king$ re
fused to allow Pharaoh Necho a passage through his domin
ions, and went out to Megiddo, on the plain of Esdraelon, to
oppose his progress, with his army. Here his forces were
routed, and he himself was slain. He was succeeded by his
younger son Jehoahaz, but, probably because he shared his
father's antipathy to the Egyptians, Necho deposed him at
the end of three months, and placed his elder brother Elia-
kim on the throne, changing his name into Jehoiakim.

* "Notes on the Book of Daniel," by Rev. Albert Barnes.
t See Matt, xxiv., 15, 16.
X 2 Kings xxiii., 29, 30 ; 2 Chron. xxxiii., 20-24.

Daniel at College. 9
This monarch began to reign somewhere about 609 B.C.
He was, of course, a vassal of the Egyptian empire, and had
to lay upon his people heavy taxes for the payment of trib
ute to the conquerors, in addition to those which were re
quired for the ordinary expenses of his own government.*
In the third year of his reign, however, Nabopolassar, the
Assyrian emperor, gave a portion of his army to his son
Nebuchadnezzar, who marched against the Egyptians, de
feated them at Carchemish, and drove Pharaoh Necho out
of Asia.f Thence the conqueror proceeded directly to Je
rusalem, which he took after a short siege.
At first, he seems to have intended to deal very summa
rily with Jehoiakim, for he bound him with fetters to send
him away to Babylon,t but eventually he changed his mind,
and restored the crown to him as a vassal of his empire.
Still, he took the most valuable of the vessels that were in
the temple of Jehovah, and carried with him to his eastern
capital several young men, belonging most probably to the
principal families of Jerusalem, that they might be hostages
for the good behavior of the rest of their countrymen. §
Three years after this, however, Jehoiakim rebelled against
Nebuchadnezzar, who, occupied with more important affairs,
left the subjugation of Palestine to the neighboring tribes.
These ravished the whole country, and shut up Jehoiakim in
Jerusalem ;|| and during this siege Jehoiakim was slain, and
his unhonored remains were " buried with the burial of an
ass," according to the word of the prophet Jeremiah.-TT
He was succeeded by Jechonias, called also Jehoiachin,
who reigned only three months, for, at the end of that time,
Nebuchadnezzar carried him and all the royal family, the re-

* 2 Kings xxiii., 31-35 ; 2 Chron. xxxvi., 1-6.
t Jer. xlvi., 2. } 2 Chron. xxxvi., 6. § Dan. i., 3.
|[ 2 Kings xxiv., 2. Ii Jer. xxii., 18, 19 ; xxxvi., 30, 31.

io Daniel the Beloved.
maining treasures, the strength of the army, and the princes,
and all the more useful artisans, to Babylon.* Over the
remnant of the kingdom, the Assyrian monarch made Zede-
kiah, one of the sons of Josiah, king ; but in his stubborn self-
will, and against the advice of Jeremiah, that prince attempt
ed, in the ninth year of his reign, to assert his independence,
with the result that Jerusalem was again besieged and taken.
The king was seized, his children were slain in his sight, his
eyes were put out, and he was led away, blind and bereaved,
into a foreign land.f Nay, more; Nebuzar-adan, the com
mander-in-chief ofthe conquering army, utterly destroyed the
holy city : " they burnt the house of God, and brake down
the wall of Jerusalem, and burnt all the palaces thereof with
fire, and destroyed all the goodly vessels thereof. And them
that escaped the sword carried he away to Babylon ; where
they were servants to him and his sons until the reign of the
kingdom of Persia.''^: There were thus, if I may so express
it, three distinct instalments of captives carried away to the
land of Babylon : first, the young men taken in the third
year of the reign of Jehoiakim ; second, the large number
removed along with Jehoiachin j and, third, those who ac
companied Zedekiah after the Jewish capital had been laid
waste. Daniel was one of those who were first removed ; and
with him were three others, whose names are specially re
corded, because they were like-minded with him, and be
cause they afterward played no mean part in maintaining
their integrity at the risk of all that men commonly hold
dear. Daniel appears to have been of noble birth, for he
is spoken of as belonging to the royal family ;§ and at the
* 2 Kings xxiv., 10-16. See, also, articles Jehoiakim and Jehoia-
chin, Smith's " Bible Dictionary."
t 2 Kings xxv., 1-7.
t 2 Chron. xxxvi., 19, 20 ; 2 Kings xxv., 8-10. § Dan. i., 3.

Daniel at College. ii
time of his removal to Babylon, he must have been of a
very tender age. The last verse of the first chapter of his
book informs us that he continued even unto the first year
of King Cyrus ; and his latest vision* is dated in the third
year of Cyrus. Thus he lived in Babylonia at least three
years longer than the seventy years of the Captivity, count
ing these, as many believe they should be reckoned, from the
third year of Jehoiakim. Supposing, therefore, that at the
time of his last vision he had reached the venerable age of
eighty-seven, this would make him a boy of fourteen when
he was taken from Jerusalem. This conjecture is somewhat
confirmed by incidental glimpses which we get in classic au
thors into the customs of Eastern monarchs. Thus Plato, f
speaking of the Persians, says, "After twice seven years have
passed, those whom they call royal instructors receive the
boys to educate." Add three years, during which we know
that Daniel and his friends were under training, and this
would bring him to the age of seventeen. But, according to
Xenophon, sixteen or seventeen was the age of the adults
at which they entered upon the king's service. If, there
fore, this supposition be accepted, we may conceive what an
affliction his departure from Jerusalem would be to his par
ents' hearts, and with what earnest, prayerful solicitude (for
his must have been a godly home) they would follow him in
thought to Babylon, and shield him with their supplications
from the dangers and temptations to which he would be ex
posed. And, as we shall see, their holy training and loving
petitions were not fruitless.
He and his three friends before alluded to were, with
others, chosen by Ashpenaz, the chief of the eunuchs, to
be trained in a special royal seminary for the service of the
king. They received Babylonian names, and were to be
* Dan. *., i. t Pusey's " Lectures," pp. 16, 17. J

12 Daniel the Beloved.
instructed in all the learning of the Chaldeans, so as to be
fitted for posts of usefulness in the empire. Dr. Kitto has
described a similar method of procedure with young slaves,
as having been customary at the Turkish court up to a com
paratively recent date. I must quote his words :
" The time is still within living memory when the pages
of the seraglio, the officers of the court, as well as the great
er part of the high functionaries of state and governors of
provinces, were originally boys of Christian parentage, who
had been taken captive in war, or bought, or stolen in time
of peace. The finest and most capable of these were sent
to the palace, and placed under the charge of the chief of
the white eunuchs. These lads were brought up in the re
ligion of their masters, and in a school within the palace
they. received such complete instruction in Turkish learning
and science as it was the lot of few others to obtain. Much
pains were taken to teach them to speak the Turkish lan
guage with the greatest purity, as spoken at court. They
were clad neatly and well, but temperately dieted. They
slept in large dormitories, where there were long rows of
beds. When they reached a proper age, they were instruct
ed in military discipline, and it was an aim to render them
active, brave, and laborious. Every one was also, according
to the custom of the country, taught some handicraft em
ployment, to serve him as a resource in any time of need.
Their education being completed, those who had shown
most capacity were employed about the person of the sov
ereign, and the rest were assigned to the various offices of
the ¦ extensive establishment, to which they belonged. In
due time these able or successful youths got advanced to
high court offices, which gave them immediate access to the
royal person, an advantage which soon paved the way to
their going out on military-commands, or to take the gov
ernment of province^. It has not rarely happened that fa-

Daniel at College. 13
vored court officers have at once stepped into the highest
offices of the State, without having been previously abroad
in the world as pachas or military commanders."*
Daniel and his companions were, in a word, the young
cadets of their times, differing from their modern represent
atives mainly in this, that they were captives deprived, in
some respects, of their liberty, and held for the service of an
alien emperor in a foreign land.
The arrangements of the seminary or college, however,
were of such a nature as involved the Hebrew youths in im
mediate difficulty. The food for the pupils was supplied
from the royal table • and as, according to the Jewish law,
only certain animals were accounted clean, and even these
had to be slain in such a manner as to leave no "blood in
the flesh before they could be eaten, it must be at once ap
parent that, if they partook, along with their classmates, of
the things which were provided, they would be guilty of vio
lating the precepts of the Mosaic code. Besides, it was a
custom among the heathen to bring a portion of that which
was eaten and drunk by them as an oblation to the gods,
and sometimes also they used for food animals that had
already been offered at the altar of their gods.
It is possible, therefore, that Daniel and his friends may
have felt that in partaking of such articles of diet they
would be giving countenance to idolatry ; or perhaps, as
Calvin suggests, they may have resolved to abstain on the
principle of prudence, believing that the opportunity of self-
indulgence was a temptation, and desiring to keep them
selves as far as possible from clanger. To me, however, it
rather seems, from the fact that the term "defile" is used,
that their scruple was a religious one, and was in some way
* Kitto's "Daily Bible Readings," Evening Series, Twenty - third
Week, Seventh Day.

14 Daniel the Beloved.
connected with their nationality. In any case, the purpose
was steadfastly made by Daniel that he would not partake
of anything that came from the king's table, and his three
friends concurred with him in his resolution. It was a mat
ter of conscience with them, and they were determined to
abide by their convictions at whatever cost.
This purpose is the more to be admired when we take
into account their youth, their condition as captives, and the
effect which their disobedience of the king's orders might
have produced. If we have been correct in supposing that
the lads were all as yet in their teens, then it was very much
to their credit, and spoke much for the character of their
early home-training, that they had any deep religious con
victions at all, much more that they were resolved to stand
by them.
They might have been laughed at by their senior fellow-
students ; they might have been put down as silly boys by
those who were in authority over them ; yet, boys as they
were, they would not barter the approval of their own con
sciences for any considerations of comfort or security. Then
they. were captives. If, therefore, the refusal to carry out
the royal injunctions would have endangered the life of the
chief of the eunuchs, much more would it put their lives in
jeopardy. Yet they were firm. They did not suppose that
the responsibility of deciding such a question was removed
from them to their master ; neither did they seek to shel
ter themselves under the plea that, in their circumstances,
it was necessary for them to yield. They felt that nothing
could make it necessary for them to sin. They knew that,
in the last resort, the thing came to be a matter of their own
choice, and they deliberately said that they would not defile
themselves. What did it signify, though, they should ruin
their prospects in the college ? They were not to be drawn
away from their position by the enticements of self-interest,

Daniel at College. 15
any more than they were to be driven from it by the fear of
those things with which they might be threatened for their
disobedience. They were convinced that it would be wrong
for them to take the food provided for them ; and they would
not do wrong on any pretext, or for any consideration. It
was bravely resolved, and the firmness of character which
they manifested is worthy of the imitation of all young men
similarly circumstanced.
But, though they were quite determined, they did not at
tempt to carry out their purpose in a foolish and quixotic
way. With a sagacity which is the prophecy of his later
wisdom, Daniel went at once to the head of the department,
and calmly and politely explained the case to him.
This official — partly, we may suppose, from the frank in
genuousness of Daniel himself, but principally, we are sure,
from the operation of God's Spirit on his heart — had taken
a great interest in the young Jew ; so he listened with atten
tion and sympathy to his request. It was not in his power,
however, to give his direct sanction to the proposal which
Daniel made. Had he done that, he would have forfeited
his life. . But, in all probability, he gave the young student
to understand that if he could prevail upon Melzar, his sub
ordinate, who was immediately over him and his compan
ions, to comply with his wishes, he would himself wink at
the irregularity, and no harm would come of it. At the same
time, he may have privately counselled Melzar to look with
favor on Daniel's request, and stretch a point in his behalf.
To him, accordingly, Daniel went, and proposed that the
matter might be submitted to experiment. He asked that
for ten days they might be permitted to live on pulse (a
kind of coarse grain, or pease) and water, and if at the end
of that time they seemed to have deteriorated, then he might
do with them as he pleased ; but if they appeared as well-
favored as before, then they might be allowed to continue

1 6 Daniel the Beloved.
their abstemious diet. Melzar agreed to his proposal.
The experiment was made, and it was signally successful ;
so they were allowed to carry out their determination with a
good conscience, and they gave themselves with such ardor
to their studies that, with the blessing of God upon their ef
forts, they made more progress than their companions ; for
at the end of three years, when the graduation examination
was held, there were none found like them ; nay, they were
discovered to be ten times better in all matters of wisdom
and understanding than all the magicians and all the astrol
ogers that were in all the realm.
Many wholesome lessons may be learned from this narra
tive. I select only a few of the more prominent.
In the first place, we see how national sins are followed
ever by divine retribution. In their victorious progress west
ward, the rulers of Assyria and Babylon, when they conquered
any important city or territory, adopted the plan of carrying
its inhabitants to one of their Eastern possessions, and of
supplying the places of those who were thus removed by
colonists sent from some far-distant province.* In this way
they secured many important political advantages. They
filled the newly annexed district with settlers on whose loy
alty they could depend, thus freeing themselves from the
necessity of constantly occupying it with an armed force ;
they peopled the great cities which they were building in
the East ; and, by removing the captives from their native
homes, they broke up the sentiment of nationality among
them ; so that within two or three generations they came to
be merged in the general population of the empire.
But while the Babylonians were proceeding on these
plans, and acting from these motives in the case ofthe Jews,
they were at the same time, all unconsciously to themselves,

Kings xvi., 6-24.

Daniel at College. 17
the instruments whom God was employing for the chastise
ment of his people, and the fulfilment of his prophecies re
garding them. Listen to these words, taken from the sacred
chronicler. They describe Zedekiah's administration, but,
unhappily, they are also applicable to the doings of the peo
ple under not a few of his predecessors. " He stiffened his
neck, and hardened his heart from turning unto the Lord
God of Israel. Moreover, all the chief of the priests, and
the people, transgressed very much after all the abomina
tions of the heathen ; and polluted the house of the Lord
which he had hallowed in Jerusalem. And the Lord God
of their fathers sent to them by his messengers, rising up be
times, and sending ; because he had compassion on his peo
ple, and on his dwelling-place. But they mocked the mes
sengers of God, and despised his words, and misused his
prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against his peo
ple, till there was no remedy. Therefore he brought upon
them the king of the Chaldees."*
Then let these sayings be compared with the words of
Moses, uttered eight hundred and sixty years before : " But
it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice
of the Lord thy God  The Lord shall bring thee, and
thy king which thou shalt set over thee, unto a nation which
neither thou nor thy fathers have known j and there shalt
thou serve other gods, wood and stone."f
Here, therefore, is national sin punished by national ca
lamity, and that without any miraculous intervention of di
vine power, but simply in the ordinary course of Providence,
and through the operation of the free-will of men. There
is nothing exceptional in the case but the fact that it is so
fully described in this book, and that we are permitted, as
it were, to read a fragment taken from the secret volume of
* 2 Chron. xxxvi., 13-17. t Deut. xxviii., 15, 36.

1 8 Daniel the Beloved.
the plan of God. The same processes are going on now.
We see among the nations of the earth some groaning un
der the consequences of iniquities which were committed by
their representatives centuries ago ; and we behold others
pursuing such a course of blind folly and unscrupulous self
ishness as must result, sooner or later, in uttermost disaster.
It is said that nations have no conscience. In one sense
that is true ; but in another, that is just the evil which I
would most earnestly deprecate. There is not for the ag
gregate community any abstract faculty like that which sits
supremely in each human breast ; but still, it is the duty of
all who compose a nation to take order that they who repre
sent them shall, in all their dealings, alike with their fellow-
citizens and with other nations, act with justice, truth, honor,
and wisdom ; for if they do not, they may rest assured that
the day of vengeance will come, sooner or later, when God
will visit either them or their descendants for their iniqui
ties. The truest patriot, therefore, is ever the most rigid in
his demands that " the rulers shall be just, ruling in the fear
of. the Lord ;" and when people and magistrates together
unite " to mock the messengers of God and to despise his
words," you may write Ichabod on that nation's banner, and
put Finis to its history, for its glory will be departed, and its
existence ended.
In the second place, we see here most admirably illus
trated the duty of adhering in all circumstances to that
course of conduct which in our consciences we believe to
be right. It is always right to do right. That may seem
to be a truism, yet it is very far from being universally acted
upon. Men will frequently admit that a thing in the ab
stract is duty, and then persuade themselves to do the op
posite, with the plea that in their circumstances they could
not help themselves. But no circumstances can make that
right which is in-its own nature wrong. It never can be

Daniel at College. 19
necessary to sin. No doubt we may say that if we refuse
to sin under certain pressure, death will be the result. But
that will not alter the case ; for it is better to die than to
sin ; and if there be no other way out of it, we ought to be
willing to die rather than to sin.
Is not this the lesson of the entire martyrology of the
Church ? And are we worthy of the privileges which others
purchased for us with their blood if we refuse to follow their
example ? If ever young men could say that circumstances
warranted them in yielding up their convictions, Daniel and
his companions were these young men ; yet they did not
make any such excuse, and so the very difficulty of their
position only brought their nobleness more conspicuously
to view.
But in putting the case that death would be the conse
quence of refusing to sin, I have somewhat overstated it.
Frequently, indeed, death has been the result ; but it is not
always so. It was not so in the instance before us. God
opened the way before these youths, and made it easier for
them to follow the dictates of their consciences than per
haps, at first, they feared it would be. And it is often thus.
Indeed, we may say that the difficulties in the way of the
discharge of duty are rarely so formidable in the actual
encounter as they seemed to be in the anticipation. When
God says, " Go forward," then, as we advance, that which ap
peared to be — nay, which really was — a sea of trouble is di
vided before us, and he leads us through on dry land. The
slothful man says, " There is a lion in the path ;" but the in
dustrious man advances to discover that it is only a harmless
shrub, which, in the gray twilight of the morning, his neigh
bor's fears have magnified into the likeness of the king of
the forest. In like manner, the weak-willed one who yields
to temptation, saying, " I could not do otherwise," exagger
ates the difficulties of resisting ; while the brave-souled be-

20 Daniel the Beloved.
liever, as he presses on, discovers that the obstacles recede
before him, and he has a clear path all through.
Let us be admonished, therefore, by the example of these
youths. Especially let the young people before me take
heart from the record of the manner in which God prepared
the way for Daniel. Away from home, at school, or college,
or business, you may miss the friendly counsel of Christian
companions, and the wise directions and loving fellowship
of parents, and may feel it hard to be left entirely on your
own resources, with no one to consult in times of perplex
ity. Yet you have God to go to, and he will be for you if
you will be for him. Stand, then, on your convictions, and
make your appeal to him for help. Have you never read
these words, " When a man's ways please the Lord, he mak
eth even his enemies to be at peace with him ?" They mean
something. There is scarcely one Christian here who has
come to middle life but can tell you some chapter of his
own history that will corroborate their truth. Courage, then,
my young brothers ! Do only and always that which is right,
and you will often find that where you had feared there was
a yawning chasm and a foaming torrent to cross, God had
already provided for you a bridge.
In the third place, we have in this history an illustration
of the value of temperance in eating and drinking. It is
supposed by many that a luxurious diet is necessary to
health, and not seldom men use intoxicating drink as a con
stant beverage, under the delusion that it imparts strength.
But both of these mistakes are exposed in the narrative be
fore us. A sparing diet is conducive to health and long life,
while the pampering ofthe appetite with many dainties tends
to the production of disease. Then, as regards strong drink,
we have the testimony of medical men of highest standing
to the fact that it is not necessary to a healthy person, and
that its habitual use is always more or less injurious. Hence,

Daniel at College. 21
if for no other reason, we might well abstain from it as an
article of diet. But when we take into account the insidious
nature of alcohol, which always creates a craving for itself,
and, above all, when we think ofthe numbers in the land
who are continually falling under its power, and of the fear
ful amount of misery and crime which is traceable directly
or indirectly to its influence, we may surely be brought to
adopt the course of Daniel and his friends in regard to it,
the rather as no evil consequences will follow the carrying-
out of such a resolution.
Do not say to me that there is no danger of you. It is
he who thinketh he standeth here who has most need to
take heed lest he fall. You may find among the helpless,
almost hopeless, drunkards on our streets many who once
said the same thing as you are now saying, and who seemed
then to have as good ground for saying it as you have now.
Why, then, should you imagine that you are in this respect
infallible ?
You may reply again, as some have done, that if there
were any certainty that you would become a drunkard you
would abstain. But to that I answer, in the words of But
ler, " Probability is the guide of life." You guard against
probabilities, nay, even against mere possibilities, in other
things ; why not also in this ? You have no certainty that
your house shall take fire, yet, as a prudent man, you insure
it, and your furniture too ; you have no positive knowledge
that your ship shall be lost at sea, yet, as a wise man, you
underwrite it to the full. So abstinence from strong drink
is an insurance against intemperance, with this advantage-r-
that the premium goes not into the coffers of a wealthy com
pany, but comes back to yourself in the shape of pecuniary
saving, physical health, and domestic comfort.
But I care not to put this question on such selfish ground,
I ask you to look at it in the light of the multitudes whom

22 Daniel the Beloved.
strong drink is beguiling to their ruin. Will you not abstain,
. if thereby you may remove temptation out of their way, and
help them to restoration ? There is no hope for them save
in abstaining. But should not we assist them by the moral
influence of our fellowship with them in so doing ? When
David thirsted for the water of the well of Bethlehem, and
his three mighty men broke through the enemy's ranks and
returned with a pitcherful of it, he would not drink it. Men's
lives had been jeoparded for it ! So he poured it out be
fore the Lord. In like manner, when the wine-cup is- pre
sented to you, think of the multitudes of souls which are not
merely imperilled, but destroyed, by that bewitching draught,
and then you, too, will pour it out before the Lord, saying,
" It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor to do
anything whereby a brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is
made weak."
Finally, we may see here how God's hand is in all his
people's concerns. He gave Daniel favor in the eyes of
Ashpenaz, and he gave him and his three friends " knowl
edge and skill in all learning and wisdom." Doubtless all
this had been made matter of prayer by the youths them
selves ; yet it is interesting to note how it is here so simply
and sublimely recognized. And are not we taught by this
to consult God about everything? Let those who are far
from home ask God to bring them to the knowledge of
some safe and sagacious friends. Let those who are in per
plexing care ask God to give them light. Let the man of
business make request to God for guidance in the difficul
ties that daily meet him. Let the housewife go to him with
her domestic trials. Let the very school-boys among us ask
God to assist them in their evening studies. Did you ever
think of that, my children ? Your sums would be done by
you more diligently; your hard sentences would be con
strued by you with more interest; your very satchels would

Daniel at College. 23
sit more lightly on your shoulders, and your steps as you go
forth to school would be more joyous, if you would only rev
erently and confidingly ask God to help you in your educa
tion. Try it, from this time forward ; and so the story of
Daniel's college life will be to you a perennial blessing.

II.
THE FORGOTTEN DREAM.
Daniel ii., 1-23.
THE events recorded in the second chapter ofthe Book
of Daniel are there said to have occurred in the sec
ond year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar. Now, as in the
first verse of the same book it is affirmed that Daniel and
his friends were taken captives from Jerusalem in the third
year of Jehoiakim, and as, in the twenty-fifth chapter of Jere
miah, the fourth of Jehoiakim is identified with the first of
Nebuchadnezzar, a chronological difficulty is created, which,
as usual, has been made the most of by the antagonists of
the Sacred Scriptures. If, say they, Daniel was taken to
Babylon in the third of Jehoiakim, and was subsequently
three years in training at the royal college, how could the
events narrated in this chapter have occurred in the sec
ond year of Nebuchadnezzar, if at least Jeremiah is right in
speaking of the fourth of Jehoiakim as the first of Nebu
chadnezzar ?
Different solutions of this question have been proposed,
the most probable being that adopted by Milman, Pusey,
Stuart, and other similar expositors, who suppose that Neb
uchadnezzar reigned for some time conjointly with his fa
ther, Nabopolassar, and that Jeremiah reckons the com
mencement of his reign from the beginning of that associ
ation, while Daniel counts it from the time when, after Na-
bopolassar's death, Nebuchadnezzar became sole monarch.
Some foundation for this view is furnished by Berosus, the

The Forgotten Dream. 25
historian, who states that Nabopolassar, being infirm, gave
up his army to his son, who, having defeated the Egyptians
at Carchemish, marched on to Jerusalem and took it. But
whether this explanation be accounted satisfactory or not,
the very existence of such a difficulty becomes, when rightly
looked at, a proof of the good faith of the writer. A forger
would not deliberately introduce difficulties, but would take
particular care to avoid anything like discrepancies between
his statements and those made in books already existing
and received as authoritative. Now we know, from the
ninth chapter of Daniel, that the author of this book repre
sents Daniel as a diligent student ofthe prophecies of Jere
miah, and it is utterly inconceivable in such circumstances
that an impostor would introduce here a date that seems to
be at variance with one given by Jeremiah. Hence we must
conclude, that what appears to be a discrepancy to us
would present no difficulty to those who lived at the time,
and is susceptible of some such explanation as that which I
have given.
But, leaving this question of dates, let us proceed to the
narrative itself. Nebuchadnezzar, by his victory over Pha
raoh and his capture of Jerusalem, had enlarged his domin
ions up to the Mediterranean Sea, and it is natural to sup
pose that he must have thought much and long upon the prob
able future of the empire which he had thus extended. No
one can be altogether insensible to the after-destiny of any
thing in the acquisition or construction of which he has been
specially interested. Men may deny the existence of a fut
ure state, but they never think of doubting that history will
go on developing itself after they have left the world, even
as it did before they appeared on the earth, and while they
lived upon it. Hence, whatever their religious opinions may
be, they cannot shut out of their minds all consideration of
the future fate of that with which through life they have been
2

26 Daniel the Beloved.
greatly concerned, but which they must, sooner or later, leave
behind them.
We are all more or less conscious of this in our own little
concerns ; and we try, by some testamentary deed, to pro
vide as far as possible that the things in which we delighted
shall pass into the hands of those who shall think well both
of us and them. The man of science cannot contemplate
with any satisfaction the idea of the various specimens in
his museum being scattered among strangers, so he con
trives to leave his collection, as a whole, to some public in
stitution, linking his name with his legacy, that he may keep
himself from being forgotten. The scholar or theologian
does the same with his library, and the man of taste acts on
a similar principle with his gallery of pictures. Much in the
same way the ambitious conqueror, whose heart is set upon
the empire which he has made, desires to forecast its future.
He wishes, perhaps, to found a dynasty, or he seeks, in some
way, to secure the perpetuity of his kingdom as a whole, in
order that he may be spoken of always as its founder.
Now, active, scheming, vigorous, and unscrupulous as Neb
uchadnezzar was, we may be sure that these subjects were
often pondered by him ; and on one occasion, when, as he
lay upon his bed, he had been thinking specially " what
should come to pass hereafter," he fell asleep and dreamed
a curious dream, which somehow peculiarly impressed him
as having an intimate connection with the train of thought
which he had been prosecuting. Indeed, he regarded it as
being in some sort an indication from Heaven of the future,
concerning which he was so anxious.
Nor was this idea altogether unnatural, for, among all
nations, at that' time, it was generally supposed that dreams
were one of the media through which divine revelations
were made, and there were everywhere recognized men of
learning, whose special office it was to interpret such visions.

The Forgotten Dream. 27
Homer, in a well-known passage in his " Iliad,"* says that
a dream is from Jupiter, and elsewhere he relates how the
mind of Jove was communicated to Agamemnon in a vision.
I do not imagine, indeed, that the ancient heathens would
account every dream as worthy of attention ; but when, as
in the present instance, the vision came to the most impor
tant and exalted person in the nation, and made such an
impression upon him, that he was troubled and overawed in
spirit, they would at once conclude that there was some spe
cial significance in it, and that it was to be viewed as a di
vine revelation. We cannot affirm that they were always
right in regarding particular dreams as from the Lord, but
that they were sometimes correct is evident from the cases
of Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar ; and even yet it is a ques
tion very difficult to answer in a definite manner, whether
any significance, or, if any, how much, is to be attributed to
the visions ofthe night.
We all allow that God may, and does, influence the work
ings of our minds through the operation of the laws of sug
gestion or association while we are awake ; for it is impos
sible to hold in any intelligible fashion the doctrine of the
agency of the Holy Spirit unless we make such an admis
sion. But if God can thus influence our minds when we
are awake, it is equally easy for him to do so while we sleep,
so that there is no antecedent impossibility against the view
that there may be something in dreams, after all.
Again, the providence of God must take cognizance of
our dreams equally with our waking thoughts, and must be
equally over both, if, at least, we are to conceive of it as re
ally universal. Hence there is nothing absurd or unphilo-
sophical in supposing that God may avail himself of the phe
nomena of dreams for the purpose of turning the mind to
* " Iliad," i., 63.

28 Daniel the Beloved.
his truth or leading it in some particular direction. How
far he does this, it is impossible to say. But I have read
and heard so many well-authenticated anecdotes which told
of singular things — call them coincidences or what, you will
— in reference to dreams, that I would hesitate to affirm that
there is never anything whatever in them ; while, on the oth
er hand, so much nonsense, superstition, trickery, and deceit
have been connected with dreams and their fancied inter
pretation, that one hesitates equally to admit that there is
anything in them. In the autobiography of Lord Brougham
there is told a marvellous story of an experience of this kind
which that noble lord had in early life, and which is vouched
for by himself. One of his early companions had made an
agreement with him, in reckless joke, that in order to set at
rest the question of a future state, the first of them to die
should, if there was reality in the after-life, appear to the sur
vivor, and enlighten him on the subject. Years passed away;
his friend went to India, and one evening as Brougham was
in his bath he fell into a brief sleep and dreamed that he
saw his former companion, who assured him that there was
a future state, for he had now entered upon it. Months af
terward he received intelligence of his friend's death, and on
making investigation discovered that it must have occurred
about the very time of his own dream. On this Brougham
remarks : " Singular coincidence ! Yet, when one reflects
on the vast number of dreams which, night after night, pass
through our brains, the number of coincidences between the
vision and the event are, perhaps, fewer and less remarkable
than a fair calculation of chances would warrant us to ex
pect. Nor is it surprising, considering the variety of our
thoughts in sleep, and that they all bear some analogy to
the affairs of life, that a dream should sometimes coincide
with a contemporaneous, or even with a future, event. This
is not much more wonderful than that a person whom we

The Forgotten Dream. 29
had no reason to expect should appear to us at the very
moment we had been thinking or speaking of him ; yet so
common is this that it has for ages grown into a proverb."*
Some may be disposed to go even farther than his lord
ship, but, for my part, I prefer to leave the whole thing un
solved. Sleep is a mystery, and dreams are a mystery.
What wonder, therefore, that many problems concerning
both should baffle our ingenuity to explain ? We apply to
this subject the words of Hamlet in reference to appari
tions : " There are more things in heaven and earth than
are dreamt of in our philosophy;" and whatever maybe the
case with dreams in general, we have at least the highest
authority for believing that, in the present instance, Nebu
chadnezzar was right in regarding his vision as from the
Lord. But though he had a profound impression of the impor
tance of his dream, he was quite unable to recall it when he
awoke. This is not so peculiar an experience as to need
any special remark. We have all had similar things hap
pen to ourselves in regard, not only to the visions of the
night, but to waking realities. Every one knows what it is
to have forgotten a name, which, in spite of all his efforts to
recall it, will not come at his command, but which he recog
nizes in a moment when it is suggested to him by another.
And many a musician can tell that frequently he has been
unable to raise a tune which he had formerly known, but
which he recognized at once when it was struck up by an
other. But, as still more closely analogous to the case of
Nebuchadnezzar here, I quote two instances. The first I
have met with in the course of my reading in mental philos
ophy, but I have been unable, after long search through my

* " Autobiography of Henry, Lord Brougham," vol. i., pp. 146-148.
Harper & Brothers, New York.

30 Daniel the Beloved.
library, to lay my hands upon the authority ;* the second I
take from the biography of the poet Coleridge. A gentle
man connected with the bar had a very difficult case in hand,
and as the day for the trial drew near his mind was contin
uously dwelling upon it. One morning during this period,
he happened to say to his wife at the breakfast-table that he
had, in his dreams, delivered a clear opinion on the cause,
and that he would give a great deal if he could recall the
argument which had then passed through his mind, as he
believed it to be thoroughly convincing. His wife smiled,
and said that if he went to his writing-table, and opened a
particular drawer, she fancied he would find it fully written
out. Then she explained that, in his sleep, he had risen
and gone to his desk, and sat down to write ; and that she,
fearing something had gone wrong with him, had followed,
but, finding that he was engaged at his desk, had watched
in silence until he had finished. He hastened to his study,
and, in glancing over the paper, recognized in a moment
the argument to which he had referred.
The incident in Coleridge's life refers to the composition
of his metrical fragment, entitled " Kubla Khan," which,
he says, came to him during sleep, into which he fell while
reading in " Purchas's Pilgrims." He continued for about
three hours apparently in sleep, during which he had the
most vivid impression that he had composed between two
and three hundred lines. "The images," he says, "rose
up before me as things with a parallel production of the
correspondent expressions, without any sensation or con
sciousness of effort." On awaking, he had so distinct a re
membrance of the whole, that he seized his pen and wrote
down the fragment which is still preserved. Unfortunately,

* Since the above was written, I have discovered it, viz., Abercrom-
bie's " Intellectual Powers," p. 222.

The Forgotten Dream. 31
however, he was called away to attend to some business.
The interruption lasted more than an hour, and, on his re
turn to his study, he found, to his intense surprise and mor
tification, that, though he still retained some vague and dim
recollection of the general purport of the vision, yet, with
the exception of some eight or ten scattered lines and im
ages, all the rest had passed away, like the images on the
surface of a stream into which a stone had been cast. Thus
the thing had gone from him, as in the case before us.*
But Nebuchadnezzar thought that he had a sure resource
to fall back upon. There were in his realm magicians, as
trologers, sorcerers, and Chaldeans, who professed to be
able, from the practice of various arts, to furnish the inter
pretation of any dream ; and the king, believing that if they
could correctly explain a vision, they could also accurately
reproduce that which he had seen, sent for them, and told
the circumstances in which he was placed, at the same time
informing them that if they failed in making known to him
both the dream and its interpretation, they should be put
to death in the most shameful manner, and their houses
razed to the foundation ; while, if they succeeded, they
should be loaded with honors and rewards.
This procedure on the part of the monarch has been
much blamed ; and, indeed, so far as regards the harshness
and severity of the sentence which he pronounced in case
of the failure of the wise men, there is nothing to be said
in its defence. We must only bear in mind that he was an
Oriental despot, and that the cruelty of this decree is quite
in keeping with his treatment of Daniel's three friends af
terward, and with his brutality to Zedekiah, the King of Ju
dah. Unhappily, such capricious and utterly inhuman out-
* See Coleridge's "Complete Works," edited by Professor Shedd,
vol. vii., p. 212.

32 Daniel the Beloved.
rages were by no means uncommon in the East, and are
even yet far too largely practised by the Persian, Indian,
and Turkish rulers.
So far, however, as his demand that the wise men should
reproduce the dream is concerned, we cannot see that Neb
uchadnezzar was at fault ; for if they, by divine assistance,
or even by human skill, could tell infallibly what a dream
meant, it was quite as easy for them to tell the dream itself.
But had they made the attempt, they knew that they would
certainly have been detected as impostors. Hence they ex
claimed against his demand. They alleged that he was ask
ing a new and preposterous thing, and affirmed that there
was none that could show what he wanted, save the gods,
whose dwelling was not with flesh.
This, however, only exasperated the king the more, and
made him at once issue the decree which he had threat
ened. Nay, such was his fury that he required the captain
of his guard to proceed at once to the wholesale massacre
of the wise men ; and, as it would seem, the butchery had
been actually carried on for some time before Daniel be
came aware of the events out of which it arose ; for it was
only when Arioch came to lead him and his companions
out to execution that he discovered what had occurred.
He complained of the unseemly haste of the king, and of
the grievous injustice of putting him and his friends to
death before they had had an opportunity of trying to com
ply with the royal request as to the interpretation of his
dream. He further desired that time should be given, and
promised that he would furnish what Nebuchadnezzar
wanted. Had the matter been one in which the king was less in
terested, it is questionable if any effect would have been
produced by this expostulation. Very likely Arioch would
have said, " It is too late now. I have to obey orders, or

The Forgotten Dream. 33
lose my own life." But, knowing that, above and beyond
all other things, Nebuchadnezzar desired to understand the
meaning of his dream, Arioch hastened to inform the mon
arch that he had come upon one of the Jewish captives who
professed to be able to interpret his vision, and whose only
stipulations were that the needful time should be granted,
and that the massacre of the wise men should be stayed.
To these terms the monarch readily consented ; and Dan
iel, telling his three friends of the responsibility which he
had taken upon him, engaged them to pray earnestly on his
behalf, or, as it is phrased in the narrative, " to desire mer
cies of the God of heaven concerning this secret."
In answer to this united prayer, the vision was revealed
to Daniel, as it had been to Nebuchadnezzar, in his sleep ;
and the first thing he did when he awoke was to offer an
appropriate thanksgiving to God, who had thus highly fa
vored him. Then he went to Arioch, who introduced him
to the king ; and, first of all, disclaiming in the most explicit
terms that he had received the secret "for any wisdom that
he had more than any living," and giving the entire glory to
God, whose he was and whom he served, he rehearsed the
vision, and gave the interpretation in such a way as to sat
isfy the monarch that he had reached the truth.
Keeping to his word, the king honored him with many
great gifts, and made him ruler over the whole province of
Babylon, and chief of the governors over all the wise men.
But Daniel would have no "lonely glory." His three
friends, by their prayers, had helped him to his exaltation,
and, at his request, they also were set over the affairs of
the empire, though he himself held the foremost place at
the court, or gate of the king, and was, in modern phrase,
Grand Vizier of the Porte of Babylon.
I have not given either a description of the vision itself,
or of its explanation by the prophet, my main business in

34 Daniel the Beloved.
these discourses being with the incidents of Daniel's life
and their lessons ; but it may be interesting and instructive
to take a rapid survey of them both, and this I shall attempt
to do in my next lecture. Meanwhile we cannot fail to be
reminded by all this history of another captive, who, for his
interpretation of royal dreams, was raised to the second po
sition in the Egyptian realm ; and it is interesting to note
the marks of resemblance and difference between the two.
Joseph and Daniel were alike in that they were both men
of incorruptible fidelity and devout humility ; and they stand
out in Jewish history — the one at its beginning, and the
other near its close — as men in whom few, if any, defects
of character or blemishes of conduct appear. As Auberlen
has beautifully said, " They were both representatives of
the true God and his people at heathen courts ; both were
exemplary in their pure walk before the Lord ; both were
endowed with the gift of bringing into clear light the dim
presentiments of truth which express themselves among the
heathen in God - sent dreams ; both were gifted with mar
vellous wisdom and insight, and, for this reason, highly hon
ored by the powers of this world. They represent the call:
ing of Israel to be a holy people, a royal priesthood among
the nations, and the final end of the Old Testament theoc
racy to lead to one universal is clearly shown forth by their
history. Thus, also, they are types of Christ, the true Is
rael, and types of the destiny of their nation by which it
would be a light to lighten the Gentiles  Daniel, in
every respect more visibly blessed than Joseph, is the most
prominent figure and the greatest character in the last cen
turies of the Old Covenant, the most excellent example of a
true Israelite. Such a man was called to be the apocalyptic
prophet of the Old Testament. And since we know that
the prophet of the New Testament was the disciple whom
Jesus Joved, the circumstance that God has chosen two of

The Forgotten Dream. 35
the best men under the Old and New Covenants to receive
and record his Apocalypses must fill us with deep reverence
for their apocalyptic revelations."*
But now, turning to the practical improvement of this nar
rative, we have set before us, in the first place, the value of
united prayer. When Daniel undertook the solution of the
difficulty which Nebuchadnezzar had brought before the
wise men, he engaged his three friends to pray earnestly on
his behalf, and we may be sure that he was fervent in sup
plication on his own account. He believed in God as the
hearer of prayer. Wise as he was, he was not too wise to
make request to God ; nay, rather he consecrated his wis
dom by combining it with piety. Probably he remembered
how, in the ancient history of his people, Aaron and Hur
had stayed up the hands of Moses, and he wished to be
strengthened similarly by the prayers of his companions.
The issue showed that he had acted wisely.
We are reminded by it of an interesting episode in the
history of the Westminster Assembly of Divines. When
that learned company was engaged in the composition of
the Shorter Catechism, and had come to the question " What
is God ?" no one would attempt to furnish an answer. At
length, as a way out of the difficulty, and without knowing
who the person was that might be appointed, they agreed
that the youngest man present should be required to write
the answer. When they discovered who he was, there was
still the same shrinking in his heart, but at length he agreed
to do as his brethren wished, provided they would permit
him to retire, and would promise that all the time he was
away they would pray for the divine assistance to be ac
corded to him. They did so, and in a short while he re-

* "Daniel and the Revelation," by Carl August Auberlen, translated
by Rev. A. Saphir, pp. 23, 24.

36 Daniel the Beloved.
turned with that answer with which we are all familiar, and
the comprehensive brevity and clearness of which have
awakened the admiration of every thoughtful mind.
Now, it would be well if, when we are in difficulty as to the
path of duty, or in severe trial, or in prospect of arduous la
bor, we would secure that a band of friends should pray on
our behalf. Depend upon it, " more things are wrought by
prayer than the world dreams of." These words of Jesus,
" If any two of you shall agree on earth as touching any
thing which ye shall ask in my name, it shall be given you,"
constitute the charter of the prayer - meeting. There is a
special promise to united prayer. "The effectual fervent
prayer of a righteous man availeth much ;" but the united
prayers of a company of like-minded believers avail more.
Indeed, as the poet has said, " The whole round earth is
bound by prayer about the feet of God." Let us, then, en
deavor to secure that our friends are given to prayer ; for if
they can help us in no other way, they can help us in the
best of all ways — by their united supplications on our behalf.
But, in the second place, we have an illustration here of
the workings of gratitude. The moment he had received
the revelation, and ere yet he went with it to Nebuchadnez
zar, Daniel poured out his heart in thanksgiving to God.
He " blessed the God of heaven," saying, " Blessed be the
name of God for ever and ever : for wisdom and might are
his : and he changeth the times and the seasons : he re-
moveth 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. I thank
thee, and praise thee, O thou God of my fathers, who hast
given me wisdom and might, and hast made known unto me
what we desired of thee ! for thou hast now made known
unto us the king's matter.''

The Forgotten Dream. 37
How many, when they have got the blessing for which
they asked, forget to be grateful for it ! " Were there not
ten cleansed, but where are the nine ?" We cry when we
are in extremity ; but when the terror passes, we forget to
give thanks to him who has removed its cause. Let the
conduct of Daniel here shame us for our ingratitude to God
for the many blessings which in answer to our prayers he
has bestowed upon us ; and let us seek to show our thanks,
not only in the utterance of words, but also in the offering
of our hearts and lives as incense unto him.
In the third place, we have here an illustration of the
devout humility of genuine piety. Daniel is careful to let
Nebuchadnezzar understand that he has not received the
secret from God for any excellence about himself. He
fears to stand between the king and Jehovah. He gives
all the glory to the Most High. There is always a modesty
about true greatness, and you may know whether or not pi
ety is genuine by inquiring if it be characterized by humil
ity. The good man will never seek to hide God from the
view of his fellow-men. He will endeavor to make his light
shine, but he will not make it shine so as to draw attention
to himself. He will arrange it so that its rays will all con
verge in God, and men shall glorify the Father in heaven.
See how beautifully John the Baptist was clothed with
that humility. When the Jews came to him, asking, " Who
art thou ?" and almost importuning him to answer that he
was the Messiah, he would not yield to their- desire, but
said, " I am not the Messiah, but I am sent before him to
prepare his way ;" and when, afterward, men sought to pro
voke his envy of Jesus by telling him how the prophet of
Nazareth was attracting more followers than he, his only
answer was, " He must increase, but I must decrease I"
So, again, when Paul was writing to the church at Cor
inth, he manifested the same beautiful humility, saying,

38 Daniel the Beloved.
"Who then is Paul, and -who is Apollos, but ministers by
whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man ? I
have planted, Apollos watered ; but God gave the increase.
So then neither is he that planteth anything, neither he that
watereth ; but God that giveth the increase."
Such a spirit is lovely everywhere, but it is especially be
coming in the minister of Christ. It is his high privilege
to preach the Gospel, and he should seek to do it so as to
hide himself. Standing in the halo round his Lord, men
should not see him, but only the glory of the Saviour. They
should "hear the voice, but see no man." Oh for more of
the spirit of Daniel everywhere, but especially in the pul
pits of the land !
Fourthly, we have here an illustration of faithful friend
ship. When Daniel was exalted, he did not forget his com
panions. Knit to Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah by con
genial tastes, as well as by the ties of country and relig
ion, he had become to them a friend indeed ; and they had
shown their deep interest in and attachment to him, not
only in sharing his protest against the diet of the college,
but also in praying for him at his special request. It was
meet, therefore, that he should remember them in his pros
perity. He did no more than his duty toward them in
speaking for their elevation, while, at the same time, he did
a service to the king by introducing to him men of such in
tegrity and ability.
But this conduct is not common ; for many are like the
chief butler, and in the hour of their exaltation forget the
Joseph to whom, in their time of humiliation, they had been
beholden. Multitudes are moved with envy, so that they
cannot think of others rising ; and even if they have been
formerly indebted to them, they do their best to keep them
down. But there was no such feeling in the breast of Dan
iel. The prosperity of his friends was his, and he would

The Forgotten Dream.

39

have them sharers with him in the honorable position to
which their prayers had contributed to raise him. " A man
that hath friends must show himself friendly ;" and there is
a friend " that sticketh closer than a brother."
I cannot conclude without a word in reference to Dan
iel's greater Lord — Jesus Christ — of whom he prophesied.
He, too, has been exalted. God has given him a name
which is above every name. He is seated at the right hand
of power — King of kings and Lord of lords — and in his
exaltation all his people will share ; for it is written they
shall " reign with him." Not, however, because they have
been of service to him, as were his three friends to Daniel,
but because he has " set his love upon them, and they have
trusted in him." Let me ask you, my hearer, if there is a
throne yonder for you ? Do you love Jesus ? Are you of
his friends ? Are you praying for the advancement of his
cause and the coming of his kingdom ? Are you working
for his glory ? Do you identify yourself with him ? Are
you one with him ? Then for you there is a crown of right
eousness, and a seat upon his throne. But if you repudiate
his allegiance, and will have none of his love ; if you tram
ple his grace underfoot, and insult his love by your base in
gratitude — then will he destroy you as his enemies, and con
sign you to everlasting woe. Ah ! why would you make
him an enemy, when you may enjoy eternally the blessings
of his friendship ? >

III.
THE DREAM RECO VERED AND INTER
PRETED.
Daniel ii., 29-49.
THE vision which had so troubled Nebuchadnezzar was
that of a huge image. It had a certain unity about it,
inasmuch as it resembled a human figure. Yet it had also
a strangely composite character, inasmuch as its different
parts were made of different materials. The head was of
gold, the breast and arms of silver, the belly and the thighs
of brass, the legs of iron, and the feet part of iron and part
of clay. But for all so stable as it seemed, the colossal fig
ure was not destined to endure, for as the monarch gazed
he saw severed, without hands, from its native rock, a stone,
which smote the image and broke it in pieces. Then the
stone itself gradually increased in size until it assumed the
appearance of a mountain and filled the whole earth.
This huge image was by Daniel interpreted to mean what
we may call the world-power. Its unity represents the fact
that the different empires of earth are only parts of one
great whole. They are all animated by the same spirit.
They are all founded on human ambition. They are all
antagonistic to God and to his truth. The body has many
members, but all these members are moved by one will.
So the successive world monarchies have all been pervaded
by one spirit, which has striven through them to gain its
own ends.
The separate parts of which the image was composed

The Dream Recovered and Interpreted. 41
were intended, according to Daniel's interpretation of them,
to symbolize the characters of the different earthly empires,
and the order in which they were to appear. The head of
gold was the Babylonian monarchy of which Nebuchadnez
zar was the king. It was the head, as the first in the order
of time. It was of gold, as distinguished for the greatest
magnificence. In Isaiah* Babylon is styled " the golden
city;" elsewhere it is denominated by the same prophet
" the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldee's excel
lency ;" " the lady of kingdoms ;" while Jeremiah refers to
it as " abundant in treasures," and as " the praise of the
whole earth." Its kings had enriched its capital with the
spoils of conquest, and adorned it with the products of oth
er lands, as well as with works of art and gardens of beauty,
so that it was regarded as one of the wonders of the world.
Most appropriately, therefore, does Daniel say to Nebuchad
nezzar, " Thou art this head of gold."
" The breast and the arms of silver " represent what is
known in history as the Medo-Persian Empire, the founda
tion of which was laid by Cyrus when he conquered Baby
lon. It lasted for about two hundred years, and extended
through the reigns of those kings who so frequently at
tempted the invasion of Greece, and whose defeats have
given immortality to the names of Leonidas and Themisto-
cles, and made Thermopylae and Salamis renowned. It is
said here to be inferior to the Babylonian kingdom, and this
may refer either to the absence of that magnificence for
which Nebuchadnezzar was famous, or to the degenerate
character of the Persian rulers ; for, as Prideauxf has said,
with th^ exception of Cyrus himself, the kings of Persia

* Isa.piii., 19; xiv., 4; xlvli.,^VJer. Ii., 13, 41.
t " Connection of the History ofP^Old and New Testament," vol. i.,
p. 107.

42 Daniel the Beloved.
were ;' the worst race of men that ever governed an em
pire." Or it may refer to the disastrous defeats sustained
by the Persians in the military campaigns which they un
dertook. Their plans for conquest were foolishly contrived
and madly carried out, so that they resulted frequently in
inglorious failures. In this respect, therefore, there was an
evident appropriateness in speaking of Persia as inferior to
Babylon. "The belly and the thighs of brass" represent the Gre
cian Empire, which rose to pre-eminence in the days of
Alexander the Great, and which latterly assumed the form
of two separate monarchies, the one in Syria under the de
scendants of Seleucus, and the other in Egypt under the
Ptolemies. This kingdom is not inaptly symbolized by
brass, inasmuch as the Greeks were famous for their brazen
armor. It is declared that this third empire should " bear
rule over all the earth," but the words must be taken some
what hyperbolically. Alexander, indeed, commanded that
he should be styled " the King of the Whole World ;" but
he had not really conquered the whole earth. Still, as he
had authority over large territories in Europe, Asia, and
Africa — that is to say, in all the divisions of the world then
known — the description may be legitimately applied to him.
Hence all admit that this third empire is the Macedoni
an ; but it has been disputed whether the kingdoms of the
Seleucidae and the Ptolemies are to be reckoned as in some
sort a continuation of the Macedonian Empire, or are to be
regarded as themselves constituting the fourth monarchy
here symbolized by the legs of iron, and the feet part of
iron and part of clay.
After careful examination, I have adopted the opinion
that these two kingdoms are here viewed as constituting a
continuation of the Macedonian Empire, for, as Dr. Pusey
has remarked, "these two dynasties, ever at variance with

The Dream Recovered and Interpreted. 43
one another, had no unity ; they were in no sense a king
dom, except as they were connected with the great empire-
plan of Alexander. They were continuations of Greek pre
dominance over the nations of Oriental character in Asia
Minor, Egypt, Syria, and Assyria. They carried out that
interpenetration of the Greek and Oriental nations which
Alexander must have contemplated ; they Hellenized Egypt
and Western Asia, and unknowingly prepared the way for
the Gospel by diffusing, through the means of their Greek
cities, the language in which it was to be given."* We re
gard, therefore, the belly and thighs of brass as symbolizing
the Macedonian Empire ; first, one under Alexander, and
then ultimately branching into two main divisions under the
Seleucidae in the north and the Ptolemies in the south.
" The legs of iron " represent the Roman power, which
was remarkable for nothing so much as for strength. Its
legions carried everything before them, reducing indepen
dent kingdoms into conquered provinces, and holding the
proudest nations under the most galling tribute. From
Parthia, in the East, to Gaul, and even to Britain, in the
West, its power extended, and everywhere it was a thing of
iron, crushing and breaking all that stood in its way. But
in process of time, its strength was weakened by the admixt
ure of inferior elements with its original population ; so that
while the legs are of iron, the feet are part of iron and part
of potter's clay. That which was, in one sense, the proof
of its greatness, became, in another, the precursor of its de
cay. By its martial might Rome conquered many nations ;
but the mingling of these diverse and degenerate peoples
with its noble citizenship deteriorated the empire as a whole,
and made it, in the end, an easy prey to the Northern hordes
of barbarians by whom it was ultimately overrun. Every
* " Lectures on Daniel the Prophet," pp. 67, 68.

44 Daniel the Beloved.
reader of Gibbon's history is familiar with this view of the
case, but we may be pardoned for reproducing this passage
from his pages in support of it :
" During the first four ages, the Romans in the laborious
school of poverty had acquired the virtues of war, and gov
ernment by the vigorous exertion of those virtues ; and, by
the assistance of fortune, they had obtained, in the course
of the three succeeding centuries, an absolute empire over
many countries of Europe, Asia, and Africa. The last hun
dred years had been consumed in apparent prosperity and
internal decline. The nation of soldiers, magistrates, and
legislators who composed the thirty-five tribes of the Ro
man people was dissolved into the common mass of man
kind, and confounded with the millions of servile provin
cials who had received the name without imbibing the spirit
of Romans. A mercenary army, levied among the subjects
and barbarians of the frontier, was the only order of men
who preserved and abused their independence. By their
tumultuary election, a Syrian, a Goth, or an Arab was exalt
ed to the throne, and invested with despotic powers over
the conquests and over the country of the Scipios. The
limits of the Roman Empire still extended from the West
ern Ocean to the Tigris, and from Mount Atlas to the Rhine
and Danube. To the undiscerning eye of the vulgar, Philip
appeared a monarch no less powerful than Hadrian or Au
gustus had formerly been. The form was still the same,
but the animating health and vigor were fled. The indus
try of the people was discouraged and exhausted by a long
series of oppressions. The discipline of the legions which
alone, after the extinction of every other virtue, had propped
the greatness of the State, was corrupted by ambition, or re
laxed by the weakness of the emperors. The strength of
the frontiers, which had always consisted in arms rather
than in fortifications, was insensibly undermined, and the

The Dream Recovered and Interpreted. 45
fairest provinces were left exposed to the rapaciousness or
ambition of the barbarians, who soon discovered the decline
of the Roman Empire."*
The fourth kingdom, therefore, symbolized by the legs
' and feet of the image, was the Roman power, which, in its
early days, was strong as iron, but in its later history had
elements of weakness, as if the iron had been mixed with
clay. The toes of the image, like the ten horns of the beast
afterward seen by Daniel, are believed by some to represent
the separate monarchies into which the Roman Empire came
to be divided, and much learned ingenuity has been exerted
by expositors in seeking to identify these ten kingdoms in
modern Europe ; but that is a branch of the investigation
for which I have little relish, and I prefer to leave with you
the general impression which I have made, rather than to
confuse your minds by an enumeration which, after all, must
be mainly conjectural.
We come now to the kingdom represented by the stone
which destroyed the image. It will be at once apparent
that this figure is intended to symbolize the kingdom of our
Lord Jesus Christ; but the great question among modern
interpreters is, whether the cutting-out of the stone from the
mountain and its coming into collision with the image is to
be understood of the first advent of Christ, which is already
past, or of his second coming, which is yet future. Dr. Tre-
gelles, who may be taken as speaking for the whole pre-mil-
lenarian school, says, " The falling of the stone on the im
age must mean destroying judgment on the fourth Gentile
power, not gradual evangelization of it by grace ; and the
destroying judgment cannot be dealt by Christians, for they
are taught to submit to the powers that be ; so that it must
be dealt by Christ himself at his coming again. We live

* Gibbon, chap. vii. Quoted also by Barnes, " Commentary," in loco.

46 Daniel the Beloved.
under the divisions of the Roman Empire which began four
teen hundred years ago, and which, at the time of his com
ing, shall be definitely ten. All that had failed in the hand
of man shall then pass away, and that which is kept in his
own hand shall be introduced."*
Now, it must be confessed that much may be said in fa
vor of this view, and that it has, besides, a wonderful fascina
tion for the devout soul that is distressed by the prevalence
of evil in the world. In particular, it seems to harmonize
with the statement that the stone came into collision with
the feet of the image. If the reference be to the first com
ing of Christ, how, it may be asked, could Jesus be said to
strike against a form of the Roman Empire which did not
then exist ? And how can the breaking in pieces of the im
age symbolize the peaceful character of his mission and the
quiet progress of his cause ?
But, in answer to the first of these inquiries, we may say,
that as the world-power is here represented by one ideal im
age, whatever comes against any single portion of the image
may be viewed as directed against it as a whole ; and so
the advent of Christ, though it came before the final divis
ion of the Roman Empire, may be regarded as coming into
collision with the spirit by which every form of that empire
was animated. Besides, the words " in the days of these
kings " refer not to the kings of the Roman Empire alone,
but to all the kings represented by this composite image,
and the meaning is that some time during the history of
those kings thus symbolized the God of heaven should set
up his kingdom.
The second question may be answered by such a criti
cism on the thirty -fifth verse as that of Mr. Barnes, who

*

' Remarks on the Prophetic Visions of the Book of Daniel," pp.
24, 25, by S. P. Tregelles. London : Baxter, 1852.

The Dream Recovered and Interpreted. 47
says :'" The connection here and the whole statement would
seem to demand the sense of a continued or prolonged smit
ing, or of repeated blows rather than a single concussion.
The great image was not only thrown down, but there was
a subsequent process of comminution independent of what
would have been produced by the fall. A fall would only
have broken it into large blocks or fragments, but this con
tinued smiting reduced it to powder. This would imply,
therefore, not only a single shock, but some cause continu
ing to operate until that which had been overthrown was
effectually destroyed, like a vast image reduced to impalpa
ble powder."*
But whether or not these explanations be satisfactory,
there seems to me to be one fatal objection to the view of
those who take the severing of the stone from the mountain
to mean the second coming of Christ ; for if that interpreta
tion be correct, it will follow that the kingdom of the Mes
siah has not yet been founded on the earth. I know, in
deed, that Dr. Tregelles and his school would draw a dis
tinction between the kingdom of grace and the kingdom of
glory, and would make the vision here refer to the setting-up
of the kingdom of glory. But that does not mend the mat
ter ; for if that be true, then it will follow that in a vision
given to Nebuchadnezzar with the view of making known
to him what should be hereafter there is positively no allu
sion to the most important fact in the annals of humanity — •
the Incarnation — a fact, moreover, which was to have such a
momentous bearing on the after-history of every nation on
the earth. That the vision, altogether ignoring the first com
ing of Christ, should leap forward to his second advent, ap
pears to me to be utterly inconceivable, the more especially
as the phraseology here used by Daniel to describe the king-

* " Notes on Daniel," in loco.

48 Daniel the Beloved.
dom of the stone is identical with that employed by Isaiah
in predicting the birth of the Messiah : " Of the increase of
his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the
throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to
establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth
even forever ;"* and also with that addressed by the angel
to Mary at the Annunciation: "Thou shalt bring forth- a
son, and shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and
shall be called the Son of the Highest ; and the Lord God
shall give unto him the throne of his father David : and he
shall reign over the house of Jacob forever ; and of his king
dom there shall be no end."t Moreover, John the Baptist
heralded the coming of the Redeemer in these words : " Re
pent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."$ Jesus
himself began his public ministry with this declaration :
" The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand ;"§
and throughout his career as an instructor he was contin
ually uttering parables in illustration of " the kingdom of
God" or "the kingdom of heaven." Nay, to such an ex
tent did he dwell on the idea of his royalty that he was ac
cused of setting himself up against Caesar ; and when Pilate
asked him if he were a king, he did not repudiate the digni
ty, but only said, " My kingdom is not of this world."||
We cannot, therefore, accept as correct any interpretation
of this vision which requires us to believe that the kingdom
of heaven has not yet been set up in the world, or which, in
its eagerness to unfold what shall be when the Lord comes
the second time, compels us to ignore the grace and the glo
ry of his first appearance. Hence, other difficulties notwith
standing, I take the severance of the stone from the moun
tain to denote the coming of Christ into the world, and the

* Isa. ix., 7. f Luke i., 31-33. J Matt, iii., 1.
§ Mark i., 15. || John xviii., 36.

The Dream Recovered and Interpreted. 49
collision of the stone with the image to mean the founding
by the Lord of that spiritual kingdom which is, in its prin
ciples, antagonistic to all the world-powers, and which will
ultimately subdue them all. Thus viewed, the vision which
Daniel recovered and interpreted suggests to us many inter
esting things concerning the kingdom of Christ, which, how
ever, I can dwell on but for a little season.
There is, in the first place, its superhuman origin. The
stone was " cut out " of the mountain without hands.
There was no natural cause for its severance. It did not
fall by its own weight, through the force of gravitation, or
by accident, for it was " cut." And yet, the cutting was the
work of no ordinary agent, for it was cut "without hands."
So the foundation of Christ's kingdom was the result of no
development of human character, but rather of the bringing
of a new spiritual and heavenly power into the world. Left
to itself, the world-power deteriorates, and that image whose
head is of gold has feet part of iron and part of clay. That
is the sort of development of human character which is seen
in the history of the empires of earth. If, therefore, the
Lord Jesus had been the product merely of his age, he could
not have risen above his age ; rather, following the law of
development which, in moral things at least, the human race,
left to itself, has always illustrated, he would have fallen be
low his age. By the miraculous manner of his birth, how
ever, and the mysterious constitution of his person as God
and man, in two distinct natures, the ordinary course and
chain of natural causes was broken in upon, and a new
and divine agency was brought to bear upon the kingdoms
of the earth. But for this supernatural intervention, they
would have gone on unchecked, each rising into impor
tance, and then falling to pieces through the workings of
its own inherent corruption, or through the rise of another
upon its ruins. But now a corrective influence has come

50 Daniel the Beloved.
into operation, and its very difference from all that went
before it is a proof of its superhuman origin. The stone is
striking, one after another, earthly institutions and organi
zations, and by-and-by the Divine influence .which it repre
sents will permeate all ranks and conditions and kingdoms
of men.
There is, in the second place, the comparative feebleness
of its beginning. The language of the vision indicates that
the stone grew from a small size until it became a huge
mountain. Frequently earthly kingdoms have had very in
significant beginnings ; but, usually, that which has given
them the last accession of greatness has been some mighty
movement of its armies or some grand achievement of its
statesmen. Thus, to take a recent instance, every one is
familiar with the almost contemptible sovereignty of the
first of the Hohenzollern dynasty; but when, a few years
ago, while yet he was laying siege to the first city on the
continent of Europe, the King of Prussia caused himself, in
the palace of a conquered monarch, to be proclaimed Em
peror of Germany, the pomp and ceremony of the occasion
were so great that the correspondent of the leading English
journal finished his description of the event with these high-
sounding words, " This will live in history." That is how
empires are founded among men.
But let that be contrasted with the meeting of a few Gali
lean peasants in an upper room, surrounding a Teacher who,
within a few hours, was to be ruthlessly dragged from their
fellowship and nailed to a cross. Hear him saying unto
them, " I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath
appointed unto me ; that ye may eat and drink at my table
in my kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes
of Israel,"* and you have a vivid idea of the circumstances
* Luke xxii., 29.

The Dream Recovered and Interpreted. 51
in which the proclamation of the " kingdom of heaven " was
made. Poor, despised, contemptible to human view, its sub
jects were — too contemptible at first almost to be perse
cuted, but destined in the end to overcome the world by the
weapon of their love.
Behold that little Jewish -looking man of weak bodily
presence, stepping ashore from the boat which has just
come to the harbor of Neapolis from Troas. He is accom
panied by a travelling doctor and a quiet youth. He asks
some one on the pier to show him the way to Philippi, and
then he sets out in the direction indicated to him. Who is
he ? What is he going to do ? Surely he is nobody of much
importance, and cannot have any great work in charge ! So
we might judge, according to appearance. Yet it is the
apostle Paul, bringing with him the Gospel to Europe, and
going to found Christ's kingdom in the classic land of
Greece. A few days after this, two of these men were in
prison ; and yet, ere they were fixed in the stocks, they had
already smitten the world-image, for in their healing of the
Pythoness and in the conversion of Lydia the evil power of
the world had received the first of that series of blows which
it has been receiving at intervals ever since, and which ere
long shall crush it until it shall become like " the chaff of
the summer threshing-floors."
There is, in the third place, the gradualness of its prog
ress. The stone grew until it became a mountain. Not
all at once was this development made. It was a work of
time. And so in the kingdom which it symbolizes advance
ment was by degrees. Beginning at Jerusalem, its first
preachers sought their earliest converts among their fellow-
countrymen ; but as the seed sloughs off its outward shell
when it begins to grow, the Christian Church very soon put
off its Jewish restrictiveness and found a root in Gentile
cities.

52 Daniel the Beloved.
We see, in the Acts of the Apostles, how, from one centre
of influence to another, Paul went on and up, until at length
he made his way to Rome, and had his converts both in the
" palace of the Ceesars " and in the legions of the Empire.
Then, within a few centuries, it overspread Europe ; and
though during the mediaeval times it seemed to be standing
still, it put forth new energy at the era of the Reformation.
Since that date it has gone on advancing ; but probably the
most rapid strides have been taken by it during the years
of the present century. Almost within the limits of two
generations, the Bible has been translated into two hundred
different languages, and missionaries have gone to the East
and to the West, to the North and to the South, and have
in many instances created a new civilization by their efforts.
Every month, almost, is bringing fresh evidences of their
success ; and within the last few days I have heard tidings
from Japan which have filled my heart with joy. Two years
ago I told from this pulpit the story of Joseph Nee Sima,*
who ran away from Japan in his eagerness to learn, and
came, in the wondrous providence of God, to this country,
where he became a Christian, and was educated as a mis
sionary. He left a few months ago for his native land, and
in the Missionary Herald for Marchf there is a letter de
scribing his welcome in his father's house. His parents
and friends have renounced idolatry ; and he writes, " Be
sides my home friends, my humble labor within three weeks
in this place has been wonderfully blessed. I have preached
several times in a school -house in this town, and also to
small audiences in different families. A week before last
Sabbath I preached to a large audience in a Buddhist tem
ple. All the priests in this community came and listened
* See "David, King of Israel," pp. 128, 129.
t In the year 1875.

The Dream Recovered and Interpreted. 53
to the preaching of the new religion." " Is not my word a
fire, saith the Lord, and a hammer that breaketh the rock in
pieces ?" Here is another smiting process going on. The
mountain is increasing ; for this is but a specimen of what
is going on in many lands ; and soon the oracle of Isaiah
will be fulfilled : " The mountain of the Lord's house shall
be established on the top of the mountains, and all nations
shall flow unto it."
There is, fourthly, its universal extent. The mountain
"filled the whole earth." "The knowledge of the Lord
shall cover the earth." There are few things more clearly
revealed in prophecy than this. Again and again is it de
clared that " all the ends of the earth shall remember and
turn unto the Lord, and all the kindreds of the nations do
homage before him." To the superficial observer, indeed,
it may seem as if this were the most visionary idea that ever
entered the mind of man ; but when he takes a broader and
deeper view, he may see reason to alter his opinion.
Astronomers calculate the orbit and period of a planet by
taking observations of it at different and distant intervals,
and from the comparison of these they can predict with un
erring accuracy both its course and its reappearance. Now,
if we will take our estimate of the future history of the king
dom of Christ on similar principles, we shall be led to re
gard the universal diffusion of the Gospel as among the
most certain of future events. Let your first observation be
in the days of Paul, your second in the time of Constantine,
your third in the era of the Reformers, your fourth in the
generation of the Wesleys and the Whitefields, and your
fifth at the present hour, and you will be led to conclude
that if only the churches of Christ will do their duty aright,
we are not so very far from the universal triumph of the
Gospel. I saw in an English newspaper, the other day, that a

54 Daniel the Beloved.
grain of wheat, which, five years ago, had been picked up
by an admirer of royalty as it fell from the hand of the
Prince of Wales, had, by being sown, produced, in that short
interval, as much as could be drilled into sixteen acres of
land. And if we would only catch as eagerly, and sow as
diligently, the seed that falls from the hand of the Prince
of Peace, we might soon be able with the increase to cover
the whole earth. "There shall be a handful of corn in
the earth on the top of the mountains ; the fruit thereof
shall shake like Lebanon." Ah ! if we but prized our priv
ilege as fellow-workers with God in this matter, we should
be found more fervent in our prayers, more diligent in our
labors, and more liberal in our gifts, for this great cause.
There is, fifthly, the perpetual duration of this kingdom.
" It shall never be destroyed ;" and " it shall not be left
to other people." " No weapon that is formed against it
shall prosper ; and every tongue that riseth up in judgment
against it God will condemn." Often the kings of the earth
have set themselves, and the rulers have taken counsel to
gether, against it, and sometimes it has almost seemed as if
they had destroyed it ; but still, like its great Lord, it has
come forth with new power and majesty from the grave in
which they dreamed it had been buried, and gone forth to
grander triumphs than ever before. All the cruelties that
ingenuity could devise, and all the efforts that earthly power
could put forth, have been tried against it. Men have set
up gibbets and stakes for the destruction of those who were
laboring for its advancement, but in vain. It has in it the
immortality of its Lord. Earthly might can only overthrow
that which is like unto itself. An army may destroy an
army, but by what external power can you annihilate love ?
You may kill the man, but you cannot kill the principle.
Phcenix-like, that will ever rise again from the ashes of the
martyr ; and the persecutor, though to superficial eyes he

The Dream Recovered and Interpreted. 55
seems the victor, does only in reality own himself the van
quished. Thus the perpetuity of this kingdom is intimate
ly associated with its character, and that again with its
origin. Probably no one ever knew more of what imperial power
could effect than did the First Napoleon, and so his testimo
ny may be of value here. " I know men," said he, in con
versation with General Bertrand, " and Jesus Christ is not a
man. Superficial minds see a resemblance betweer^Christ
and the founder of empires and the gods of other religions.
That resemblance does not exist. There is between Christ
and all other religions whatsoever the distance of infinity;
from the first day to the last, he is the same — always the
same, majestic and simple, infinitely firm and infinitely gen
tle." And then he goes on to contrast him with Alexan
der, with Csesar, and with himself, in that they founded their
empires on power, but he on love. The emperor was right ;
and in that difference lies the hope of the world, for love is
a principle which is simply indestructible, and the self-sacri
fice of the cross demonstrates the perpetuity of the throne.

IV.
THE NON-CONFORMISTS OF BABYLON.
Daniel iii.
AFTER the recovery and interpretation of his dream Ly
Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar appears to have been deeply
impressed with the greatness of that God to whose revela
tion of the secret the young captive ascribed his success.
But these feelings soon subsided. They were " as a morn
ing cloud and as the early dew ;" for the next time we hear
of him in the prophet's narrative is in connection with a
magnificent religious festival, which he held at the inaugura
tion of a colossal idol, reared by him in honor of his favor
ite divinity, Bel-Merodach.
Nor need we be surprised at this, as if it were at all un
common among ourselves. Who has not known a history
like this ? By some signal providence, or in some unmis
takable manner, Jehovah has confronted a careless man,
who, startled by the discovery at once of his own littleness
and of God's majesty, has been profoundly moved. Sud
den as a lightning-flash in the night season, the conviction
of the dread reality and importance of eternity has shot
through his soul. He speaks on these momentous matters
as he never did before. He seeks to honor God's minis
ters by every means in his power. In one word, he seems,
to the merely human onlooker, to be thoroughly converted.
But after a while, the impressions which appeared to be so
deep are effaced, and he is seen rearing a huge image, not
necessarily in the shape of a golden statue, but in the form
of some glory, or greatness, or pleasure before which he

The Non-conformists of Babylon. 57
bows himself, and at whose shrine he expects that others
also will do homage.
Let us beware, therefore, lest, in condemning the Babylo
nian monarch here, we be not at the same time pronounc
ing sentence upon ourselves. We profess to believe in
and honor the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ ;
we ascribe to him in words " the greatness, and the power,
and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty ;" we add
our "Amen" to the Doxology, which says, "To him be glo
ry and dominion." But is there no golden image that has
our real allegiance ? Are we not prone to raise even above
Jehovah our success in business, or our pre-eminence in so
ciety, or our position in the State, or our place in the esti
mation of our fellow-men ? Are we not all too apt to reck
on these things, or things like these, the objects of our chief
interest, the ends for which we labor ; yea, the ambitions in
our intense devotion to which we are wearing out our lives
" in a melancholy and thankless martyrdom ?" While, there
fore, we are thoroughly alive to the sin of Nebuchadnezzar
here, let us search and see that no similar idol has a place
in our hearts or in our homes, in our counting-rooms or in
our stores, in our churches or in our pulpits.
The date of the erection of this image by Nebuchadnez
zar is not mentioned in the record ; but some have supposed
that several years elapsed between the events narrated in
the second chapter and those now introduced to the reader.
Prideaux* places the holding of this high festival after Neb
uchadnezzar's return from the destruction of Jerusalem with
the blinded Zedekiah among his captives ; and it is by no
means improbable that he meant on that special occasion
to exalt his god above the Jehovah of the Hebrews.
* " Connection of the History of the Old and New Testament," vol. i.,
p. 82. 3*

58 Daniel the Beloved.
The image was of gold. If this means that it was com
posed of a solid mass of the precious metal, then an enor
mous amount of treasure must have been required for its
construction. Still, taking the resources of the empire into
consideration, there is no impossibility involved even in that
view of the case. But as the very terms here employed are
elsewhere used to denote that which was simply overlaid
with gold,* we may conclude that this immense image was
formed of wood covered with a thin layer of gold.
Its height was sixty cubits and its breadth six cubits ; but
as the length of the cubit is uncertain, it is impossible to
determine with accuracy what these figures would represent
in feet and inches. The proportion of the height to the
breadth is as ten to one ; but as the usual ratio in the case
of the human figure is that of six to one, it is conjectured
that the number sixty here includes the height of the pedes
tal as well as that of the image, properly so called.
The idol was set up in the plain of Dura, which, as it is
said to belong to the province of Babylon, must be sought
for in the neighborhood of the city. For this reason I can
not accept the view of those who would identify it with the
place called Dur, on the left bank of the Tigris, and one
hundred and twenty miles from Babylon. More probable
is the opinion of Oppert, who thinks he has found the scene
of this festival in the vicinity of the mound of Dowair, or
Duair, where also he discovered the pedestal of a colossal
statue. t
To the inauguration of this great image Nebuchadnezzar
summoned representatives from all the provinces of his em
pire, in the persons of those who held high office under him.
* See Pusey's " Lectures on Daniel the Prophet," p. 445, note ; also
Fairbairn's " Dictionary," article Nebuchadnezzar ; Exod. xxx., I, 3 ;
xxxix., 38.
t Smith's " Dictionary," sub voce.

The Non-conformists of Babylon. 59
Much ingenious antiquarian research has been expended on
the investigation of the particular grade of office denoted
by each term employed in the second and third verses of
this chapter ; but it would serve no good purpose to enter
upon such a subject here. Let it be merely remarked that
it was the Babylonian custom to leave over each conquered
province a prince belonging to the vanquished nation, while
they and the peoples whom they governed were brought un
der tribute to the empire. Thus even after the captivity of
Judah, the rulers of that province were Jews, most of whom
belonged to the royal family, though some of them were of
inferior rank. Now, this peculiarity in the nationality of
these officials will, I think, give us an insight into the mo
tive of Nebuchadnezzar in bringing them together at this
time, and commanding them to worship the image which he
had set up. He wished to assert his sovereignty over them,
and, through them, over all his subjects in the most absolute
manner. He knew, moreover, that nothing so contributes
to the perpetuation of nationality, and the desire for inde
pendence in a conquered province, as the maintenance of
its old historic religion, hallowed to the people by the as
sociations of the past. So, wishing to weld the many king
doms of his empire into one homogeneous whole, he deter
mined to ask from them all conformity to the idol-worship
which he himself preferred. No doubt, therefore, this re
ligious service had a political design. It was not merely
his enthusiasm for his god, though that was great, that im
pelled Nebuchadnezzar to make the decree which gathered
all his subordinates to the plain of Dura. His religious fer
vor, as in the case of multitudes since his day, was subordi
nated to imperial policy ; and unity of worship was sought
only that it might contribute to the political unity of the
empire. Some, indeed, have thought that the image here set up

60 Daniel the Beloved.
was designed to symbolize the monarch himself ; and it is
beyond doubt that among the Persians, as in later days
among the Romans, the emperor was invested with a sort
of quasi-divinity ; but it is more in harmony with what we
know of Nebuchadnezzar from other sources to suppose
that he intended this idol to represent Bel-Merodach. Mr.
Rawlinson, whose brother has earned for himself a world
wide reputation in connection with the deciphering of the
cuneiform inscriptions on the Assyrian monuments, thus
speaks of the description given in these old stone books of
this king : " We can only observe as peculiar to Nebuchad
nezzar a disposition to rest his fame on his great works
rather than on his military achievements ; and a strong re
ligious spirit manifesting itself especially in a direction
which is almost exclusive to one particular god. Though
his own tutelary deity and that of his father was Nebo (Mer
cury), yet his worship, his ascriptions of praise, his thanks
givings, have in almost every case for their object the god
Merodach. Under his protection he placed his son Evil-
Merodach. Merodach is ' his lord ;' his ' great lord ;' the
' joy of his heart ;' the great lord who has appointed him to
the empire of the world, and has confided to his care the far-
spread people of the earth ; the great lord who has estab
lished him in strength, etc. One of the first of his own titles
is, 'he who pays homage to Merodach.' Even when restor
ing the temples of other deities, he ascribes the work to the
suggestion of Merodach, and places it under his protection.
We may hence explain the appearance of a sort of mono
theism mixed with polytheism in the Scriptural notices of
him. While admitting a qualified divinity in Nebo, Nana,
and other deities of his country, he maintained the real
monarchy of Bel-Merodach. He was to him ' the supreme
chief of the gods ;' the most ancient, the king of the heav
ens and the earth. It was his image or symbol undoubted-

The Non-conformists of Babylon. 6i
ly which was set up in the plain of Dura, and his house in
which the sacred vessels of the Temple were treasured. He
seems at some times to have identified this his supreme
god with the God of the Jews, and at other times to have
regarded the Jewish God as one of the local and inferior
divinities over whom Merodach ruled."*
Thus, his religious proselytism combined with his politi
cal ambition to stimulate him to convoke this great assem
bly, and to call on every one present at it to worship the
image which he had set up.
The signal for the worshipping of this huge idol was to
be given by the sounds of music. Over the names of these
instruments in the original, great learned warfare has been
waged, and much ink has been shed. Some of them, it has
been alleged, are of Greek origin ; and, as the Greek lan
guage was not known at that early date in Babylon, it fol
lows — so objectors reason — that the Book of Daniel, in
which these terms are found, could not have been written
until the times of the Maccabees, when Greek words and
Greek instruments were well known among the Jews. The
answers to this argument may be seen at large in Dr. Pu-
sey's " Lectures on Daniel the Prophet."t I content myself
now with giving you the gist of the matter in the following
sentences : " Asia, from the Tigris westward, was systemati
cally intersected with lines of commerce. Sardis and Baby
lon were professedly luxurious. It were rather a marvel if
the golden, music-loving city had not gathered to itself for
eign musical instruments of all sorts, or if, in a religious in
auguration at Babylon, all the variety of music which it could
command had not been united to grace the festival and bear
along the minds and imaginations of the people. The Greek
* Smith's " Dictionary," article Nebuchadnezzar.
t Pusey's " Lectures on Daniel the Prophet," pp. 24-33.

62 Daniel the Beloved.
names are but another instance of the old recognized fact
that the name of an import travejs with the thing. There is
nothing stranger in our finding Greek instruments of music
in Nebuchadnezzar's time at Babylon than in the Indian
names of Indian animals and of an Indian tree having
reached Jerusalem under Solomon."*
When these musical instruments were sounded, there was
to be a universal prostration before the image ; and if any
one refused to render this homage, he was " in the same
hour " to be cast into a burning fiery furnace. This was a
punishment distinctively Babylonian, just as the placing of
men in the dens of wild animals was a cruelty distinctively
Persian ; and so, in the nature of the penalty here denounced
against disobedience we have an incidental corroboration of
the authenticity of the history. We know nothing of the
sort of furnace that is here referred to, and cannot tell
whether it had any resemblance to our modern smelting
fires. As its intensity could be increased by the employ
ment of certain means not here specified, it would seem to
have been enclosed in some way ; as four persons could
walk to and fro in it, we conclude that it must have been of
immense size ; and as these persons could be seen in it by
spectators who were far enough away from it to be beyond
the reach of harm from it, we infer that it must have been
so placed as to be open to the inspection of persons at a
distance. It was a fearful thing to face ; but even with this
dreadful fate before them, there were some who had the
courage to refuse obedience to the king's command. Dan
iel's three friends, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, would
not bow the knee to the image which the king had erected.
They were willing, in all civil things, to be good, law-abiding
subjects of Nebuchadnezzar ; but in a matter of this sort,
* Pusey's " Lectures on Daniel the Prophet," pp. 26, 27.

The Non-conformists of Babylon. 63
they felt that they owed allegiance to a higher King, who
had said to them, " Thou shalt have no other gods before
me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or
any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is
in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth :
thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them ;"*
and so, without making any great demonstration of their
procedure, they simply refrained from doing as the king re
quired. But keen-eyed Envy was closely watching how they would
conduct themselves. Their rapid elevation to posts of hon
or and emolument, over the heads of many older men, had
made them many enemies. When, therefore, it was ob
served that they did not fall down and worship the image,
certain of the Chaldeans, moved with jealousy, and forget
ful of the fact that they themselves had owed their lives on
a former occasion to the interposition of Daniel and his
friends, informed the monarch of their contumacy.
When he heard their report, Nebuchadnezzar was en
raged. Here was a defying of his authority by those who,
he perhaps imagined, owed more to him than many others,
and so their disobedience might wear, in his eyes, the color
of ingratitude. But he would not be in haste. He would
give them another opportunity to consider their position be
fore he consigned them to the fire. Hence he closely ques
tioned them, and issued anew the command that at the ap
pointed signal they should' prostrate themselves before the
image, saying also, in the haughtiness of his heart, " 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 who is that God
that shall deliver you out of my hands ?"
* Exod. xx., 3-5.

64 Daniel the Beloved.
But they were still unmoved, and said, in the strength of
their faith, " We are not careful to answer thee in this mat
ter. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver
us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out
of thine hand, O King. But if not, be it known unto thee,
O King, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the
golden image which thou hast set up."
This answer, so calm, so dignified, so courageous, filled
the monarch with such rage that he commanded that the
furnace should be heated seven times more than it was
wont to be heated, and after the three young men had been
bound, he ordered that they should be cast into the fire, the
heat of which was so great that the men who flung them
into the furnace were themselves consumed.
And now it might have been thought that there was an
end of the matter ; but no ! for as the king looked on he
saw the three men begin to move about in the furnace, ac
companied by a fourth, whose aspect was so heavenly that
he seemed to him to be like a " son of the gods." The sin
gularity of the spectacle filled Nebuchadnezzar with aston
ishment and dismay ; and going as near as he could to the
mouth of the furnace, he cried, " Shadrach, Meshach, and
Abednego, ye servants of the most high God, come forth
and come hither ;" and they came forth unharmed, for the
fire had no power over their bodies, " nor was an hair of
their head singed, neither were their coats changed, nor had
the smell of fire passed upon them."
And who was this mysterious one, the fourth in the fire,
to whom, as it would seem, they owed their deliverance ?
Nebuchadnezzar, describing him, says, " The form of the
fourth is like the son of God." Now, this language would
almost make it appear that the king knew something of the
Messiah who is called in the Old Testament sometimes by
this name ; but when we give the literal translation, " the

The Non-conformists of Babylon. 65
form of the fourth is like a son of the gods," we see that he
was speaking like a heathen, and meant only to describe
the dignified and exalted deportment of him whom he thus
characterized. Still, though the Babylonian monarch had no conception
of the Messiah, and, indeed, thought of this person (as we
see in verse twenty-eight) as an angel, we have no doubt
whatever that he was " the angel of the covenant," of whom
we so often read in the Hebrew Scriptures, and whose ap
pearances were in reality so many anticipations of the In
carnation in the person of Christ. He with whom Abra
ham pleaded for guilty Sodom, and with whom Jacob wres
tled at Peniel till the dawning of the day ; he whose fiery
glory filled the bush without consuming it as Moses turned
aside to see the sight ; he who appeared to Joshua as the
captain of the host of the Lord, and to Manoah and his
wife as the wonderful one ; he who spoke to Gideon at the
wine-press of Ophrah, and to David at the threshing-floor
of Araunah, was the same great and gracious one who
walked in the furnace with his persecuted servants here,
and was the second person of the glorious Trinity. To
him, therefore, to whom we are beholden for our great sal
vation, these Hebrew non - conf ormists were indebted for
their miraculous deliverance, and so the king was not wrong
in ascribing to him the glory of their safety; though he is
not to be commended in the fact that he sought to enforce
the duty of reverencing the name of Jehovah by civil pains
and penalties, not less reprehensible in kind, though less
cruel in degree, than those which he had denounced on such
as would not worship his image.
But where was Daniel all this while ? Some have sup
posed that he was present, and was one of those who re
fused to bow the knee to the idol, but that his enemies,
knowing his position with the monarch, feared to bring

66 Daniel the Beloved.
an accusation against him first, and so began with his
three friends, reserving him for a subsequent attack. But
I cannot accept that explanation. Daniel was altogether
too noble a man and too chivalrous a friend to seek to es
cape in such a way. I am confident that if he had been
present, he would at once have taken his place beside his
former companions, and identified himself with their cause.
Hence I rather believe that he was absent from Babylon at
this time on some business of importance, and so was pre
vented from bearing testimony with his fellow-students to
the unity and spirituality of God, and standing out against
the sin of idolatry. Perhaps, too, his absence may help to
account for the forwardness of the Chaldeans to present
their impeachment. But however we may account for the
silence of the record regarding him, we may be altogether
certain that there was no trimming about him, and that no
stain of dishonor rested on him for his non-appearance at
this time. He was not the man to be ashamed of his Lord.
And now, passing from the mere exposition of the narra
tive, let us read its lessons in the light of modern life.
We have here, in the first place, a specimen of religious
intolerance. God alone is " Lord of the conscience." A
man's faith and worship are things which lie between him
self and his Creator. What I shall believe concerning God,
and how I shall worship God, no man may presume to de
termine for me. These are matters for myself alone ; and
no one, whether friend or foe, whether priest or king, has
any authority in that domain. This liberty is my birthright
as a man. My conscience is my glory ; and to enslave that,
if it were possible, would make me ten thousand times more
a bondman than to chain me to the galley, or to consign me
to weary drudgery under some task-master's eye. The lat
ter is the slavery of the body ; the former is an inthralment
of the soul. Therefore all arguments that tell against

The Non-conformists of Babylon. 67
slave-holding tell with increased power against religious in
tolerance. But to the Christian it wears also a sacrilegious
aspect. He regards himself as "not his own." He keeps
his conscience, therefore, for Christ. Hence religious intol
erance is to him not only an interference with individual
liberty, but also an infringement of the right of Christ to
the absolute sovereignty of his soul. No doubt it may be
said that Christians are commanded to be " subject to the
higher powers ;" and they are told that " whosoever resisteth
the power, resisteth the ordinance of God." But we must
interpret the precept of the Apostles by their practice. Now
we find Peter saying before the Jewish rulers, " We ought to
obey God rather than man ;" and we know that Paul at last
endured a martyr's death, because he would not, at the bid
ding of the Roman Emperor, abjure the Lord Jesus as his
Redeemer and King.
These precepts which I have quoted from the apostolic
epistles have respect to civil things, for which alone civil
government was instituted, and in which alone it can find
its legitimate province. In the matter of religion, the State
has no authority, and it ought, therefore, to leave every man
to his own conscience. The kingdoms and communities of
the world have been long in learning these principles ; and
there is hardly a nation or even a religious denomination
now existing which has not at some point in its past history
been guilty of practising, or of advocating, persecution for
the holding of some peculiar religious opinions. The Prot
estants may not imagine that Roman Catholics alone have
indulged in it; nor are the hands of the Puritans them
selves clean in this matter. But now let us hope that we
are entering upon a new epoch ; and as we execrate here
the tyranny of Nebuchadnezzar, let us resolve that we shall
never be parties to the attempt, by whomsoever made, to
coerce the consciences of men by denouncing civil pains

68 Daniel the Beloved.
and penalties upon them for the holding of certain religious
beliefs. But, in the second place, we see here how religious intol
erance is to be met. These three young men simply refused
to do what Nebuchadnezzar commanded; or, in modern
phrase, they met his injunction with "passive resistance."
The clear issue raised in their minds was this, " God says
one thing, but Nebuchadnezzar says another : which shall
we obey ?" And they could not hesitate a moment for a
reply. Some might have said to them, " You make too
much of it ; here is only a question of loyalty to the king.
Your bowing before the image is not understood as an act
of worship to it, but as an act of honor and obedience to
the monarch. And surely, after all he has done for you, it
will be ungracious to refuse that." But they would not tol
erate any such casuistry. Nebuchadnezzar already knew
their loyalty. They had shown that in more substantial
ways to him. But this thing was simply and only idolatry,
and they would not dishonor God in order to be loyal to
the King of Babylon. They did not attack his position.
They simply said " No " to him, and they said it as if they
meant to abide by it.
Now, with similar firmness and humility we should meet
intolerance yet. It has often been debated whether on re
ligious grounds alone subjects or citizens would be war
ranted in taking up arms against the government of a coun
try ; and with the cases of the English Puritans and Scot
tish Covenanters before my mind, I will not undertake to
decide it one way or other. But there is no such difficulty
about passive resistance. That is always justifiable ; nay,
it is always demanded of us when conscience is outraged, if,
at least, we would not be guilty of high treason against him
who is our rightful Lord.
The noble spirits who composed the Society of Friends

The Non-conformists of Babylon. 69
were among the earliest in more modern times to under
stand the meaning of " liberty of conscience," and to vindi
cate it, not only for themselves, but also for those who dif
fered from them. Their great instrument was passive re
sistance, and working on with that, they became the pio
neers of progress in the march of the nations toward perfect
religious freedom. We may smile occasionally at the oddity
of their dress or at the quaintness of their speech ; we may
think, too, that they carry some of their principles a shade
too far. But they have taught us all what liberty of con
science means ; and by their quiet bearing, as they refused
obedience to odious commands, they have shown us how in
tolerance is to be met. Let us give honor to the broad-brim
for this ; and in these days, when a British statesman has
dealt a crushing blow to the arrogant pretensions of the Vat
ican, and eloquently defined the boundary between civil alle
giance and loyalty to conscience, let us not forget the early
martyrs, to whom, in this matter, we are all indebted — men
" Who lived unknown till persecution
Dragged them into fame, and chased them
Up to heaven ; whose bloodwas shed
In confirmation of the noblest claim —
Our claim to feed upon immortal truth,
To soar, and to anticipate the skies."
We have here, thirdly, an illustration of the support which
Jesus gives to his followers, when they are called to suffer
for his sake. These three young men were entirely deliv
ered, even as Peter was taken out of the prison at a later
day. But God's servants are not always brought out thus
from their tribulations. Still, they are always supported
through them. What is the martyrology of the Church but
just a commentary on these words, " My grace is sufficient
for thee ; my strength is made perfect in weakness ?" From
the days when Paul and Silas sung at midnight in the pris
on at Philippi, down to those when the Christians in Mada-

70 Daniel the Beloved.
gascar met in the woods, and sung their hymns in whispers,
lest their enemies might hear, we have a long series of in
stances, all tending to show that God is with his people in
the furnace and supports them through it. If we may not
say that he has always delivered them from their enemies,
we can say that he has always advanced his kingdom in
and through their sufferings. To such an extent has this
been the case that the words of Tertullian have passed into
a proverb : " The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the
Church." You have sometimes seen that the death of a Christian
has, through his calm, quiet faith and hopeful, loving words,
brought life to the souls of those who stood around his bed.
So the deaths of the martyrs drew men's attention to the
truth, for holding which they died. The very flames which
burned them unbound their testimony, and sent it over the
world, to tell of Jesus and his grace.
What the historian of the Scottish Reformation says
about its protomartyr, Patrick Hamilton — namely, that
" the smoke of his burning infected all on whom it blew "
¦ — is true of every martyrdom in some measure. It is thus
bad policy in a civil government to persecute for religious
opinions. It is what Talleyrand said is worse than a crime
— a blunder. For if the victim believe error, then persecu
tion gives him and his cause an importance which would
not otherwise belong to it ; and if he believe the truth, no
human power can overthrow that, for it is immortal with the
immortality of God.
But, in the fourth place, we see here that, in the matter of
religious intolerance, as well as in some other things, the
opposite of wrong is not always right. Nebuchadnezzar
gave up the attempt to coerce these three valiant men.
That was well ; but he issued an edict in reference to Je
hovah which had in it elements not less objectionable than
his command to worship the image or his threat to put the

The Non-conformists of Babylon. 71
disobedient into the furnace of fire. He had no more right
to cut men in pieces for speaking evil of Jehovah than he
had to put Shadrach and his companions into the flames
for not worshipping his image. Both edicts were alike un
justifiable; and, as the subject has come thus incidentally
before us, we may take advantage of the opportunity for
bringing into prominence the great principles on which re
ligious liberty rests, and in the maintenance of which it is
to be preserved.
They are these four : first, that every citizen shall have
perfect liberty to worship God according to his conscience ;
second, that the State shall protect every citizen in the en
joyment of that liberty so far as it does not interfere with
the rights and liberties of others ; third, that no citizen shall,
in civil matters, be subjected to any disability on the ground
of his religious belief ; fourth, that no citizen shall have, in
civil things, a preference given to him on the ground of his
religious profession or belief.
It is in relation to the last of these that the danger of
the present lies. That is the outermost bastion, which has
been thrown up for the defence of the great citadel of free
dom. There the first onslaught will be made, if it should
ever be again attacked. There, therefore, let us be special
ly on our guard. Let us accept nothing for ourselves which
we are not willing to give fully to others ; and let us see to
it that others are not buttressed and strengthened by the
State simply and only on the ground of their religious
creed. In one word, let us insist that the executive of the
State shall confine itself to civil matters, and treat all relig
ious denominations with neutrality by letting them all se
verely alone. All colors are alike in the dark ; and all
creeds will be alike to the State when, and only when, no
church receives a single penny of its funds for any purpose
whatsoever, and no citizen receives a boon of any sort sim
ply and only for his religious creed.

V.
PRIDE ABASED.
Daniel iv.
THE fourth chapter of the Book of Daniel consists of
a decree published by Nebuchadnezzar, after he had
passed through a series of most remarkable experiences ;
and we may, perhaps, have the clearest idea of its meaning
and design, if we weave into a consecutive narrative the dif
ferent incidents to which it refers.
After this Babylonian monarch had finished his military
career by conquering all his enemies, he set himself to im
prove his territory, and beautify his capital with all the re
sources which he had accumulated. Whatever wealth could
procure, or skill devise, or labor accomplish, was obtained
by him for his country and his metropolis, until, at length,
Babylon was ranked among the wonders of the world.
Much had been done for that ancient city by Ninus and
Semiramis, and even before the days of Nebuchadnezzar it
was numbered among the grandest places on the surface of
the earth ; yet what the Rome of Augustus was to the Rome
of the Republic, or what Paris under the last Napoleon was
to Paris in the days of the first Revolution, that, only per
haps on a larger and more gorgeous scale, was Babylon
under Nebuchadnezzar to Babylon as it existed before his
days. That we may see the truth of this statement, let us take
a description of the city in its greatest splendor, and then
mark how much of it is traced by ancient writers to the
monarch of whom we speak.

Pride Abased. 73
The city stood on the river Euphrates, by which it is di
vided into two parts, Eastern and Western, and these were
connected by a bridge of wonderful construction. " The
wall was at least sixty miles in circumference, and would, of
course, include an area three times as large as that covered
by London and its appendages. It was laid out in six hun
dred and twenty-five squares, formed by the intersection of
twenty-five streets at right angles. The walls, which were
of brick, were at least seventy-five feet high and thirty-two
broad. A trench surrounded the city, the sides of which
were lined with brick and water-proof cement."* Now, the
Eastern, or older, part of the city Nebuchadnezzar repaired
and beautified throughout ; the Western portion he added
entirely himself; and the bridge which connected the two
was of his construction. Besides these, he surrounded the
entire city with several new lines of fortification, and con
structed a new palace adjoining the old residence of his
father. In the grounds of his palace he erected those
hanging - gardens which were the marvel of the ancient
world. His wife, having been brought up in Media, de
sired something to remind her of her native land ; and for
her satisfaction he constructed a raised terrace, on the
summit of which were flowers and pleasure-grounds of the
most beautiful description. This terrace is described as
having been a square four hundred feet each way, and
raised to an elevation of seventy-five feet above the ground.
It was approached by sloping walks, and supported by a
series of arched galleries increasing in height from the base
to the summit. In these galleries were various chambers,
one of which contained the engines by which water was
raised from the river to the surface of the mound.
Nor are we dependent on the testimony of ancient histo-
* Eadie's " Cyclopaedia," article Babylon.
4

74 Daniel the Beloved.
rians alone for these particulars. The Standard Inscription,
referred to in my last discourse, relates at length the con
struction of the whole series of works, and appears to have
been the authority from which Berosus drew; while the
ruins of Babylon at this date, covering as they do an area
of two hundred square miles, confirm this in the most de
cisive manner, for nine-tenths of the bricks found there are
stamped with Nebuchadnezzar's name.
But his buildings were not confined to the city of Baby
lon. "I have examined," says Sir Henry Rawlinson, "the
bricks in situ belonging, perhaps, to a hundred different towns
and cities in the neighborhood of Bagdad, and I never found
any other legend than that of Nebuchadnezzar, son of Na
bopolassar, King of Babylon." Hence we may believe that
throughout. his empire he built or rebuilt cities, repaired
temples, constructed quays, reservoirs, canals, and aqueducts
on a scale of grandeur and magnificence surpassing every
thing of the kind recorded in history, unless it be the pub
lic works of one or two of the greatest Egyptian monarchs.
There is also reason to conclude that an extensive system
of irrigation was devised by him, and that the Babylonians
were indebted to him for the vast net-work of canals which
covered the whole alluvial tract between the two rivers (Ti
gris and Euphrates), and extended on the right bank of the
Euphrates to the extreme verge of the stony desert.*
After all this building activity, and with a large amount
of self-satisfaction at the completion of so many of his
plans, the king was at rest in his palace, when a dream
came to him in the visions of the night which made him
sore afraid. As on the former occasion, he sent for the
Chaldeans, and asked them to interpret it after he had told
them what it was ; for this time the thing had so deeply
* Smith's "Dictionary," article Nebuchadnezzar.

Pride Abased. 75
burned itself upon his brain that he had not been able to
forget it, and did not, therefore, need that it should be re
produced. The vision was on this wise. He saw in the midst of
the earth a tree, which grew so great that its height reached
unto the heavens, and it was a conspicuous object even to
the uttermost bound of the horizon. Its leaves were fair,
and its fruit abundant. It gave shelter to the beasts of the
field which gathered underneath its spreading boughs, and
to the fowls of the air which built their nests in its leafy
branches, and it afforded food to all who dwelt in its vicini
ty. At length, however, an angelic being made his appear
ance, and gave commandment that it should be hewn down,
yet not so that it should be entirely destroyed, for its root
was to be left in the earth. But at this stage of his injunc
tion, the angel's language ceases to be applicable to a tree,
and becomes such as could be fulfilled only in the case of
a man : " Let his heart be changed from a man's, and let a
beast's heart be given unto him ; and let seven times pass
over him. This matter is by the decree of the watchers,
and the demand by the word of the holy ones; to the intent
that the living may know that the Most High ruleth in the
kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will, and
setteth up over it the basest of men."
There is in all this much of that incongruity which is
characteristic of dreams ; yet the turn of the angel's words,
whereby he indicated that the tree represented a man, and
the moral purpose of the whole, as expressed in his conclud
ing phrases, could not but impress the heart of Nebuchad
nezzar ; and even before he had received the interpretation
from Daniel, his conscience must have whispered that the
tree was designed to represent himself. Just as, at a later
day, the trembling of Belshazzar, when he saw the handwrit
ing on the wall, was itself an interpretation, or, rather, the

76 Daniel the Beloved.
consequences of an interpretation, already made by himself
of the mysterious characters, so the anxiety of Nebuchad
nezzar here was the result of an application to himself of
this singular vision. But his conscience gave him only a
vague presentiment of its real meaning. So, wishing to dis
cover the particular significance of each part of his dream,
and regarding it as a revelation from Heaven, he sent for
the Chaldeans to give him the explanation. One wonders
that, after his former experience, he did not send for Daniel
at once. But many years had elapsed since the date of the
interpretation of the former dream, and the vivid impression
made upon his mind at that time of the pre-eminence of
Daniel's God had been effaced ; so he resorted to the ac
credited source of light in his empire. But the Chaldeans
were again at fault. They could riot explain this dream, any
more than they could reproduce the former.
At the last, however, Daniel, apparently without having
been sent for, presented himself to the monarch, and after
having heard the dream, he was so grieved at its meaning
that he sat speechless for an hour, and only regained the
power of utterance to say with the sincerest emotion, " My
lord, the dream be to them that hate thee, and the interpre
tation thereof to thine enemies." He then, after recapitu
lating the various objects in the vision, gave the interpreta
tion thus : " They shall drive thee from men, and thy dwell
ing shall be with the beasts of the field, and they shall make
thee to eat grass as oxen, and they shall wet thee with the
clew of heaven, and seven times shall pass over thee, till
thou know that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of
men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will." Then, passing
from the interpreter to the counsellor, the faithful prophet,
valuing the welfare of the monarch more than Iris good
opinion for the moment, and fearing degradation for him
more than the loss of favor for himself, added these words,

Pride Abased. 77
which are not more remarkable for the courtesy of their
tone than for the sternness of their fidelity : " Wherefore, O
king, let my counsel be acceptable unto thee, and break off
thy sins by righteousness, and thine iniquities by showing-
mercy to the poor, if it may be a lengthening of thy tran
quillity." We do not know how this wise advice was received. Per
haps the monarch was too thankful to obtain an explana
tion of his dream to quarrel with the moral precepts of him
who had interpreted it, and so, while inwardly chafing at the
rebuke which was implied in Daniel's words, he may have
smothered his indignation for the time, and allowed his ser
vant to go as unreproved as he was unrewarded. But, how
ever he felt at the moment, we know that no improvement
characterized either his disposition or his conduct. For a
full year things went on as before, and perhaps the king
may have been congratulating himself that for once Dan
iel was wrong in his interpretation, or that the dream had
no special significance. But though God's retribution may
come slowly, it comes surely, and ere long all that Daniel
had described was realized.
Looking forth from his palace over the city which he had
done so much to beautify, extend, and fortify, he was in the
very act of giving utterance to the pride with which his
heart was swelling, when a great calamity came upon him.
Scarcely had he 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 honor of my majesty ?" when a voice
from heaven fell upon his ear repeating Daniel's prophecy.
In the terror produced by this divine communication, his
reason was dethroned, and he went forth a wretched mani
ac, leaving his kingdom to be cared for by his son, and liv
ing for seven times — that is, as some think, for seven years,
after the manner of the beasts of the field.

78 Daniel the Beloved.
Much has been written by commentators in all ages on
this illness of Nebuchadnezzar ; but it is generally agreed,
from the use of these words in reference to his recovery,
"Mine understanding returned unto me," that he became
insane ; and, from the description of the condition to which
he was reduced, physiologists have concluded that he was
afflicted with that species of madness in which " the sufferer,
while retaining his c'onsciousness in other respects, imagines
himself to be changed into some animal, and acts up to a
certain point in conformity with that persuasion. Those
who imagined themselves changed into wolves howled like
wolves, and (falsely, as there is reason to believe) accused
themselves of bloodshed. Others imitated the cries of
dogs."* The disease goes by the generic name of zoan-
thropia. In the case before us, Nebuchadnezzar fancied himself
an ox, and acted in conformity with that imagination, eating
grass among the cattle, and remaining exposed in the fields
to all weathers, until his hair became like the feathers of an
eagle in length and matted consistency, and his nails like
the claws of a bird. All this while, however, there must
have been within him somewhat of a consciousness of his

* Pusey's " Lectures on Daniel the Prophet," pp. 428, 429. In the
Bohn's Library edition of " Izaak Walton's Complete Angler," which I
was consulting lately for quite another purpose, I find the following note
on p. 166, by the American editor : " Among the many strange delu
sions which have afflicted men, that of supposing themselves trans
formed into brutes of various kinds, such as horses, dogs, wolves, or
others, has been so frequent as to give names to several forms of mania,
classed by Sauvages in his ' Nosology ' under the general head of Zoan-
thropy. Raulin affirms that a whole cloister of nuns imagined them
selves to be cats, mewing, etc., as such. A few years since there might
have been seen, in the hospital of Bellevue, New York, a man who fan
cied himself to be a hog, and had attained singular skill in grunting as
he rolled among the straw in his cell."

Pride Abased. 79
real identity, which must, one would think, have intensified
to him the misery of his malady.
Dr. Pusey, in his " Lectures on Daniel," quotes the follow
ing sentences on this point from Dr. Browne, the Commis
sioner of the Board of Lunacy for Scotland, who speaks
from an experience of thirty years : " My opinion is," says
he, " that of all mental powers or conditions the idea of per
sonal identity is but rarely enfeebled, and that it is never
extinguished. The ego (self) and non ego (not self) may be
confused. The ego, however, continues to preserve the per
sonality. All the angels, devils, dukes, lords, kings, gods,
many that I have had under my care, remained what they
were before they became angels, dukes, etc., in a sense, and
even nominally. I have seen a man declaring himself the
Saviour, or St. Paul, yet sign his own name James Thomson,
and attend worship as regularly as if the notion of Divinity
had never entered into his head. I think it probable, there
fore, because consistent with experience in similar forms
of mental affection, that Nebuchadnezzar retained a perfect
consciousness that he was Nebuchadnezzar during the whole
course of his degradation."*
Some have supposed that the band of iron and brass
which was to be put round the stump of the tree symbolizes
the mode of restraint to which the maniac monarch was sub
jected, inasmuch as he was probably bound in chains, either
to keep him from inflicting injury upon himself, or to pre
vent him from doing harm to others. But whether he was
bound thus, or whether he was permitted to wander at his
will among the cattle of the fields, we must equally see how
much cause for gratitude we in these days have in the fact
that, owing to the advance of medical science, insanity is
recognized as a disease, just as much and as really as a
* Pusey's " Lectures on Daniel the Prophet," pp. 430, 435.

80 Daniel the Beloved.
fever is, and that those who are afflicted with it are in the
main treated with gentleness, and in such a way as shall
best conduce to the restoration of health to the brain. It
is always a terrible affliction ; it is indeed, in my view, the
most painful form of disease to which our complex human
ity is liable ; and when one sees a man endowed with such
strength of mind as Nebuchadnezzar possessed, yet reduced
to such a pitiable condition, one is led to thank God as he
never did before for the continuance of his reason, and to
pray that he may be preserved from similar distress. For
if Dr. Browne's idea that the king kept all through the con
sciousness that he was Nebuchadnezzar be correct, his ago
ny must at times have been most acute ; and if this were
the time or place, or if it were needed to bring out more
forcibly the point on which I am now insisting, we might
quote from the recorded experience of others in similar cir
cumstances, how bitterly they felt the humiliation of their
condition. What an anguish it was now and then to Rob
ert Hall, with that noble intellect of his, to awake to the
fact, as he sometimes did after a paroxysm of madness, 'that
he had become so irrational ! And similar shocks of agony
must have gone through the heart of Nebuchadnezzar dur
ing his time of affliction.
But, after the seven times had gone, the king lifted up his
eyes unto heaven, and his understanding came to him again,
but came in a form more clear than before, for now he per
ceived that his greatness was not all his own. He discov
ered that he had nothing which he had not received, and he
was disposed to give to the Most High God the glory of,
all that he was, and all that he had done. With this rec
ognition of the King eternal, immortal, and invisible, the
only wise God, his reason came to him, and the glory of
his kingdom and the honor and the brightness of his
court were restored, and his "counsellors and his lords

Pride Abased. 81
sought again to him, and he was established in his king
dom." It has been thought a strange thing that no record of
this mental eclipse of Nebuchadnezzar should be found in
the ancient historians of his times. But the silence of these
authors may, perhaps, be thus accounted for. Berosus, be
ing himself a native of Babylon, and having what one may
call a pardonable pride in the greatness of Nebuchadnezzar,
the most illustrious monarch of the empire, may have been
tempted to suppress this incident, lest it should seem to
mar the splendor of his renown ; and as for Herodotus, he
did not visit Babylon till one hundred years after the death
of Nebuchadnezzar, and it may well be doubted if he ever
heard anything about that monarch's madness. But recent
ly a portion of the great Standard Inscription, among the
Cuneiform memorials of the empire, has been brought to
light by Rawlinson, which, to say the least of it, seems to
contain an allusion to the singular hiatus in his reign which
his lunacy produced. I quote the passage as it is given in
Smith's " Dictionary of the Bible :"
" After describing the construction of the most important
of his great works, he appears to say, ' For four years the
seat of my kingdom did not rejoice my heart. In all my
dominions I did not build a high place of power ; the pre
cious treasures of my kingdom I did not lay up. In Baby
lon, buildings for myself and for the honor of my kingdom
I did not lay out, In the worship of Merodach, my lord,
the joy of my heart, in Babylon, the seat of his sovereignty,
and the seat of my empire, I did not sing his praises ; I did
not furnish his altars with victims, nor did I clear out the
canals.' Other negative clauses follow. It is plain that
we have here narrated a suspension, apparently fox four
years, of all those works and occupations on which the king
especially prided himself— his temples, palaces, worship, of-
4*

82 Daniel the Beloved.
ferings, and works of irrigation ; and though the cause of
the suspension is not stated, we can scarcely imagine any
thing that would account for it but some such extraordinary
malady as that recorded in Daniel."* To say the least of
it, we have here a very singular coincidence, and we may
fairly enough adduce this strange passage from the Stand
ard Inscription as counterbalancing the silence of the an
cient historians upon the subject.
But now the question presents itself, What did Nebu
chadnezzar design by the publication of the decree in
which these facts are here preserved ? Did he mean to
represent himself as having become an adherent of the
Jewish faith ? Did he put this forth as an account of what
we, in modern phrase, would call his " conversion ?" Was
he, after the publication of this decree, or, rather, after the
occurrences on which it is founded, a truly regenerate man,
a real and devout believer in Jehovah as the only living and
true God ?
These questions are much more easily asked than an
swered. On the one hand, there is much in the document
which looks as if the king had become a believer in the
unity and supremacy of Jehovah, as when he speaks of him
as the Most High, of his dominion as everlasting, and of
his authority as absolute. On the other hand, there are de
tached expressions which seem to indicate that he was still
a worshipper of the inferior deities of polytheism. Thus, he
names Daniel " Belteshazzar," adding the clause, "accord
ing to the name of my God," and says of him, "in whom is
the spirit of the holy gods." It would appear, therefore,
that, while acknowledging the supremacy of Jehovah as the
Most High, he still clung to the worship and service of in
ferior divinities. Hence, though there was what might be
* Smith's " Dictionary," vol. ii., p. 483.

Pride Abased. 83
called a conversion in him, it was still an imperfect conver
sion. He did not allow his belief in a supreme God to in
terfere with the acknowledgment of inferior gods. Just as
Cyrus, in his edict, owned the supremacy of the God of Is
rael, and Artaxerxes spoke of him as the God of heaven,
while neither of them, so far as we know, abjured the poly
theism in which they had both been educated ; so it is not
improbable that Nebuchadnezzar was brought, by the influ
ence of his affliction, to recognize the supreme power of Je
hovah while yet he retained his worship of other deities.
This reading of his character, too, is most in harmony with
his intense devotion to the idol Bel-Merodach, which, as we
saw in our former lecture, comes out in the great Cuneiform
inscription to which I have so frequently alluded.
But it must also be admitted that there is much in the
document before us to incline us to believe that he becarrie
a really renewed man. Hence we find the commentator
Scott saying, with his usual caution, " The beginning and
conclusion of this chapter lead us at least to hope with pre
vailing confidence that he was at last made a monument of
the power of divine grace and the exceeding riches of di
vine mercy ;" and Matthew Henry thus similarly concludes
his interesting comment on this chapter : " Whether he con
tinued in the same good mind that here he seems to have
been in .we are not told, nor doth anything appear to the
contrary but that he did ; and if so great a blasphemer and
persecutor did find mercy, he was not the last. And if our
charity reach so far as to hope that he did, we must admire
free grace, by which he lost his wits for a while that he might
save his soul forever."
I undertake not to decide where so much uncertainty is
felt by every candid reader. Long since the king has gone
to his account, and we may be sure that the Judge of all the
earth will do right regarding him. Hence, without dwelling

84 Daniel the Beloved.
further on a point which we cannot settle, let us see what
lessons we may glean for ourselves from this deeply inter
esting record.
And, first, we have here a solemn and instructive warning
against pride and vainglory. With all his ability, Nebuchad
nezzar had nothing which he had not received from God.
His intellectual greatness, his military success, his archi
tectural triumphs, all were gifts to him from Jehovah ; and
if he had humbly and cheerfully acknowledged this, and
given God the glory, he would have been yet greater in his
piety and humility than he was in all his other excellencies
put together. What a difference between him and Daniel
in this respect ! When the young captive had reproduced
and interpreted the vision of the composite image, and was
afterward complimented for it by the king, he was careful
first to say, " As for me, this secret is not revealed to me for
any wisdom that I have more than any living, but for their
sakes that shall make known the interpretation to the king,
and that thou mightest know the thoughts of thy heart."
How much more attractive is the example of the prophet
than that of the monarch ! In which of them, brethren, do
we see ourselves ? For let us not imagine that such pride
as Nebuchadnezzar evinced is manifested by kings and
earthly grandees alone. It may be as really existent in the
heart of some one here to-night as it was in that of the Bab
ylonian emperor. Whoever plumes himself upon what he
has done in the world, as if he were the author of it all, and
not simply the instrument in the hand of God, is as really
and truly proud and haughty as was Nebuchadnezzar here.
The merchant, who speaks of his business as the sole result
of his ability, and calls himself, with supreme satisfaction,
" the architect of his own fortunes ;" the author, who thinks
of his book as the creation of his own genius ; the states
man, who looks upon his position as entirely self-made ; the

Pride Abased. 85
artisan, who prides himself upon his foremanship ; and the
millionnaire, who, looking upon his glittering heaps, congrat
ulates himself as the sole author of his gains — all alike are
guilty of Nebuchadnezzar's sin ; for they have shut God out
of their hearts, and they have not given him the acknowl
edgment and the honor to which he is entitled.
Let us seek, therefore, each to be clothed with humility,
and, wherever we are and whatever we have, let us acknowl
edge God. " Every good gift and every perfect gift cometh
down " from him, and to him we should give all the honor.
In heaven they cast their crowns before the throne, imply
ing that only by the favor of him who sits thereon have they
crowns at all ; and it should be the same on earth. The
prizes we win in the race of life should be won by us that
we may put them into Jehovah's hand. This would sancti
fy the race itself, and this would take away the danger of
success. The full cup is difficult to carry ; let us, therefore,
pour it out before the Lord. The lofty height makes one
dizzy as he looks down and begins to' think that he has by
his own power toiled up the steep ; but when, looking up, he
sees how far he is still beneath God, and cries for the con
tinuance of his holding and helping hand, he is steadied
again, and renews his ascent. Let us, therefore, guard
against pride, and learn of him who said, " I am lowly."
We have here a sad illustration of the proverb that " pride
goeth before a fall." Sooner or later, the spirit which I have
been now exposing will bring punishment upon him who
cherishes it, and the punishment will be of such a nature as
to make the sinner see and know the heinousness of his sin.
You cannot read this chapter without remembering that
other record in the Acts of the Apostles : "And upon a set
day Herod, arrayed in royal apparel, sat upon his, throne,
and made an oration unto them. And the people gave a
shout, saying, It is the voice of a god, and not of a man.

86 Daniel the Beloved.
And immediately the angel of the Lord smote him, because
he gave not God the glory : and he was eaten of worms, and
gave up the ghost."* Which of us, also, has not recalled to
his memory the parable of the rich fool, to whom, while he
was in the act of congratulating himself on his prosperity,
and planning barns and buildings new, it was said, " Thou
fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee ?"t Ah, it is
a fearful thing to make a god of one's self. Hath not Jeho
vah's prophet said, " The idols he shall utterly abolish ;" and
if that idol in our case be self, think you self will not by him
be degraded and destroyed ? But not without warning do
his strokes fall. Many years were given to the antediluvi
ans before the flood came and submerged them, and twelve
months of grace were given to Nebuchadnezzar here before
the blow was struck which made his reason reel. So yet
Jehovah warns those who are in the path of danger ; and
who can tell but the discourse of this evening may be by
him designed to be to some proud and haughty sinner here,
what this dream and its interpretation were to Nebuchad
nezzar ? Oh ! let the proud take warning, and " humble
themselves under the mighty hand of God, that he may ex
alt them in due time."
In the third place, we have here a beautiful illustration of
fidelity in the proclamation of God's truth. It cost Daniel
a great deal to give this interpretation of the dream to the
monarch. The king had been very kind to him, and he
would rather have done a great many other things than
have unfolded to him all that was declared by the vision.
But there was no help for it ! Necessity was laid upon him,
and faithfulness alike to Jehovah and to Nebuchadnezzar
required that he should speak the whole truth. Hence he
gave the interpretation with the utmost exactness ; and then,
* Acts xii., 21-23. t Luke xii., 15-21.

Pride Abased. 87
in the most courteous manner, he advised the king to re
pentance. Now, only they who have had to say unwelcome
truths to those who are above them in station, or to whom in
worldly matters they have been much beholden, can estimate
the difficulty and delicacy of the position which the prophet
occupied. Many in his place would have evaded the duty
altogether, and held their peace. Many others, perhaps,
under the plea of being faithful, would have become imper
tinent, and used language both uncourtly and unwarranted.
But what could be finer than Daniel's bearing all through ?
With manifest sorrow the interpretation is given, and after
that is finished there is this brief and beautiful application
made : " Wherefore, O king, let my counsel be acceptable
unto thee, and break off thy sins by righteousness, and thine
iniquities by showing mercy to the poor, if it may be a
lengthening of thy tranquillity." What an example have we
here to every messenger of God ! Equally removed from
time-serving timidity and impertinent rudeness, he sets the
truth in loving faithfulness before his master, and behold
his reward ! Perhaps the king was annoyed in the first in
stance, but he lived to value the advice, and here five years
— yea, perhaps eight years — after it had been given, it is re
produced by the monarch himself, and inserted in his de
cree to show how much he came at length to value the
friendship of his servant. May God help every preacher of
his truth to be as faithful and as courteous as was Daniel
here! In the fourth place, we have surely a loud call addressed
to us in this chapter to thank God for the continuance of
our reason. How seldom we think of this ! Yet how im
portant it is, after all ! What a blessing it is to have a
sound mind in a sound body ! Let us praise God for its
possession, and let us use means for its preservation. I do
not think that we in this age are nearly so careful in this

88 Daniel the Beloved.
respect as we ought to be. We are living at high-pressure.
We are going, intellectually, at express speed ; and so, not
unfrequently, our finest minds are ruined, and our most use
ful men rendered mentally incapable of serving either their
country or their age. Others there are who wilfully court
insanity, and by excesses of sensuality and intemperance
sow the seeds of disease in the brain whereby, at length,
their intellects are clouded and their end is darkened. Let
us avoid all this. Let us show our gratitude to God for our
reason, not only by the ascription of praise to him for its
possession, but also by using it in his service, and by doing
our best to preserve it for his glory.
In the fifth place, we are here reminded that the Most
High ruleth in the kingdoms of men. God is the King of
kings ; and however men may plan and scheme, however
they may make war and peace, whatsoever laws they may
proclaim or treaties they may sign, " he doeth according to
his will among the armies of heaven and among the inhab
itants of the earth." How this can be, while yet men are
free agents, uncoerced in any way, and following only the
inclinations of their own hearts, we cannot tell ; but so it is.
" There are many devices in a man's heart ; nevertheless
the counsel of the Lord, that shall stand." Herod schemes,
and Pilate trims, according to the nature of each ; yet the
result is the doing of what God's "hand and counsel de
termined before to be done." And the same is true yet.
Amidst wars and revolutions, amidst the schemings of em
perors and chancellors, seeking only their own aggrandize
ment, God is ruling still ; and he will bring out, clear and
definite at last, before men's eyes, the much-forgotten truth
that the allegiance of their hearts is due to him. This is
our comfort amidst the movements of our times. No doubt,
as men pursue their schemes and rage in their ambition, he
may seem asleep, as Jesus was in the little boat upon the

Pride Abased. 89
lake ; but by-and-by he will awake and cry, " Peace, be still ;"
and in the calm thereby produced the Church will go for
ward on its glorious mission, and gather in the saved into
its bosom. There is one who can say, and who will say, at
the proper time, to Czar and Sultan alike, " Hitherto shall
ye come, but no further : and here shall your proud waves
be stayed." There is one of whom it is written, " He mak
eth the wrath of man to praise him, and restraineth the re
mainder thereof." If this be true, then how safe the counsel
of the Psalmist, himself a king, " Be wise now therefore, O
ye kings : be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the
Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son,
lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath
is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their
trust in him." And for ourselves, why should we wait till a
judgment teaches us this truth as it was taught to Nebu
chadnezzar ? Let us to - night submit ourselves to God
through Jesus Christ, and yield to him the throne of our
hearts and the homage of our lives.

VI.
BELSHAZZAR'S FEAST.
Daniel v., 1-31.
AS in certain important particulars, the narrative con
tained in this chapter seems to be at variance with the
records of ancient historians, it will be necessary, before pro
ceeding to make any practical use of its incidents, that we
vindicate the accuracy of the inspired writer. That the issue
may be clearly set before you, let me give a brief summary
of the events of the period, collected and condensed from
the articles in the Dictionaries of Smith, Fairbairn, and Kitto.
Nebuchadnezzar at his death (561 B.C.) was succeeded by
his son Evil-Merodach, who, after having held the crown for
two years, was murdered by his brother-in-law, Neriglissar,
who reigned for four years. After him came his son Labo-
rosoarchod, a mere lad, who, nine months after his succes
sion to the throne, fell a victim to a conspiracy, and was suc
ceeded by Nabonnedus, who mounted the throne very short
ly before the war broke out between Cyrus and Crcesus.
He chose to ally himself with Crcesus, and this provoked
the hostility of Cyrus, who determined to attack him and
destroy his power.
Now, according to the ancient historian Berosus, this Na
bonnedus was the last king of Babylon. And so far from be
ing slain in Babylon, we are told that he went out to meet
Cyrus in battle, and being defeated by him, took refuge in
the stronghold of Borsippa, but soon after surrendered to
the conqueror, and being kindly treated by him, was allowed
to retire to Carmania, where he died.

Belshazzar's Feast. 91
It thus appears that there were more monarchs than one
in the line of succession between Nebuchadnezzar and Na-
bonnedus, and that Daniel, in referring to Belshazzar, cannot
be speaking of the king whom Berosus has described. Of
course, the antagonists of Scripture have made a great deal
of this, and in former days they were accustomed to refer to
it as a hopeless discrepancy. But, in a marvellous manner,
God has in these later times triumphantly vindicated the
accuracy of his servant. It was always evident that Daniel
had not spoken of Belshazzar as the immediate successor
of Nebuchadnezzar, and no anxiety was felt by the defend
ers of Scripture in regard to that ; but now, from the resur
rection of long-buried monuments, the missing link has been
discovered by which we can easily establish the accuracy
both of the sacred writer and the profane historians.
In the year 1854, Sir Henry Rawlinson deciphered the in
scriptions on some cylinders found in the ruins of Um-Gheir
(the ancient Ur of the Chaldees) containing memorials of
the works executed by Nabonnedus. From these it appears
that the eldest son of Nabonnedus was called Bel-shar-ezar,
and admitted by his father to a share in the government.
In a communication to the Athenaum (No. 1377), Sir Henry
Rawlinson says : " We can now understand how Belshaz
zar, as joint king with his father, may have been governor of
Babylon when the city was attacked by the combined forces
of the Medes and Persians, and may have perished in the
assault which followed, while Nabonnedus, leading a force
to the relief of the place, was defeated, and obliged to take
refuge in Borsippa, capitulating after a short resistance, and
being subsequently assigned an honorable retirement in
Carmania."* But if this be so, you are ready to ask how it comes that
* Smith's " Dictionary," article Belshazzar.

92 Daniel the Beloved.
Belshazzar is here called the son of Nebuchadnezzar. To
which I answer that in the East the term " son" is used with
great latitude of meaning, and may refer to a nephew or a
grandson, as well as a son proper. Now, Rawlinson sup
poses that Nabonnedus married the daughter of Nebuchad
nezzar, an alliance which would account for his conspiring
to get the throne, and thus Belshazzar would be the grand
son of that monarch.
I have been thus particular in entering upon these details
that you may see how wonderfully God in his providence,
by the disentombing of these old cylinders, is putting Ra
tionalism and Infidelity to silence, and that your faith may
be strengthened in reference to those remaining historical
difficulties in the Sacred Scriptures for which, as yet, no sat
isfactory solution has been given.
The only other point that needs to be adverted to is the
naming of Darius the Mede in the last verse of the chapter.
All ancient historians agree that Babylon was taken by Cy
rus in person. How comes it, then, that here in the closing
verse it is said " Darius the Mede took the kingdom, being
about threescore years old ?" To this I reply that it is not
said that Darius was the general under whom the city of
Babylon was taken, but simply that he took the kingdom, a
mode of speech which is perfectly consistent with the fact
that Cyrus took the city, if we suppose that after he had
taken it, he left Darius there as his delegate and represent
ative, to exercise the regal authority while he went on with
his military campaign.
But now having, as I trust, satisfactorily disposed of the
historical questions arising out of this chapter, let me pro
ceed to the consideration of its contents, having a special
regard to their bearing upon ourselves.
The character of Belshazzar appears to have been of the
most contemptible description. He was addicted to the

Belshazzar's Feast. 93
lowest vices of self-indulgence, and felt no restraint what
ever in the gratification of his desires. With all this there
was combined an arrogance of the haughtiest kind, which
would brook no interference with his designs, and would
submit to no expostulation in the interests of morality.
The severe lesson read by Jehovah to his grandfather in
that mysterious malady with which he had been so long af
flicted was entirely lost on him ; and he went on to greater
and greater excesses, as if to show that he had no regard
whatever either for God or man. At length, however, the
cup of his iniquities became full. In an hour when he was
not aware of it, the Son of man came ; and he who " being
often reproved had hardened his neck, was suddenly cut off,
and that without remedy."
Briefly let us enumerate the horrors of that dreadful
night, in the hope that his case may prove a beacon for us,
and keep us from the rock on which he wrecked his king
dom and lost his soul.
Notice, first, the intemperance by which this banquet was
characterized. With the whole number of his lords, and
surrounded by his wives and concubines, he -held high festi
val ; and with particular emphasis, as if to mark his own ex
cess, it is said that "he drank wine before the thousand."
He had not heard, perhaps — or if he had, he only disregard
ed — the good Hebrew proverb, " It is not for kings, O Lem
uel, it is not for kings to drink wine ; nor for princes strong
drink : lest they drink, and forget the law, and pervert the
judgment of any of the afflicted."* He cared for nothing
then but the revelry of the hour. He kept the wine-cup cir
cling round ; and we may be sure that the example which
he set would be followed by the members of his court, if,
indeed, they did not outrun him in the unholy race. For
* Proverbs xxxi., 4, 5.

94 Daniel the Beloved.
when the giver of a feast is himself a man of temperate hab
its, there is commonly some slight restraint upon his com
panions ; but when he is a leader in dissipation, " it shall
go hard but they will better his instruction." This last, we
doubt not, was the case here ; and so, as the maddening
poison did its wonted work, the tongues of that multitude
would be loosed, and the noise and confusion would be as
great as that from which their city first received its name.
Alas ! we know only too well the concomitants of an ex
cess like this ; for such a scene is not confined to a heathen
country, with a godless Belshazzar for its king. The same
intemperance exists even now among ourselves. We have
many national sins, and I am not now prepared to say which
of them is the greatest; but it is indisputable that among
them all drunkenness holds a prominent position. I will
not stop to compare our land with other countries in regard
to it. I ask you only to walk with open eyes through the
streets that line these two rivers. Who knows not the
drunkard's staggering gait, and tattered garments, and stu
pid, unmeaning countenance, compared with which that of
the gorilla is intelligence itself ? and who has not seen him
all too often reeling past or rolling in the gutter? Go
where we may, too, we see those crime - manufacturing sa
loons, alluring men to their destruction. Nay, as if their
existence were a blessing, they are multiplied on every hand,
so that in New York city alone we have no fewer than eight
thousand of them — enough to make a street of more than
ten miles in length, and consuming somewhere about fifty
millions of dollars annually. In these circumstances, what
can be expected but the increase of that vice which is eat
ing like a canker into the heart of our social life, and gnaw
ing at the root of our national pre-eminence ?
Some one has beautifully compared our social system to
a pyramid, with its broad base resting on the mass of the

Belshazzar's Feast. 95
people, and its sides rising up, through legislators and gov
ernors, until they reach the apex in the chief magistrate of
the republic, and has said that this is the most stable form
of government. And so, doubtless, it is, if you have sound
materials out of which to build your pyramid. But if the
mass of the people who form its base: — and that is the most
important part of it — should become corrupt, what can keep
the fabric from falling to the dust ? A corrupt government
and a foolish legislature may do much to mar the beauty of
a country and arrest its progress ; but, provided the great
heart of the people be sound, the nation will rise and re
cover its old renown. If, however, the millions of the popu
lation should degenerate, if their manhood should be eaten
out of them by intemperance, neither Government nor Con
gress will be able to prevent the national decay that must
ensue. As patriots, therefore, not to speak at present of the
higher duty of our Christian profession, it becomes us to do
our utmost to arrest this mighty evil. I prescribe not here
how you are to deal with it. I only ask each of you consci
entiously, and as in the sight of the Redeemer's cross, to
face the question, " What ought I to do in this regard ?"
and, if I may judge from my own experience, I feel con
vinced that every man who sets himself to grapple with that
question fairly will determine that, in present circumstances,
he, at least, will have nothing whatever to do with the ac
cursed thing.
And oh ! if there be any one here to-night who knows that
he is personally addicted to this vice, let me implore him
never again to taste strong drink. " Look not thou on the
wine when it is red, when it giveth its color in the cup, when
it moveth itself aright. At the last, it biteth like a serpent,
and stingeth like an adder." "At the last!" Would you
know what that means ? Then come with me, and see the
saddest sight, I think, I ever witnessed. The warden was

96 Daniel the Beloved.
leading me through one of the corridors of the workhouse
on BlackwelFs Island, when, going to the door of a cell, he
pushed back the sliding board from the grating and bade
me look in. The room was lighted by a small window near
the ceiling. All around, to the height of perhaps eight feet
or more, it was lined with padding covered with leather, and
on the floor, spread over its entire breadth, there was a mat
tress having a similar appearance to the padding on the
sides. On the mattress there lay a man, probably not more
than five-and-twenty years of age, bareheaded, barefooted,
stripped of coat and vest, and having his arms tightly bound
behind him with strong cords. He had dropped asleep for
a moment or two, and was breathing heavily. " There !"
said the warden, as he turned away, " that is the end of his
debauch. He is suffering from delirium tremens, and we
have put him in there to keep him from injuring himself."
Ah ! thought I, he is somebody's son ; and my heart bled
as I looked upon his degradation. This is what it comes
to " at the last !" Yet that, after all, is not the last ; for the
book before me says, " No drunkard shall inherit the king
dom of heaven." O thou ! whosoever thou art, who art the
victim of this appetite, wilt thou lay these things to heart ?
I know thou feelest thy slavery and hatest thy chains ; but
if thou wouldst be free, thyself, by God's help, " must strike
the blow." Rise, then, in the might of thy manhood, and,
by the supplicated help of God's Holy Spirit, snap asun
der the bands wherewith thine enemy has bound thee. Re
member Belshazzar, and fling away thy cup ere yet thou art
overtaken by Belshazzar's doom !
But notice, secondly, the profanity by which this banquet
was characterized. The king called for the sacred vessels
which his grandfather had brought from the Temple of Je
rusalem, and he desecrated them by employing them in his
idolatrous orgies. Observe, it is said that he did this " while

Belshazzar's Feast. 97
he tasted the wine," and as a consequence, doubtless, of the
excitement produced in him by the drinking of it. It is
always thus.
There is an old fable which tells of a man who had the
choice which of three sins he would commit — drunkenness,
adultery, or murder. He chose drunkenness as being ap
parently the least ; but when he was intoxicated, so the story
runs, he committed both the others, and thus ended by be
ing guilty of all the three. There is deep meaning in the
fable ; for who shall reckon up for us the number of crimes
committed under the influence of strong drink ? crimes
from the very thought of which the individuals who perpe
trated them would in their sober senses have shrunk back
appalled. In the case before us, it could not but be that the im
pression of Jehovah's greatness which had been produced
upon Nebuchadnezzar, and through him upon the nation at
large, had remained at least in some measure, and if sober
ness had ruled the hour, instead of excess, we may well
believe that Belshazzar and his lords would have recoiled
from doing such indignity to the God of the Hebrews. Idol
aters though they were, the very regard which they paid to
their own divinities, not to speak of the remembrance of the
fiery furnace out of which Jehovah had delivered his ser
vants, might have taught them reverence for the vessels of
the Temple; but no: "They drank and praised" (that is,
" toasted," for in this heathen practice our modern custom,
" more honored in the breach than in the observance," had
its origin) " the gods of gold and of silver, of brass, of iron,
of wood and of stone."
Now, it is not possible for us to commit this sin of theirs
precisely in the same form as that in which they committed
it, since there are not among us, as in the Jewish Temple
there were, vessels specially and peculiarly consecrated to
5

98 Daniel the Beloved.
God. But in other forms, alas ! profanity too is rampant in
the midst of us. Who among us has not often had his ears
pained and his heart sickened by the unhallowed use of
the names of God by those who have no reverence for him
in their hearts ? In the workshop and in the store, as well
as on the street and in the haunts of riot and iniquity, one
may hear the dear name of Jesus garnishing an oath, and
horrid imprecations at which our hair does stand on end
are become common even among the children on our streets.
Oh that men would remember that holy law which says
that " the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his
name in vain !" Oh that they would think of the sinfulness
of their profanity ! They talk of it as a habit ; they ac
knowledge it to be ungenteel ; and they will ask pardon of
those before whom they have spoken the horrid words, espe
cially if there should chance to be a minister among them ;
but they think not of the guilt of profane swearing before
God ! Truly, as one has said, the swearer serves the devil
for nothing. " Men do not despise a thief if he steal to
satisfy his soul when he is hungry ;" and there may be some
extenuation for other forms of evil ; but what does the
swearer gain by his profanity ? It is a wanton insult to the
majesty and love of God. Be it yours, my hearers, not only
to abstain from this iniquity yourselves, but also to check
and reprove it wherever it is committed by others. Keep
your lips from this evil, and to this end let your hearts be
filled with love to Jesus and reverence for God, so that the
first petition of the Master's prayer may be daily answered
in your life as well as offered by your lips, " Hallowed be
thy name."
Notice, thirdly, that this night was one of supernatural
visitation. Fast flew the hours, and boisterous was the
mirth ; merrily the laugh went round, and the cup was
passed from hand to hand. Who cares though the Mede

Belshazzar's Feast. 99
be at the gates and all around the walls ? Are there not
two years' provisions within the city ? and will not its fer
tile terraces yield more, if so much be required ? Let fear
be laughed to scorn, or drowned in the flowing bowl ! On
with the revelry; let it know no pause until the morning
light ! But, ah ! what means that sudden lull in the noisy
revel — that break in the madness of the mifth ? Each eye
runs along the hall, and in a moment all are fixed upon the
king. Wildly he looks, with fixed and steady glare, upon
the wall before him, his eyeballs almost starting from their
sockets. Big bead -like drops of perspiration stand upon
his forehead ; a deathly paleness sits upon his countenance ;
the uplifted goblet falls from his palsied hands, and his
knees smite one upon another. " The king ! the king !
what aileth him ?" is now the cry. But he gives no verbal
answer. He simply points, with a new shudder of agony,
to the spot on which his gaze is fixed; and, as they look
there with him, they, too, see the fingers of a hand, tracing,
all solemnly and slowly, mysterious characters upon the wall.
Sobered on the instant by this dread appearance, they
summon forthwith to the royal presence the astrologers,
the Chaldeans, and soothsayers, if haply they may be able
to decipher the strange writing. But they are completely
baffled ; and the king, too surely foreboding its true mean
ing, sinks into remorse and dark despair. Where now the
daring spirit of the sacrilegious idolaters ? Where now the
mirth the wine provoked ? Silence, as of the grave, reigns
in the hall, so late the scene of jollity and noise. In his
perplexity the queen-mother comes in, and reminds him of
a servant whom he had long neglected, and whose warnings
he had oft despised. She tells him of Daniel, and his great
service on a similar occasion, in the reign of Nebuchadnez
zar ; and, at her suggestion, the Hebrew prophet is brought
in before him. Sternly the man of God (repudiating his

roo Daniel the Beloved.
proffered gifts) reminds him of the noble opportunity he
possessed of serving God; of the warning that had been
given to his grandfather ; of his own pride, idolatry, sacri
lege ; and, most of all, of this— the one fatal omission of his
whole life — that "he had not glorified the God in whose
hands his breath was, and whose were all his ways ;" and
then, without a word of hope, or exhortation, or even of pity,
he reads out his doom : " God hath numbered thy kingdom,
and finished it." " Thou art weighed in the balances, and
art found wanting." "Thy kingdom is divided, and given
to the Medes and Persians."
No ray of hope brightens the gloom of that awful sen
tence ; it is dark, dark, eternally dark. And why so ?
Brethren, let us hear the answer, and be warned by this ex
ample. It was because Belshazzar had sinned away his
" day of grace." Long before, when Daniel had been the
messenger of God to Nebuchadnezzar, he had counselled
him to break off his sins by righteousness, and his iniqui
ties by showing mercy to the poor, if it might be a length
ening of his tranquillity. But there is no such exhortation
now, for Belshazzar had systematically rejected all counsel
from the Lord ; and now, in the hour of his distress, the
Lord abandons him, saying, " Because I called, and thou
didst refuse, because I stretched out my hand, and thou
didst not regard, I will laugh at thy calamity, and mock
when thy fear cometh." It is now too late. The door of
grace is shut. And as Belshazzar comes thundering at it,
crying, " Open unto me !" the answer is returned, " Depart
from me ; I know thee not, thou worker of iniquity."
O sinner ! will you take warning from a case like this ?
Beware lest, in your continued resistance to God's author
ity, you overstep that mysterious boundary that separates
his forbearance and his wrath, and he be provoked to give
you over to your own heart's lusts. I dare not say of any

Belshazzar's Feast. ioi
of you that you have crossed that limit ; least of all can I
say it of those who most fear lest they have, for the very
existence of that fear is proof that they have not. But I
desire to put you on your guard against it ; I have to warn
you that there is a danger of your doing it, and to urge
you to come now, while you may, and avail yourself of God's
mercy in Christ Jesus.
" Too late !" — there are no more melancholy words in the
language than these. Too late ! — I have heard them uttered
by a brother, as, hurried home to see a dying father, he ar
rived only to be told that he had breathed his last ; and not
soon shall I forget the agony they then expressed. Too late!
— I have known them uttered by a skilful surgeon, when he
was summoned to the bedside of a dying man, and I have
marked the sadness to which they then gave birth. Too late!
— I have heard of them uttered by an anxious crowd, as
they stood gazing on a burning dwelling, and sadly saw the
failure of those who sought to save the inmates from de
struction. Too late! — I have known them uttered by the no
ble crew of the life-boat, when, as they put out to the sink
ing ship, they beheld her go down before their eyes, and
" the freighted souls within her." But, oh ! none of these
circumstances are half so heart-rending as those in which
the sinner who has despised his day must find himself when
the terrible discovery is made that he is too late to enter
heaven. Very powerfully has the English laureate set this
lesson to the music of his verse, in one of those lyrics which
are the gems of the " Idyls of the King :"
" Late, late, so late ! and dark the night and chill !
Late, late, so late ! but we can enter still.
Too late, too late ! ye cannot enter now.
" No light had we : for that we do repent ;
And learning this, the bridegroom will relent.
Too late, too late ! ye cannot enter now.

102 Daniel the Beloved.
" No light : so late ! and dark and chill the night !
Oh, let us in, that we may find the light !
Too late, too late ! ye cannot enter now.
" Have we not heard the bridegroom is so sweet ?
Oh, let us in, though late, to kiss his feet !
No, no, too late ! ye cannot enter now."
Oh, may God grant that this sad exclusion may not be
the doom of any one of us !
Notice, finally, that this was a night of terrible retribu
tion. Not long was the execution of the sentence deferred
after it had been pronounced ; for ere the morning dawned
Belshazzar was among the dead, and Babylon was in the
Medo - Persians' hands. The manner in which this was
brought about is described alike by Herodotus and Xeno-
phon, and is in exact correspondence with the prophecy in
the fiftieth and fifty-first chapters of Jeremiah. Cyrus, who
had command of the besieging army, had lain for a long
time before the city, and had almost despaired of taking it,
when, hearing of an artificial lake which a former queen
had made, he formed the plan of turning the waters of the
Euphrates into that old and now dry lake-bed, and so ren
dering the river fordable at the city. To understand it fur
ther, it must be remembered that the Euphrates divided the
city into two equal parts ; that on each bank of the river
twenty-five streets ran at right angles to the river, and par
allel to each other ; while the whole was surrounded by a
wall sixty miles in circumference. The wall was carried
over the river at each end of the town by a bridge ; and at
the end of each street, on the river- side, there were large,
massive gates, which were locked nightly. When the waters
had been diverted from their channel, the troops stationed
at either end waded through below the bridges, the stream
taking them only up to the loins. But even although they

Belshazzar's Feast. 103
had reached so far, they would still have been stopped by
the gates, had it not been for the fact that, owing to the
prevalence of dissipation and carousal, consequent, as He
rodotus says, on its being a festival night, the gates were
carelessly, and contrary to usual custom, left open. Thus,
at each end an entrance was effected, and the words of Jer
emiah were fulfilled : " One post shall run to meet another,
to show that the city is taken at the end," or, as the word
might be better rendered, "at the two ends — endwise."
Having thus got into the city, the Median troops advanced
on toward the palace, and to their swords Belshazzar fell a
victim. My brethren, when God threatens, he means what he says,
and he will bring it to pass. He is never at a loss for in
struments ; and he will do whatsoever he hath spoken. Men
seem to act as if he would prove faithful only to his prom
ises ; but that is a miserable delusion. God is faithful who
has threatened ; and, O sinner ! he has threatened thee with
wrath if thou repent not. Think not, therefore, that thou
shalt escape his just judgment, unless now thou betake thy
self to him in Christ. His threatenings are no mere utter
ances of passion, soon to pass away, as the storm passes
from the face of ocean ; they have their root in his very
nature, and he must cease to be what he is if he fail to car
ry them out. The very same principle of his nature that
leads him to keep his promises disposes him also to per
form his threatenings ; and wherever we have the one man
ifestation of it, we have the other also, like the shadow fol
lowing the sunlight.
You think of Noah in the Ark, and as you hear his even
ing psalm ascend from out his place of safety, you say, " God
is faithful who has promised ;" but as you look around upon
the wide waste of waters that has covered the earth, and
hear the gurgling cry of some strong swimmer as he sinks

104 Daniel the Beloved.
beneath the wave, you are compelled to add, " God is faith
ful who has threatened." You think of Lot, angel-guided
out of Sodom, and though he were saved yet so as by fire,
you say, "God is faithful who has promised;" but when,
with Abraham, in the early morning, you look over the
plain, and see the smoke of the country ascending like the
smoke of a furnace, you are made to add, " God is faithful
who has threatened." You behold the tribes of Israel stand
ing on the Red Sea shore, and as you hear their glorious
anthem ring out above the noise of the waves, you say,
" God is faithful who has promised ;" but as you look be
hind, and mark how the refluent billows have submerged
the haughty host of Pharaoh, you are constrained to say
again, " God is faithful who has threatened." You think of
the last grand assize, and as you behold the righteous going
into life eternal you can hear them sing, " God is faithful
who has promised ;" while from out the mingled sobs and
groans of the wicked, as they are driven to their own place,
there rise these solemn words, "God is faithful who has
threatened." Let, then, the promises of the Lord win you to repent
ance, and the threatenings of Jehovah warn you from im-
penitency. Yea, even now, turn and look to Jesus, so that,
when weighed in the balances at last, you may not be found
wanting, but may stand in him. " Turn, and live ye ;" there
is the promise. " If he turn not, he will whet his sword.
He hath bent his bow, and made it ready ;" there is the
threatening. Make thy choice between them.

VII.
DANIEL IN THE DEN.
Daniel vii., 1-28.
THE question who this Darius the Mede was has great
ly perplexed the commentators on the Book of Dan
iel ; but it would serve no good purpose to enter here upon
its minute investigation. Let it suffice to say that the an
swer which seems to me to be beset with fewest difficulties
is that which regards him as Cyaxeres the Second, the uncle
and father-in-law of Cyrus. This view at once harmonizes
with the statement of Xenophon, that he was the son of As-
tyages, and ascended the throne after him, and with that of
Josephus, who affirms that "he was the son of Astyages, but
had another name among the Greeks ;" while, at the same
time, it accounts for the fact mentioned in the concluding
verse of the preceding chapter, that at the taking of Baby
lon he was about sixty-two years of age. It is right to say,
however, that this is only one of three different opinions
which have been advocated, and that probably we must wait
for the correct solution of the difficulty until some Babylo
nian inscription furnishes the data on which it can be made.
For the better management of the empire, Darius divided
it into one hundred and twenty provinces, over each of
which he appointed a responsible officer. Over these, again,
he set three presidents or satraps, and, as the chief of these,
he named Daniel, "because he had an excellent spirit in
him." These presidents corresponded somewhat to mod
ern secretaries of state, while Daniel, as the head over them
S*

106 Daniel the Beloved.
all, was in a position similar to that of the prime minister
of a European kingdom, or like that of the grand-vizier of
an Eastern empire.
His elevation to this dignity need not be in the least de
gree surprising unto us ; for altogether irrespective of the
special providence which watched over him, and which was
as clearly conspicuous in his life as in that of Joseph, we
may account for his exaltation to this new dignity on pure
ly natural principles. When Darius entered Babylon, he
would find every one talking of the events of that dreadful
night of wickedness and retribution which issued in Belshaz
zar's death, and all accounts which he received would set
Daniel in the fore-front. Nor was this all. The mention of
the part he acted in deciphering the handwriting on the wall
would be invariably connected with the rehearsal of all tliat
he had done in the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, and of all that
he had been to that great monarch. Most naturally, there
fore, would the new emperor desire to avail himself of his
services, the rather that, perhaps, from personal intercourse
with him, he had discovered his talents and abilities ; and, as
the best means of securing his assistance and allegiance, he
placed him in the highest position which he had at his dis
posal. This view of the case is in no degree inconsistent
with the fact that from all accounts Darius was himself a
man given up to sensuality and self-indulgence, since not
unfrequently in history we have instances of princes of that
character who had the discernment to discover, and the wis
dom to employ, men of the highest attainments and the
most unswerving integrity.
But it could not be expected that the selection of Daniel
for such a post of distinction would be tamely acquiesced
in by all who were around the court. In particular, the
princes of the kingdoms were filled with envy at the ap
pointment of the Hebrew, and vowed among themselves to

Daniel in the Den. 107
have him removed as soon as possible. Many reasons
might be assigned for this. For one thing, his age would
be distasteful to them, for Daniel was now advancing to
ward fourscore years, and they might allege with plausibil
ity that he was now beyond that time of life when any one
could be expected to discharge with energy and efficiency
the duties of the office with which he had been intrusted.
Then, again, he was a foreigner. He had taken no part in
those campaigns which had created the Medo-Persian Em
pire, and it might seem to them a crying injustice that the
greatest honor in the new kingdom should be conferred
upon one who had done nothing whatever to assist in its
formation. But, most of all, their enmity would be roused
by the character of Daniel. Had the new vizier been a
man who was likely to wink at their misdeeds, or to share
in their peculations and dishonesties, they might have been
fain to put up with his elevation, and their self-interest
might have held their personal animosity in check ; but
when they found that he was distinguished by the highest
principle, and would tolerate no semblance of injustice ei
ther toward the subjects on the one hand, or the emperor
on the other, the enmity which they felt on other grounds
was greatly intensified, and they resolved, by fair means or
by foul, to get rid of his supervision. Accordingly, they
scrutinized his conduct through the keen microscope of
malice, if haply they might discover anything on which they
might found an accusation against him. But they soon per
ceived that all such search was vain, and that if they ever
hoped to circumvent him, it must be in some matter affect
ing his religion. How honorable all this was to Daniel, I
need hardly stay to remark. It tells us that though he
stood " in that fierce light that beats upon a throne and
blackens every blot," nothing in the least degree degrading
or immoral could be alleged against him ; and it tells us,

108 Daniel the Beloved.
also, that he made no secret of his religious convictions, but
continued, as aforetime, an humble, earnest, and devoted ser
vant of Jehovah. Exaltation has often proved perilous to
character. Not every man can stand with unswimming head
upon the dizzy height of earthly greatness ; not every hand
can hold with untrembling steadiness the brimming cup
of worldly prosperity. Too often as men become "full,"
they deny the Lord ; and, either because religion is deemed
unfashionable, or because they think it stands in the way of
their further success, many, who in lowly life have been re
markable for piety, have in the heyday of their social ele
vation forgotten God, and left their religious convictions in
the valley from which they came. But it was not so with
Daniel. The same regard to the law of God by which he
was distinguished as a youth in the royal college character
ized him in the administration of the office of president of
the kingdom. His piety was not of that cloistral sort which
is hidden from human observation, but it pervaded his life ;
and so it was that those who came, even in the casual inter
course of official life, into contact with him, felt its influence
and were made to confess its power.
In this religion of his, therefore, which his enemies had
rightly discovered to be the strongest element of his char
acter, they saw their only hope of undermining him, and
they went most insidiously to work to compass his destruc
tion. Insidiously, I said, for they did not openly and man
fully accuse him of unfaithfulness to Darius because he was
faithful to Jehovah. Had they done that, the king would at
once have seen their design, and would have been on his
guard against their machinations. But they preferred anoth
er course, and came to the monarch, wishing him to enact a
law which, in appearance, seemed designed only to honor
himself. They pretended that they were deeply solicitous
for his glory, and asked him to make a firm decree that

Daniel in the Den. 109
whosoever should present a petition to any god or man for
thirty days, save to the king himself, should be cast into the
den of lions. Such a law, to our Western ears, seems per
fectly absurd, and no doubt, as Dr. Pusey says, " religiously
viewed, it was extreme insanity;" but, as the same author
has affirmed, " that which was in truth insane — to pray to
man as if he were God, to neglect God for man — is simple
matter of fact. The Persians looked upon their king as the
representative of Ormuzd, as indwelt by him, and, as such,
gave him divine honors. Persians, Persian monuments,
contemporary Greek authors, all attest this. 'With us,'
said Artabanus to Themistocles, ' of many and good laws,
this is the best — to honor the king, and worship him as the
image of God, who preserveth all things.' Curtius says,
' The Persians worship their kings among their gods ;' and
Isocrates speaks of them as 'worshipping indeed a mortal
man, and addressing him as a divine being, but dishonoring
the gods more than men.' "* In the light of this fact, then,
we can see how the edict proposed by the princes neither
shocked Darius nor indicated to him in any way that it had
sprung out of a conspiracy against his favorite minister.
Much, indeed, might be said by the princes in its behalf.
The Babylonians and other provinces had only recently
come under his dominion, and they might represent that the
object of the decree .was to obtain, from these new subjects,
special recognition of the king as the representative of the
Supreme Power and invested with his delegated authority.
Nor is this all. That the Persians did somehow thus
regard their king is evident from the fact so frequently
brought before us, both in this history and in that of Es
ther, that the royal edicts could not be altered. A man
claiming to act through a divine prescience could not afford
* Pusey's " Lectures," pp. 445, 446.

no Daniel the Beloved.
to appear fallible or changeable ; hence, to keep up the fic
tion of the divinity of royalty, the decrees which issued from
him were unalterable. This being the case, these princes
easily prevailed upon the king to do as they wished ; and
certainly, we who live in an age when a conclave of arch
bishops and bishops — educated men, in the full blaze of the
enlightenment of the nineteenth century — have solemnly
issued an edict affirming the infallibility of a fellow-mortal,
need not be surprised at the success of these unscrupulous
men in a heathen kingdom, some hundreds of years before
the birth of Christ.
The penalty suggested by these princes is peculiar, and
may be noted as a minute coincidence with ancient history.
Had this book been the work of an impostor, then we may be
sure that, having already spoken of a burning fiery furnace
as having been in Babylon the means of punishing those
who refused to worship the golden image which Nebuchad
nezzar had set up, the author would again have specified
fire as the element of execution. But this would have been
altogether out of keeping with the Medo-Persian custom ;
for the Medes and Persians were fire -worshippers, and it
would have been regarded as impious in the extreme to
consign to the sacred flames those who had been guilty
either of high treason or of any other crime. In the omis
sion of fire, therefore, as the penalty. of disobedience, we
have a coincidence with ancient Persian superstition, which,
because it is minute and undesigned, is a valuable witness-
bearer to the authenticity of the narrative. Moreover, we
know that it was no uncommon thing among the Persians
to consign criminals to wild beasts. Thus, Bertholdt has
said, " The enclosures of wild beasts, especially of lions,
which the kings of Asia and North-western Africa formerly
had, as they have at the present day, were generally con
structed underground, but were ordinarily caves which had

Daniel in the Den. in
been excavated for the purpose, walled up at the sides, and
then enclosed within an outer wall, through which a door
led from the outer wall to the space within the walls within
which persons could pass round and contemplate the wild
beasts."* Such, then, was the proposed decree, with the suggested
penalty. We do not hear that Daniel was present either at
the concoction of the edict or at the time when it was sub
mitted to the king. If he had been there, he would most
probably have protested against it, and from his weight with
the monarch might very likely have carried his point. But
conspirators so astute as the princes were, would be sure to
embrace some opportunity when he was absent from the
city ; and so, in all probability, Daniel knew nothing about
it until, on his return to his residence, he was informed con
cerning it. But, whensoever or howsoever he first heard of
it, he did not require a long time to make up his mind how
he would act in the matter. He was pre-eminently a man
of decision, and wherever his duty to God was concerned
he knew only one course to follow. Indeed, we can scarce
ly conceive that he deliberated a single moment as to his
duty or as to his determination. He would say within him
self, " It is not necessary for me to live, and, sooner or later,
death will come to me. What does it matter whether it
come by the attack of wild beasts or whatever else ? I can
die, but I cannot be guilty of such blasphemous idolatry
as to pray to Darius as a god ; neither can I allow myself,
through the fear of man, to be deprived of the blessed priv
ilege of communion with Jehovah." So he went about his
devotions as before, determined to let things otherwise take
their course, and casting himself on the gracious help of the
Most High. * Barnes's "Commentary," in loco.

112 Daniel the Beloved.
" He went into his house, and, his windows being open in
his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees
three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his
God." Now, at first sight, this looks like ostentation ; but
when we are fully acquainted with the whole case, we find
there was nothing of display about it ; for, first, it was the
habit of his life to act after this fashion, and had he altered
it at that particular time, it would have been said, and with
some measure of justice too, that he was afraid of the con
sequences that would ensue if he continued to do as he
had done before. But such a thing would have been disas
trous. It would have ruined his character. It would have
destroyed his influence, and he had better have died than
have lived on to be the contempt and by-word of the hea
then for his cowardice and inconsistency. But, second, this
mode of procedure which Daniel adopted in his devotions
was, for a Jew, perfectly rational and right. He was taught
to regard Jerusalem as the city of the Great King. There
had been the temple, and the shechinah, and the mercy-
seat ; and that there was some peculiar significance in turn
ing toward Jerusalem is evident from the fact that even in
his dedication prayer at the opening of the temple Solomon
refers to it.* No doubt, therefore, the custom up to that
time had been to look toward the tabernacle ; and if you
think a moment or two, you will speedily discover how this
came to be the case. In the tabernacle, as afterward in the
temple, was the holy of holies, where was the ark, whose lid
was sprinkled with the blood of atonement and overshad
owed by the wings of the cherubim, between which the sym
bol of the Divine Presence ever hovered. Now, in turning
toward that in prayer, the pious Jew recognized the neces
sity of propitiation in order to acceptance with God. He
* I Kings viii., 44-48.

Daniel in the Den. 113
cried to God, not simply as the Supreme Being, but to God
as propitiated by sacrifice. He approached him thus as his
covenant God through a mediator, which was at the same
time a sacrifice. Turning toward Jerusalem, therefore, was
to the pious Jew substantially the same thing as approach
ing God through Christ is now to the Christian. It was the
acknowledgment of a mediator and atonement. It was a
pleading of atonement ; it was to him what the formula
" for Christ's sake," when we intelligently use it, is to us.
That I am not guilty of over-refining here is clear from
the words of Jesus to the woman at the well, in which he
plainly intimated that, up till the time at which he spoke,
the Jews were right in maintaining that Jerusalem was the
place where men ought to worship ; but that by his appear
ance, and from and after the moment when he was speak
ing, all this was changed, and men now might worship the
Father anywhere, provided they worshipped him as Father,
and in spirit and in truth.* But why did the appearance
of Jesus do away with the localizing of worship at Jerusa
lem ? Because, I answer, he is the mediator and sacrifice
of a new covenant, wherein the holy of holies is heaven, and
the outer tabernacle earth ; so that now men from any por
tion of the surface of the earth may approach Jehovah, pro
vided only they approach him through Christ. Until Christ
came, therefore, the Jews were right in praying toward Jeru
salem. Still, again, Daniel prayed toward Jerusalem to show his
faith that the people would yet again possess the holy city.
He had the deep conviction that the captivity was ere long
to cease, and he would show the strength of his confidence
in that future event by looking westward while he made
supplication. * John iv., 21-24.

114 Daniel the Beloved.
These considerations, therefore, will be enough to show
that Daniel could not take refuge in the spirituality of God,
or seek to worship him in any other way than he had been
accustomed to do.
I am not sure, however, that his devotion was so public
as at first we are apt to imagine, for in order to discover
him his enemies had to assemble, and the phrase rendered
"found Daniel praying" literally implies that they found
him after a search, so that they had used means to discov
er whether or not he obeyed the intolerant enactment. Of
course they found him. They knew they would so find him ;
and right merrily they went to tell the king, chuckling the
while over the downfall of their hated president.
When the monarch heard what they had to tell, the full
truth for the first time presented itself to his view. He
found that he had been cunningly caught in the trap as well
as Daniel, for the unchangeability that characterized the
Persian laws would not allow him to draw back, and he saw
nothing for it but that Daniel must die. And yet what a
stupid figment that was to come between him and justice !
Even as he yielded to it, one can see that the king was not
satisfied with the subterfuge. His conscience told him that
he might and could deliver his valued servant ; yet, under
an alleged necessity, which was no necessity at all, he at
length gave him up to the lion's den. No doubt he labored
till the going-down of the sun to deliver him. No doubt,
also, he was very sad and sorry at all that had transpired ;
but yet he did the deed, and gave up the best man in his
court to the machinations of his enemies.
Ah ! how often this has been repeated in history ! We
think of Herod, who loved John, in a sense, and heard him
gladly, and who yet sorrowfully gave him up to the execu
tioner's axe, under the idea that he must keep his promise
to a giddy girl, and stand well with the drunken revellers

Daniel in the Den. 115
by whom he was surrounded. We think of Pilate, wash
ing his hands before the crowd, as if that would cleanse his
heart from the bloody spot by which it was stained when he
gave up Jesus to the cross. We think of multitudes in a
lower grade of society, who after some deed of drunkenness,
or dishonesty, or meanness, shelter themselves behind the
subterfuge, that they could not help themselves, because
they were under the necessity of doing as they did.
" Under the necessity !" Is not sin an act of the will ?
and is not the will free ? And if the necessity be so great
as they represent, why their sorrow and distress ? Ah ! the
conscience will not be thus juggled with ; and you may rely
upon it that wherever remorse is, there is the inner con
sciousness that the man could have done otherwise if he
had chosen.
We know not whether Daniel was present while the king
labored to deliver him ; but if he was, he would be saddened
by the sight of the monarch's weakness, and might pity his
lack of energy and determination.
When Palissy, the Huguenot potter, was lying a prisoner
in the Bastile for his adherence to the Protestant faith, it
is said that the King of France, who had a great regard
for him, visited him in his dungeon, and told him that if he
did not comply with the established religion, he should be
forced, however unwillingly, to leave him in the hands of his
enemies. " Forced, sire !" replied the noble old man, with
all the energy and fire of his earlier years ; " this is not to
speak like a king ; but they who force you cannot force me.
I can die."
So I doubt not Daniel felt as he went out from the royal
presence to be led to the lions' den. True, the king did say
as he was going, " Thy God whom thou servest continually,
he will deliver thee ;" but for all so pious as that speech
appears, we are forced to regard it as absurd. He looked

116 Daniel the Beloved.
to Providence, forsooth, to undo the wrong which he might
and ought to have himself prevented ; but he was not the
last who has acted after this fashion. Ah, how often men
have done wrong to their neighbors, and then piously, or,
rather, impiously and hypocritically, told them to trust God
that all would yet be well ! What a mockery of one's mis
ery is this ! And how true the words that even " the tender
mercies of the wicked are cruel !"
But Daniel had other thoughts in his heart than for the
king. His spirit was filled with faith. He knew that God
would either sustain him to die for his glory, or deliver him
out of the mouth of the lion, and so he went bravely forward.
And his faith reaped a rich reward ; for, although the door
into the den was sealed after Daniel had been thrust into
it, the seal could not keep out the protection of his God,
and so it happened that when the morning dawned, the
king, whose conscience would not let him rest, found that
he was alive. One can imagine the relief which the mon
arch would feel when he heard his servant's voice, and how
eagerly he would hasten to have him removed from his
place of imprisonment.
But we cannot omit a passing reference to the words of
Daniel, "My God hath sent his angel, and hath shut the
lions' mouths that they have not hurt me." "My God!"
What a familiar confidence there is in these words ! " His
angel !" And so Daniel was not without company in the
den of lions. The angel of the covenant, who had been
with his three friends in the furnace, had been his compan
ion. The second person of the blessed Trinity, perhaps
also in human form, had been with him. What holy com
munings they must have had ! what happy fellowship !
There was no music, nor dancing, nor gladness, in the pal
ace of Darius that night ; but there was true celestial joy in
the intercourse between Daniel and the angel in the den.

Daniel in the Den. 117
No wonder the lions were subdued into harmlessness. They
recognized their Lord, and fawned about his feet or leaped
on him in demonstrations of affection, giving him the " lam
bent homage " of their tongues. As, long after, the winds
and waves obeyed him, and cowered down into silence and
smoothness on the Lake of Galilee at his word, so now the
lions lay in quiet at his feet, while Daniel — like his apoca
lyptic brother John — lay in affection on his breast.
But we must not linger thus. After Daniel had been
taken from the den, the anger of the king was turned upon
his persecutors, and he immediately consigned them to the
fate which they had intended for their president. As Ha
inan was hanged on the gallows which he had prepared for
Mordecai ; as, according to the ballad of Southey, Sir Ralph
the Rover, who cut away the Inch Cape Bell, perished, with
all his crew, upon the Inch Cape Rock ; as, according to the
general principle which the Psalmist announces, the wicked
fall into the pit which they make for others,* so these per
secutors were taken in the net which they had woven for
Daniel's ensnarement. It is the old story of " vaulting am
bition, which o'erleaps itself and falls on th' other side."
We do not vindicate the king for the swift vengeance which
he took upon them, yet we cannot fail to mark the illustra
tion which it furnishes of the wise man's words, " Whoso dig-
geth a pit shall fall therein ; and he that rolleth a stone, it
will return upon him."|
As in the case of Nebuchadnezzar with the three young
Hebrews, so now again, in that of Darius with Daniel, this
wonderful deliverance was followed by a decree in which
the heathen monarch bears testimony to Jehovah's great
ness, and calls on all men to tremble and fear before the
Lord. But it does not appear that any great change was
* Psa. vii., 15, 16; ix., 15, 16. t Prov. xxvi., 27.

118 Daniel' the Beloved.
wrought by it on Darius himself. He probably imagined
that he had done his part when he had published his de
cree, even as many among ourselves content themselves
with words when deeds would be more appropriate. But
it is so easy for one to compound with his conscience for
his own sins by enforcing duty upon others, that we can
well understand his procedure ; and it is so common with
al that none of us can condemn Darius for it without pro
nouncing sentence also on himself.
I have to-night endeavored to give a practical tone to
my discourse throughout, and so there is the less need for
lengthened remarks by way of application. Let the follow
ing hints suffice.
We may learn, in the first place, that we must not expect
to escape accusation in the world. No matter how care
fully we order our lives, slander will have something to say
against us. The only perfect character the world has ever
seen was defamed as that of a political traitor and a pro
fane blasphemer, and it is sufficient for the servant that he
be as his Lord. Has he not prepared us for such a contin
gency by his own words, "Woe unto you when all men shall
speak well of you ?" and does not his own history and that
of his followers make it evident that the nobler the lives we
live, the more venomous and virulent will be the abuse that
is heaped upon our heads ? The loftiest mountains are
most frequently struck by the thunder - bolt ; the tallest
pines feel most the fury of the blast; and so, as a general
rule, the men who are most eminent for usefulness and ex
cellence in the Church are those around whom the nets of
accusation are most cunningly woven.
Yet let us not rush too rashly to the conclusion that ac
cusation is an endorsement of excellence. If the occasion.
of it have been furnished by us, as it was by Daniel, in our
devotion to the law of our God, then we may value the op-

Daniel in the Den. 119
position of our antagonists as much as we do the confidence
of our friends. But if, by our own folly and infatuation,
we have given ground for the suspicions that are whispered
concerning us ; if by the companionships which we have
been cherishing, and the habits which we have been prac
tising, we have given color to the charges which are brought
against us — then we may not shelter ourselves under the
Master's words, or console ourselves with the thought that
we are only inheriting the good man's lot. Nay, in such a
case, if we are martyrs at all, we are so only to our own folly.
That is a part of the whirlwind which they must reap who
persist, in the face of all expostulation, in sowing the wind.
Let us see to it, therefore, that when men do speak
against us, it shall be for some good that is in us, and not
for evil that we have done ; for our sincere and steadfast
adherence to the morality of the Gospel, and not for -incon
sistencies of which we have been guilty; for something
" concerning the law of our God," and not concerning our
conduct with our fellow-men ; and then, whatever may come
upon us, we may be sure that God will, ere long, bring forth
"our righteousness as the light, and our judgment as the
noonday." " Who is he that will harm you, if ye be follow
ers of that which is good ? But and if ye suffer for right
eousness' sake, happy are ye ; and be not afraid of their
terror, neither be ye troubled. But sanctify the Lord God
in you.r hearts ; and be ready always to give an answer to
every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in
you, with meekness and fear : having a good conscience ;
that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evil-doers, they
may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation
in Christ. For it is better, if the will of God be so [that is,
if ye are to suffer at all], that you suffer for well-doing than
for evil-doing."* * I Peter iii., 13-17.

120 Daniel the Beloved.
We may learn, in the second place, that when we must
either sin or suffer, we ought, without hesitation, to prefer
the suffering. There was no shadow of indecision about
Daniel here. He took no time to deliberate. "He consult
ed not with flesh and blood. He " held no parley with un
manly fears." He met the edict of the king with a refusal
as immediate as it was dignified and firm. He did not go
about complaining to this one and that one on the subject.
He said little, but he did the more. So ought we to meet
all temptations to sin, even though, as in this case, they
threaten us with death if we refuse to yield. True, we are
not likely, in this land or in this age, to meet this danger in
the form in which it was here encountered by Daniel. But
though religious intolerance is at least dormant, if not dead,
among us, we must not suppose that the alternative of suf
fering or sin is never now presented to the soul. The mer
chant who prefers honest poverty to dishonorable gain ; the
workman who braves the tyranny of his class rather than
do wrong to his employer; the capitalist who endures the
ostracism of his caste rather than treat his workmen with
heartless selfishness ; the orphan girl who prefers a life of
hardship and ill-requited industry, with honor and the ap
probation of the Lord, to one of finery and ease, with dis
honor and the loss of self-respect ; the youth who gives up
his situation rather than go against his conscience — all have
had the same alternative set before them that was faced by
Daniel on this memorable occasion. And there is scarcely
a day that some similar question has not to be settled by
each of us in this assembly.
Now, the easiest way to meet such an emergency is to
decide at once, and with firmness, for the right. Delibera
tion is dangerous. The only safety is in immediate action.
Where conscience is concerned, second thoughts are ensnar
ing ; and if you would keep yourself from sin, you must car-

Daniel in the Den. 121
ry out at once the decision which you feel to be the right
one. Say " No !" to the tempter who seeks so cunningly to
make your temporal interest his ally, as he is attacking your
spiritual welfare. Say it as if you meant it ; not with levity
and banter, as if you were indulging in a joke, but grandly,
solemnly, sublimely, as one who knows that the destiny of
his eternity is hanging on its utterance. Say it like Joseph
when he asked, " How can I do this great wickedness, and
sin against God ?" Say it like Moses when " he esteemed
the reproach of Christ greater riches than all the treasures
of Egypt." Say it like Nehemiah, when he made reply to
Sanballat, " I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come
down : why should the work cease, whilst I leave it, and
come down to you ?" A little word it is, yet everything de
pends on your saying it in the right way and at the right
time ; and those have been the heroes of human history who
have said it most emphatically even in the face of the dun
geon and the stake. But you cannot say it thus without
confidence in God. The root of courage is in faith ; and
when we shall possess that clear-eyed vision of the invisible
One which sustained Moses in his work and Daniel in his
danger, we shall be at no loss as to the decision we shall
make between sin and suffering. We shall say, " It is not
necessary for me to be free from pain, but it is necessary
for me to keep myself pure ; it is not necessary for me to
live any longer on the earth, but while I live it is necessary
that I do right : here I stand, God help me, Amen !" And
though the world may never hear of it, that is heroism as
truly as Daniel's defiance of the edict of Darius, or Luther's
appearance before the Diet of Worms.
Finally, we may learn that no human power can keep us
from prayer. Darius might make a decree that no one
throughout his empire was to ask a petition of any god for
thirty days, but how was he to enforce it ? For prayer is

i22 Daniel the Beloved.
the utterance of the heart to God, and it is as natural to the
soul as its cry is to the infant. You may prevent the man
from going to the sanctuary ; you may even so muzzle him
that he cannot articulate a syllable ; but when you have
done all that, you have not made it impossible for him to
pray ; for in his secret soul is his true closet, and to that he
can retire in spite of all your prohibitions. You may cast
him into a dungeon, and load his limbs with chains, and
keep him from all manner of communication with his fel
low-men; but you cannot, oh! you cannot, prevent him
from speaking within his soul to God. And, what is more,
and better still, you cannot keep God from coming to him.
The door has never yet been forged, the dungeon has never
yet been constructed, that can exclude Jehovah from his
suffering ones. He found an entrance to Joseph in the
prison to which Potiphar had consigned him ; to Peter in
the dungeon wherein Herod was so jealously guarding him ;
and to Paul and Silas, in the inmost cell into which they
had been thrust. " I can pray, and that is a great thing,"
said a dying minister to bis friend. Yes, it is a great thing,
the highest of all our privileges as followers of Jesus ; and
of that no human power can deprive us ! Blessed be God
for this good thing which cannot be taken from us ! Let us
prize it highly, and prove it thoroughly in our times of pros
perity and peace, and when trial and adversity come we
shall be the better able to appreciate its value.

VIII.
THE VISION OF THE FOUR BEASTS.
Daniel vii., 1-28.
WITH the seventh chapter a new and entirely distinct
section of the Book of Daniel begins. Up till this
point, we have a series of scenes in his own personal histo
ry or in that of his friends, with but one prophetic vision, in
troduced incidentally ; and even that was not given primari
ly to him, but to Nebuchadnezzar, while he was merely the
agent in its interpretation. From this point on to the close
of the book, however, we have a series of predictions under
the representation of visions, with only such appended per
sonal incidents as are needed to mark the dates at which
the prophecies were given, or the circumstances under which
they were communicated.
This is the portion of the book which has evoked most of
the antagonism of rationalistic interpreters, and with good
reason, at least from their stand-point ; for if the genuine
ness of these chapters be admitted, then the fulfilment of
them in after -historical events is, in the case of many of
them, so abundantly evident that we must exclaim, "This
is the revelation of God." I am aware of the delicacy and
difficulty of the work of interpreting prophecy, especially
when any part of it is as yet unfulfilled ; nevertheless, the
fact that so many of these predictions have been already
verified seems to demand that some account should be given
of them, while, without any dogmatism or any attempt to
prophesy on our own account, we may describe the views

124 Daniel the Beloved.
which are held by different classes of expositors concerning
those sections of them which are as yet waiting their accom
plishment. For myself, I may say that I have never had so
deeply impressed upon me the truth of the divine origin of
Holy Scripture as when I was studying these chapters ; and
if I can succeed in communicating, by the help of God's
Spirit, that impression to you, my labor will be abundantly
rewarded. Let us go forward, therefore, confidently, but at
the same time cautiously ; and when we approach the con
fines of the unfulfilled, let us pause and wait, that God in
history may interpret God in prophecy.
The vision in this seventh chapter is commonly, and I
think correctly, regarded as referring to the same general
features of history as that given to Nebuchadnezzar, and
described in the second chapter. Between the two, how
ever, there is this notable distinction — namely, that while
Nebuchadnezzar saw the earthly kingdoms, or the world-
powers, under the representation of a colossal but lifeless
image of a man, the prophet has them portrayed to him un
der the representation of living animals. Now, as Auber
len, with true Christian insight, has said, " The outward po
litical history had been shown in general features to the
worldly ruler ; for by his position he was peculiarly and al
most exclusively fitted to receive a revelation of this kind.
But the prophet obtains more minute disclosures, especially
on the spiritual and religious character of the powers of the
world, and such as were best adapted to his position and
his. receptivity. This difference of character in the revela
tion easily explains the difference of images. While in the
second chapter they are taken from the sphere of the inani
mate, which has only an external side, they are chosen in
the seventh chapter from the sphere of the animate. Fur
ther, as Nebuchadnezzar saw things only from without, the
world-power appeared to him in its glory as a splendid hu-

The Vision of the Four Beasts. 125
man figure, and the kingdom of God in its humility as a
stone; at first, he beheld the world-power more glorious
than the kingdom of God. Daniel, on the other hand, to
whom it was given to penetrate further into the inner es
sence of things, saw that the kingdoms of the world, notwith
standing their defiant power, are of a nature animal, and
lower than human ; that their minds are estranged from
and even opposed to God, and that only in the kingdom of
God is the true dignity of humanity revealed ; and, accord
ingly, the kingdom of God appears to him from the outset,
and in the very selection of images, superior to the kingdom
of this world  The colossal figure that Nebuchadnezzar
beheld represents mankind in its own strength and great
ness ; but, however splendid, it presents only the outward ap
pearance of a man. But Daniel, regarding mankind in its
spiritual condition, saw humanity through its alienation from
God degraded to the level of reasonless animals, enslaved
by the dark powers of nature. It is only in the kingdom of
God that man gains his humanity and destiny ; it is only
from on high that the living perfect Son of man has come."*
In the first year of Belshazzar our prophet had a vision,
in which he saw the sea raging under the violence of a storm,
and as he looked there arose out of the waters, one after
another, four strange composite animals, over which, as
he gazed, certain wonderful transformations passed. Then,
after the fourth animal, he saw the Ancient of Days clad
in white raiment and seated on a fiery throne ; around him
were thousands that ministered unto him, and ten thousand
times ten thousand stood before him ; " the judgment was
set, and the books were opened." The beast was slain, and
his body was given to the fire, and one like unto " the Son
* " Daniel and the Revelation," by Carl August Auberlen ; trans
lated by Adolph Saphir, pp. 35, 36.

126 Daniel the Beloved.
of man " came with the clouds of heaven, and received do
minion and glory and a kingdom, that all people, nations,
and languages should serve him.
The sight of these things greatly troubled Daniel, so that
he made application to one of those that stood around the
throne for the interpretation, and received this reply, which
lays down the principles which every expounder of the vi
sion must follow : " These great beasts, which are four, are
four kings, which shall arise out of the earth. But the saints
of the Most High shall take the kingdom, and possess the
kingdom for ever, even for ever and ever."
These four beasts, then, as we learn, were the representa
tions of four kingdoms. " The first was like a lion, and had
eagle's wings ;"* and while the prophet looked, its wings
"were plucked, and it was lifted from the earth, and made
to stand upon the feet as a man, and a man's heart was
given to it." This is evidently a symbol of the Babylonian
Empire, which had the strength of the lion combined with
the swiftness of the eagle. Jeremiahf has in his prophecies
likened Nebuchadnezzar to both of these animals ; and
Ezekiel has compared the king,! while Habakkuk§ and Jer
emiah had likened his armies, to the eagle.
The changes which passed over this animal as Daniel
looked upon it represent the decay of the Babylonian mon
archy. It was made to stand on the feet as a man — that is,
in lieu of the quickness of motion, like eagle's wings, there
was given the slowness of human feet. Its rapidity of con
quest was stopped; its savage strength was taken away.
It was weakened and crippled, until at length, as we lately

* It is hardly necessary to remind the reader that the Babylonian
sculptures disinterred in recent years make us familiar with such combi
nations as those described in this vision.
+ Jer. iv., 7 ; Lam. iv., 19. J Ezek. xvii., 3. § Hab. i., 8.

The Vision of the Four Beasts. 127
saw, in a single night, and almost without striking a blow,
its capital was taken by the Medes and Persians.
The second beast was like a bear, and " it raised up itself
on one side, and it had three ribs in the mouth of it between
the teeth of it : and they said thus unto it, Arise, devour
much flesh." This represents the Medo-Persian Empire,
and corresponds to the breast and arms of Nebuchadnez
zar's image. As in the man the right arm is stronger than
the left, so the bear is raised up on one side. The bear
moves awkwardly, and so, in contrast with the winged rapid
ity of the Chaldean conquests, the Persian advances were
slow and heavy. The " three ribs " in its mouth correspond
accurately to the three kingdoms which the Medo-Persian
Empire swallowed up, namely, the Lydian, Babylonian, and
Egyptian; and the command given to it, "Arise, devour
much flesh," may indicate that still other kingdoms were to
be absorbed by it, while at the same time it may suggest
that waste of human life which was a characteristic of the
Persian Empire in its heavy aggressiveness.*
The third beast was " like a leopard," or panther, "which
had upon the back of it four wings of a fowl ; the beast
had also four heads ; and dominion was given to it." This
is designed to represent the Grecian Empire ; first, in its
unity under Alexander the Great, and, second, in its di
vision into four monarchies under his four generals. The
panther is remarkable for swiftness ; and Alexander was as
rapid as he was daring in his conquests. The leopard is of
small size, but of great courage, and is not afraid to encoun
ter the largest beasts of the forest ; so Alexander, a little
king in comparison, of small stature too, and with a small
army, dared to attack the king of kings, that is, the mon-
* This is fully established by Pusey in his "Lectures on Daniel the
Prophet," p. 70.

128 Daniel the Beloved.
arch of Persia, whose kingdom extended from the ^Egean
Sea to the Indus. The subdivision of the empire is indi
cated by its four heads ; and probably also the number of
heads may be a symbol of circumspection and manifold, ver
satile intelligence.
The fourth beast has no name given to it, but is described
as "dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it
had great iron teeth : it devoured and brake in pieces, and
stamped the residue with the feet of it : and it was diverse
from all the beasts that were before it, and it had ten horns ;"
and while the prophet considered the horns, "there came
up among them another little horn, before whom there were
three of the first horns plucked up by the roots : and, be
hold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth
speaking great things." This last symbol seems most to
have affected the prophet's mind. It contained in it more
than he had learned from the explanation of the " legs of
iron and clay" in Nebuchadnezzar's image, and the follow
ing interpretation of its meaning was, at his earnest request,
vouchsafed to him: -"The fourth beast shall be the fourth
kingdom upon earth, which shall be diverse from all king
doms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it
down, and break it in pieces. And the ten horns out of this
kingdom are ten kings that shall arise ; and another shall
rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first,
and he shall subdue three kings. And he shall speak great
words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints
of the Most High, and think to change times and laws : and
they shall be given into his hand until a time and times"
(that is, two times, for the word is dual) " and the dividing
of time. But the judgment shall sit, and they shall take
away his dominion, to consume and to destroy it unto the
end." Now, concerning this beast and the explanation here giv-

The Vision of the Four Beasts. 129
en of the changes that passed upon it, there has been much
controversy among commentators. I shall content myself
with putting before you the principal opinions. Some have
supposed that this animal represents the Grecian Empire
after Alexander's death ; that the ten horns are ten kings of
different sections of it ; and that the little horn is Antiochus
Epiphanes. But against this view we have to set the fact
that the vision here runs parallel to that of Nebuchadnez
zar's image, which, as we saw when we were considering it,
is most naturally understood of the Babylonian, Persian,
Grecian, and Roman kingdoms.
Again, the kingdom of the Seleucidas is always regarded
as a part of the great Greek Empire, and never spoken of
as being in itself a new one. Once more, in the leopard
with its four heads we have already had the Grecian Em
pire as a whole, and it is not natural to regard it as set be
fore us in one of its sections only in this fourth animal.
Still further, in Antiochus Epiphanes there was nothing di
verse, in kind at least, from other kings. His peculiar dis
tinction was not that he was of a different sort from others,
but only that he was worse ; and so, though there are cer
tainly in his reign some marvellous coincidences with the
statements made regarding this little horn, we cannot view
him as meeting all the requirements of the case. For these
reasons, a large number of expositors are in favor of regard
ing this animal as representing the Roman Empire.
But even among those who adopt this general idea there
are distinct differences. They may be divided into three
classes. The first, of whom Calvin may be named as a
specimen, find the ten horns in the number of separate
kingdoms of which the Roman Empire was composed.
They suppose that the little horn means Julius Caesar; and1
the overthrow of the whole they discover in the first advent
of the Messiah, when he came to found that spiritual king-
6*

130 Daniel the Beloved.
dom which is yet destined to be universal and everlasting.
To this interpretation, however, there are insuperable ob
jections ; for the ten horns are said to be kings or king
doms rising out of that which is symbolized by the beast,
and cannot, therefore, be taken as meaning the different
parts of which, as a whole, it was originally composed. As
the four heads of the leopard represented the partition of
Alexander's kingdom, so the ten horns of this beast must
represent a partition of the kingdom denoted by the beast.
Again, there was nothing in Julius Caesar diverse from other
earthly potentates. No doubt, he had astuteness and abili
ty and military skill in a larger measure than almost any
other general ; but these were the same in kind as those
possessed by others, the only difference being in degree.
Therefore, this interpretation does not meet the full re
quirements of the case.
The great preponderance of opinion among commenta
tors, therefore, is in favor of what may be called the papal
interpretation ; and without in any way indicating my pref
erence for it, I shall endeavor to set it vividly before you as
it is given by the most prominent of this class of authors.
In the view of these writers, then, the fourth beast repre
sents the Roman Empire. " It was so great and horrible
that it was not easy to find an adequate name for it ; and
the Roman Empire was dreadful and terrible and strong
exceedingly, beyond any of the former kingdoms. It was
diverse from all kingdoms, not only in its republican form
of government, but likewise in strength and power and
greatness, and duration and extent of dominion. It de
voured, and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with
the feet of it; it reduced Macedonia into a Roman prov
ince, about 168 B.C. ; the kingdom of Pergamus, about 133
b.c. ; Syria, about 65 B.C. ; and Egypt, about 30 B.C. And
besides the remains of the Macedonian Empire, it subdued

The Vision of the Four Beasts. 131
many other provinces and kingdoms ; so that it might, by a
very usual figure, be said to devour the whole earth, and to
tread it down, and to break it in pieces, and become, in a
manner, what the Roman writers delighted to call it, ' terra-
rum or bis imperium,' the empire of the whole world."* The
ten horns of the beast are the ten kingdoms which consti
tuted, at the fall of the Roman Empire, what Bishop New
ton has called " the broken pieces," into which it was cut
up, and which, according to Machiavel,f who was not think
ing of Daniel when he made the enumeration, were these
ten : the Ostrogoths, the Visigoths, the Swenes and Alans,
the Vandals, the Franks, the Burgundians, the Heruli and
Turingi, the Saxons, the Huns, and the Lombards. Other
enumerations have been given by Mede, by Lloyd, by Sir
Isaac Newton, etc. ; and some have supposed that the nu
meral ten stands here simply as a definite for an indefinite
number. The " little horn " spoken of in verse 8th is regarded by
this class of interpreters as the Bishop of Rome when he
became a temporal prince. " The Bishop of Rome," says
Bishop Newton,! ''was respectable as a bishop long be
fore ; but he did not become ' a horn ' properly, which is an
emblem of strength and power, till he became ' a temporal
prince.' He was to rise after the others, that is, behind
them, and, as Mede explains it, so that the kings were not
aware of the growing-up of the little horn till it overtopped
them." Three of the first horns — that is, three of the first
kings or kingdoms — were to be plucked up by the roots and
to fall before it. And these three, according to Sir Isaac
Newton, were, first, the exarchate of Ravenna, which of right
* " Dissertations on the Prophecies," by Thomas Newton, D.D.,
sometime Lord Bishop of Bristol, p. 230.
t Ibid., p. 232. t Ibid., p. 241.

132 Daniel the Beloved.
belonged to the Greek emperors, and was given to Pope
Stephen II. by Pepin, because his predecessor had acknowl
edged him, though a usurper, to be the lawful sovereign of
France. This was effected about the year 755. Second,
the kingdom of the Lombards, which was often troublesome
to the popes, so that at the instigation of one of the pon
tiffs, Charlemagne, successor of Pepin, came with a great
army, and conquered it, and gave a great part of it to the
Holy See. This was in the year 774. Third, the city and
dukedom of Rome, which was made over by the same Char
lemagne to Leo III.
Other authors have given a slightly different enumeration ;
but all this class of interpreters are careful to remark that
the Pope has in a manner designated himself as the per
son indicated by wearing the tiara, or triple crown. In oth
er respects, too, the Pope, in their view, fully answers the
character of the little horn. It was to be diverse from the
first, and so the power of the popes is, or rather was, unlike
that of other princes, being ecclesiastical as well as tempo
ral. In this horn were " eyes like the eyes of man," to de
note, they say, cunning and foresight — his looking out and
watching for all opportunities to promote his own interest ;
and with this agrees the policy of the Roman hierarchy,
which, as they say, has almost passed into a proverb for
these peculiarities.
" He had a mouth, speaking very great things ;" and who,
they ask, hath been more noisy and blustering than the
Pope, boasting of his supremacy, thundering with his anath
emas, bellowing with his bulls, excommunicating princes,
absolving subjects from their allegiance, and claiming even
the infallibility of God ?
" And he shall speak great words against the Most High ;"
and who, again, they ask, has so set himself up above all
laws, human and divine, arrogating to himself godlike attri-

The Vision of the Four Beasts. 133
butes and titles of holiness and infallibility, insulting men
and blaspheming God, as the Pope has ?
"And he shall wear out the saints of the Most High;"
that is, as they affirm, he shall waste God's people by wars,
Inquisitions, persecutions, massacres, and the like ; and we
must admit that the papacy may well deserve to be so de
scribed. " And he shall think to change times and laws," appoint
ing fasts and feasts, canonizing saints, granting pardons for
sin and indulgences to sin, instituting new modes of wor
ship, imposing new articles of faith, enjoining new rules of
practice, such as celibacy, and reversing at pleasure the laws
of God and man. No doubt this, also, may be said with
truth of the papacy.
" And they shall be given into his hands for a time, two
times, and the dividing of time." A time, all this class of
interpreters agree, is a year. So a time, two times, and half
a time make three years and a half. Now, taking the
computation of a day for a year, which, without any warrant,
they always take, and reckoning a month at thirty days, we
get the forty and two months of Revelation (xi., 2), and the
twelve hundred and sixty days of Revelation (xi., 3, and
xii., 6). This kingdom of the papacy, therefore, which, is
temporal and spiritual, is to last, so say these interpreters,
for twelve hundred and sixty years.
But much difference of opinion has been entertained
among them as to the period from which the calculation is
to be made. Some would reckon it from the issuing of the
edict of Justinian acknowledging the Pope to be the head of
the Church, a.d. 533 ; others would take it from the decree
of Phocas, by which the title of Justinian was confirmed,
and of which the date is a.d. 606 ; others count it from the
grant of Pepin of the kingdom of Lombardy, by which the
Pope first became a temporal monarch, the date of which

134 Daniel the Beloved.
is a.d. 752. The second of these dates was that adopted
by Robert Fleming, in his work on the " Rise and Fall of
the Papacy," first published in 1701, wherein he says, "If
we may suppose that Antichrist began his reign in the year
606, the additional twelve hundred and sixty years, were they
Julian or ordinary years, would lead down to 1866 ; but, see
ing they are prophetical years of only three hundred and
sixty days, we must cast away eighteen years, and thus the
final period ofthe papal usurpation must conclude in 1848."
This was the statement that was so frequently quoted, as
those of us then old enough to take note of what was said
will remember, in that memorable year when the Pope was
compelled to become a fugitive from Rome ; and it was cer
tainly a striking coincidence. Elliot, in his " Horae Apoca-
lypticae," dates from the edict of Justinian, 529 to 533, and
adding 1260 to these we have 1789 to 1793, the era of the
first French Revolution, when certainly the papacy received
the first of that series of blows from which it is still reeling,
and from which it will probably never recover. Others,
however, take the date from 754, and tell us we are not to
expect the downfall of Antichrist till the year 2014.
I have given these different interpretations more as a
matter of curiosity than because I am willing to endorse
any one of them. For such investigations as these, I con
fess I have little taste, and though many singular coinci
dences have occurred, I own that I shrink from descending
to such particulars, and perilling the argument which may
be drawn from the prophecy as a whole on the accuracy of
a single date.
But we must hasten on. This kingdom and the little horn
rising out of it are to be destroyed at length by the power
of the Son of man, a name which here we meet in prophecy
for the first time. Heaven is opened to us as to the proph
et. We see the throne, and the Ancient of Days seated

The Vision of the Four Beasts. 135
thereon. The judgment is set, and the books are opened ;
and one like unto the Son of man is there, like man, but
not a mere man ; man, but more than man ; and to him
is given power, and glory, and kingdom, that all peoples
should serve him, and his dominion is to last forever. We
know this Son of man ; and we know, too, that as in the
case of the destruction of Jerusalem, his coming, here fore
told, is not that of a personal presence, but rather of a
providential judgment and a great ingathering of souls to
himself. The whole description of verses 13 and 14 is but, as it
were, a dramatizing of the words of the Second Psalm :
"Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine in
heritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy pos
session." And so the end shall come : might is not always
to prevail, truth is yet to come uppermost. The flock of
Christ is not always to be feeble and small, but the earth
shall be filled with his knowledge as the waters cover the
sea. " He shall reign till all his enemies are put under
him." His name is " King of kings and Lord of lords," and
the day is coming when the shout shall be heard on high,
" Hallelujah ! the kingdoms of the world are become the
kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ." As surely as the
truth of this vision in regard to the three first kingdoms has
been demonstrated, so surely shall it be made manifest by
the destruction of the fourth, with its little horn, of vanity,
and blasphemy, and cruelty, and by the setting-up of a
great, spiritual, universal, and eternal kingdom, with Jesus
sitting supreme on the throne of loving and loyal human
hearts. But now, leaving the subject of the interpretation of this
remarkable prophecy, let us attempt to get at the practical
and permanent principles which underlie it, and which are
at once profoundly suggestive and exceedingly important.

136 Daniel the Beloved.
Foremost among these, we find the terribly significant
truth that earthly power in and of itself degenerates into
brutality. The appropriate symbol of a great empire is a
wild beast. From the day when Nimrod founded Babel on
till that when the latest empire that has been added to the
list of the world's monarchies was consummated, the king
doms of the earth have stood on military conquest. Might
has taken the place of right. The weakest has been driven
to the wall, and the cruelties which have been practised on
the battle-field and in connection with victory have given
the fullest illustration of the poet's words, " Man's inhuman
ity to man makes countless thousands mourn." The sword
has been the arbiter of imperial dynasties, and the struggles
between rival powers have been as fierce and destructive as
the contentions of wild animals in the jungle. Nay, even
in our own century, the age of peace societies, and interna
tional conferences, and exhibitions of the products of indus
try to which the civilized world has been asked to contribute,
we have seen again and again that resort has been had to
war for the settlement of differences between neighboring
states. We all exclaim against the brutality of the prize
fight, wherein two men consent to beat each other into
bruised and bleeding flesh for the paltry consideration of a
sum of money or the empty honor of a championship. But
what better is it when armies seek to annihilate each other
for the sake of an addition to national territory, or for the
vindication of what is called national honor ? The rifle may
be a more scientific weapon than the fist, but they are both
the instruments of violence ; and it is a libel on the intelli
gence of our humanity, not to say also on the Christianity
of our age, to say that no other means can be devised for
the settlement of the disputes or the removal of the jeal
ousies that may spring up between different nations.
The Washington treaty is a new thing in international

The Vision of the Four Beasts. 137
politics, and it is not by accident that this has been carried
through by the two most thoroughly Christianized nations
on the earth. Nor ought it to be forgotten in this connec
tion that the English Cabinet under whose auspices, on the
one side at least, that arbitration was agreed on and con
ducted, had in it more men of earnest personal Christian
convictions than any government which Great Britain has
seen in its history. When I repeat the names of Gladstone,
Bright, Hatherley, Argyll, it will be at once recognized that
they are those of men who stand in the fore-front of relig
ious thinkers, as well as in the vanguard of a political
party ; and when I affirm, as I do on the fullest evidence,
that no man's words on this side of the Atlantic were so in
fluential in regard to the inauguration of the same treaty
as those of the venerable Christian scholar and philosopher
Theodore Woolsey, you will recognize how much of the un
worldly element there was in it all. But that, unhappily, is
still an exceptional case ; and the war between France and
Germany a few years ago, as well as that between Russia
and Turkey to-day, is a conclusive proof that among the
world-powers might is still supreme, while the barbarities
which have been reported in the latter instance with, I fear,
too much truth, on both sides, attest that the symbolism of
Daniel is as appropriate now as it was in the time of Bel
shazzar. Alas ! who can think of all this without joining
the recluse of Olney in his lament, as through the " loop
hole " of his retreat he sighs,
" Oh for a lodge in some vast wilderness,
Some boundless contiguity of shade,
Where rumor of oppression and deceit,
Of unsuccessful or successful war,
Might never reach me more ! My ear is pain'd,
My soul is sick with every day's report
Of wrong and outrage with which earth is fill'd :

138 Daniel the Beloved.
There is no flesh in man's obdurate heart ;
It does not bleed for man ; the natural bond
Of brotherhood is sever'd as the flax
That falls asunder at the touch of fire."*
But observe, again, that the tendency of this brutality is
to increase. The four beasts that Daniel saw came in this
order : first the lion, then the bear, then the panther, then
that huge composite, unnamed, almost unnamable, animal,
with "great iron teeth, devouring and breaking in pieces,
and stamping the residue with the feet of it." We have
heard a great deal lately of theories of development, and
this is neither the place nor the time to enter upon the
consideration of these so far as they seek to explain the
physical universe ; but, morally, the only development of
man, when left to himself, which history has seen, has been
downward. Bad as the Babylonians were, they were out
done by the Persians ; and these were exceeded by the
Greeks ; while the Romans were worst of all.
Let it be noted, also, that all this while the nations were
growing in what has been called culture and civilization.
The art and poetry and philosophy of Greece have never
been excelled ; and Rome was the heir of the highest civ
ilization that had gone before it. But, after all, that was
merely a superficial thing, and served only very thinly to
veneer the rottenness and cruelty which were beneath.
You may suspect my testimony ; but if you accept that of
Mr. Lecky, in his " History of Morals," he will tell you that
Greece was a mass of reeking corruption ; and Mr. An
thony Trollope has given us a most harrowing description
of Roman cruelty, which, from its bearing on the very point
before us, I must take the liberty of quoting. He says,
" That which will most strike the ordinary English reader
* Cowper's "Task," Book II.

The Vision of the Four Beasts. 139
in the narrative of Csesar is the cruelty of the Romans —
cruelty of which Caesar himself is guilty to a frightful ex
tent, and of which he never expresses horror. And yet
among his contemporaries he achieved a character for clem
ency which he has retained to this day. In describing the
character of Caesar without reference to that of his contem
poraries, it is impossible not to declare him to have been
terribly cruel. From blood-thirstiness he slaughtered none,
but neither from tenderness did he spare any. All was done
from policy ; and when policy seemed to demand blood he could
without a scruple — as far as we can judge, without a pang —
order the destruction of human beings, having no regard to num
ber, sex, age, innocence, or helplessness. Our only excuse for
him is that he was a Roman, and that Romans were indif
ferent to blood. Suicide was with them the common mode
of avoiding otherwise inevitable misfortune ; and it was nat
ural that men who made light of their own lives should
make light of the lives of others. Of all those with whose
names the reader will become acquainted in the following
pages " (" The Commentaries of Caesar "), " hardly one or two
died in their beds." Then, having amply proved that state
ment, he goes on to say, " The bloody catalogue is so com
plete, so nearly comprises all whose names are mentioned,
that it strikes the reader with almost a comic horror. But
when we come to the slaughter of whole towns ; to the devas
tation of country effected purposely that men and women might
starve ; to the abandonment of the old, the young, and the ten
der, that they might perish on the hill-sides ; to the mutilation
of crowds of men ; to the burning of cities told us in a passing
word ; to the drowning of many thousands — mentioned as we
should mention the destruction of a brood of rats — the comedy
is all over, and the heart becomes sick. Then it is we re
member that the coming of Christ has changed all things,
and that men now — though terrible things have been done

140 Daniel the Beloved.
since Christ came to us — are not as men were in the days
of Caesar."* Nothing needs to be added to this statement
in order to prove the brutality of the power symbolized by
this fourth beast, save to say that the history of the devel
opment of the Empire in later days, as traced by Gibbon,
contains the record of even greater enormities, if that be
possible, than those of which Caesar was guilty.
But if this be so, then we are prepared for the third les
son suggested by this prophecy — namely, that the restora
tion of man to humanity must come, not from himself, but
from above. He who introduced the healing salt which is
yet to purify thoroughly the bitter fountain of our earthly
life was sent forth from "the Ancient of Days." He came
from heaven to earth, that he might elevate earth at length
to heaven. He, the "Son of God," became the "Son of
man," that he might make us sons of God. Had he been a
man and no more, he could not have arrested the downward
moral development that was in progress. But because he
was God incarnate, because he came from above, he is able
to introduce an antidote to the corruption of our human
nature. There are few more striking arguments for the divine
origin of the Gospel, and the deity of its author, than that
which may be drawn from the contrast between the charac
ter of Jesus and that of his age. Recall the words of Trol-
lope which I have just quoted, or lift such a work, for exam
ple, as Forsyth's " Life of Cicero," and see what a sink of
iniquity and corruption Rome had become only a few years
before the birth of Christ. Peruse the writings of Josephus,
and mark how he describes in blackest characters the im-

* " The Commentaries of Csesar," by Anthony Trollope, in the " Se
ries of Ancient Classics for English Readers," pp. 24-27. The italics are
our own.

The Vision of the Four Beasts. 141
morality of the Jewish people in the days of Herod the
Great. Then take the four Gospels and read them, and
you will perceive that the difference between them is not
one of degree, but of nature. By what process of " evolu
tion " could Jesus Christ have been produced out of such an
age ? Consider the attributes of character by which he was
distinguished. His meekness and humility were equalled
only by his honesty and benevolence. There was about
him a conscientious thoroughness, which was carried out at
every sacrifice ; and so far from having that love of ostenta
tion which might have been expected in a deceiver, there
was in him a disposition rather to check the impulsive ardor
of those who wished to blaze abroad the glory of his powen
His Sermon on the Mount evinces that, beyond all other
things in religion, he delighted in truth in the inward parts,
and held in abhorrence that cold and hollow ritualism which
is content with " the form of godliness," while " denying its
power." Never was there such an equipoise of moral attri
butes as we find in him. To an all-embracing love he join
ed a sternness of principle which exposed wrong wherever
he found it, and insisted on faithfulness even in that which
is least. With the humility of a child, there was combined
in him the sublime self-consciousness of one who " thought
it not robbery to be equal with God ;" and with the tender
ness of a woman there was associated the courage of a hero.
But most of all, pervading his other qualities, and shedding
its own bright halo round them all, was his self-sacrificing
and devoted love. Before the portrait which these evan
gelists have painted, men of every age have stood in rooted
admiration; and the influence of his life and death and
teachings has put the benevolence into our modern life.
If it has not yet succeeded in destroying war, it has sent its
ministers of mercy to the battle-field, to care for the wound
ed and soothe the dying ; and by-and-by, under the teaching

142 Daniel the Beloved.
of his Spirit, men shall "beat their swords into ploughshares,
and their spears into pruning-hooks."
Now, do not tell me that such a character was the natu
ral outgrowth of his times. Take Rome before the Advent,
with Cicero as a representative of its philosophy and states
manship, Horace as the popular idol among its poets, and
Anthony as a specimen of its morals ; take the philosophy
of Greece, with its different sects of Stoics, Epicureans,
Platonists, and the like ; take Judaism, whether as seen at
Alexandria among the disciples of Philo, or in Judea among
the formal Pharisees, the sceptical Sadducees, or the ascetic
Essenes. Put all these into the crucible of such an age as
that undeniably was, and by what amalgam known to men
could these elements have produced Jesus Christ ? Christ
the outgrowth of his age ? No ! The legitimate child of
such an age was the dilettante litterateur, the amateur musi
cian, the fashionable charioteer, the inhuman monster, Nero !
But, so far from being a development of his generation, Je
sus was crucified by his generation for being what he was ;
and the inscription over his cross, written as it was in let
ters of Greek and Latin and Hebrew, may fitly symbolize the
agreement of all the three nationalities in putting him to
death. He was no development of his age, but, instead,
everything true and noble and loving and godlike in suc
ceeding generations has been a development of him ; and
when men, standing around his cross, shall learn to combine
in their lives obedience to the precepts of his Sermon on
the Mount with the reception of the principle that pervades
his parable of the Good Samaritan, then will be the return
of that golden age to which the poets of antiquity looked so
wistfully back, and the beginning of that millennium which
Christians are so prayerfully expecting.
Thus, then, the hope of the world lies in the diffusion of
the Gospel of Christ, and to us, in this age and in this land,

The Vision of the Four Beasts. 143
the high privilege has been given of laboring in this holy
and benevolent enterprise. The truth as it is in Jesus is
the great purifier and elevator of human society. Civiliza
tion without the Gospel is, as we have seen, only a veneered
brutality. But wherever the Gospel goes in power, it re
stores men to humanity by bringing them back to God.
Man was made in the image of his Creator, and so the
purest godlikeness will ever be the truest humanity. But
to have godlikeness we must have God's Son dwelling in
us ; and when we have attained that blessing, we shall not
seek to keep it to ourselves, but shall work, and pray, and
give, that others may share it with us. To this bloodless
crusade let me summon you now ; for when the Church of
Christ shall go forth in earnest as a missionary of love to
the nations, she will be the most effective Peace Society;
and, in the proportion in which men embrace the principles
of the Saviour, cruelty will disappear from the earth. Let
us give ourselves, beloved brethren, to this holy enterprise,
and we shall thus help on the coming of the day when
the prophecy shall be fulfilled — a prophecy so much more
significant in our eyes, after our consideration of the sym
bolism of this vision of Daniel, " The wolf also shall dwell
with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid ;
and the calf and the young lion and the fading together;
and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the
bear shall feed ; their young ones shall lie down together :
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox."* May the Lord
hasten it in its time ! * Isa. xi., 6, 7.

IX.
VISION OF THE RAM AND THE HE-GOAT.
Daniel viii., 1-27.
TWO years after Daniel had seen the vision so minutely
described in our last lecture, and while he was resid
ing at Shushan, which was afterward the summer palace of
the Persian monarchs, there came to him another supernat
ural revelation, which fitted into, and filled in, the outline
which had been given in the former in regard at least to
two of the great world-powers.
He saw two hostile animals, one a ram, and the other a
he-goat, contending with each other, and after the ram had
been destroyed, the great horn which he had marked be
tween the eyes of the goat was broken, and four horns came
out upon its forehead. Then out of one of these a little
horn came forth, which waxed great, and magnified itself
against the worship of the Most High. While the prophet
was looking on the vision, he heard a colloquy between two
holy ones, from which he received the information that the
little horn was to be triumphant for two thousand and three
hundred days ; and at the close of all, when he was seeking
for the meaning of the vision, there stood before him the
appearance of a man, who called to Gabriel, saying, " Make
this man to understand the vision." This the angel did, in
simple but significant words, and the effect upon the proph
et was so great that he fainted and was sick certain days.
Thus we are not left to conjecture the interpretation of this
singular vision, for just as, in the parables of the sower and

Vision of the Ram and the He-goat. 145
the tares, the Saviour has given the key to their meaning,
so here the explanations furnished by Gabriel lay down
the lines which we must follow. Let us therefore advance
under this celestial guidance to the investigation of the
prophecy. The ram which Daniel saw was the Persian Empire. The
two horns were the two kingdoms of Media and Persia of
which it was composed. The one horn higher than the
other which came up last was the Persian monarchy, which,
though latest in developing its strength, did ultimately, in
the reign of Cyrus, overtop, and indeed almost absorb, Me
dia. " The ram pushed westward, and northward, and south
ward ; so that no beasts might stand before him, neither was
there any that could deliver out of his hand ; but he did ac
cording to his will, and became great." So the conquests
of the Persians are described. Nothing is said of their do
ings eastward ; but they subdued, westward, Babylon, Meso
potamia, Syria, and Asia Minor ; southward, Palestine, with
parts of Egypt, Arabia, and Ethiopia ; and northward, Col
chis, Armenia, and the regions around the Caspian Sea.
Such was the power of this empire, that for a long time it
was acknowledged to be the foremost in the world, and it
met with no successful opposition until it was confronted
with the forces of Greece at Marathon, Salamis, and Plataea.
" The rough goat is the king of Grecia : and the great
horn that is between his eyes is the first king." Thus the
goat, so long as the one horn continued unbroken, symbol
ized the Macedonian Empire in its first form as united un
der one monarch ; and it is interesting to note that the sym
bol of a goat is often found in various ways in connection
with Macedonia, and was used as an emblem of that king
dom. Of this custom a mythological origin is furnished in
the statement that Caramus, the first king of Macedonia, was
led by goats to the site where he established the capital of
7

146 Daniel the Beloved.
his kingdom. Mr. Combe, writing to the editor of " Cal-
met's Dictionary," says, in a passage quoted by Mr. Barnes
in his commentary on this chapter, " Not only many of the
individual towns in Macedon and Thrace employed this
type, but the kingdom of Macedonia itself was represented
by a goat which had this peculiarity, that it had but one
horn." The same author refers to one of the pilasters of
Persepolis, on which there seems to be a record of the
Macedonians becoming tributary to the Persians in the
shape of a goat with an immense horn growing out of the
middle of its forehead, while a man dressed like a Persian
is standing by its side, and holding the horn with his left
hand. This goat " came from the west on the face of the whole
earth, and touched not the ground : * * * * and there was no
power in the ram to stand before him, but he cast him down
to the ground and stamped upon him : and there was none
that could deliver him out of his hands." No symbolism
could more expressively or graphically portray the collision
between the Greek and Persian empires which resulted in
the undisputed sovereignty of Alexander the Great. That
great military genius was remarkable for the rapidity of his
movements. He came, as it were, flying to victory ; so that
it might well be said that the goat " touched not the ground."
The same characteristic of this general was set before us in
the former vision by the union of the wings of a bird to the
body of the leopard ; and a very slight acquaintance with
ancient history is necessary for the appreciation of this vivid
picture. We have only to take into consideration a few of
the dates of Alexander's life to recognize its accuracy. He
was chosen generalissimo of the Greeks against the Persians
while yet he was only twenty-one years old ; and he died
the victim of intemperance at the early age of thirty-three ;
so that the whole series of his campaigns and victories was

Vision of the Ram and the He-goat. 147
comprised within twelve years. In the year 334 B.C., he
crossed the Hellespont, and defeated his enemies on the
bank of the Granicus ; in 333 B.C., he overthrew Darius at
Issus ; in 332 b.c, he conquered Tyre and Egypt, and found
ed the city of Alexandria; in 331 b.c, he crossed the Eu
phrates and the Tigris and met with the immense hosts of
Darius, said to have amounted to more than a million of
men, and completely defeated them in the plains of Gauga-
mela. Thus in four years he made the entire realm of Per
sia tributary to Greece. In 327 b.c, he invaded India, and
crossed the Indus, probably near the modern Attock. Thus
in little more than six years he pushed his dominion to the
farthest east.
The description of the first shock of conflict between the
goat and the ram given in the seventh verse recalls to every
one familiar with ancient history the incidents of the battle
on the banks of the Granicus, in which the Persians sustain
ed their first defeat at Alexander's hands. Darius and his
army, numbering 100,000 foot and 10,000 horse, occupied
the farther side of the river ; and the Greeks, who were only
35,000 strong, plunged into the stream, swam across, and
rushed on the Persian forces with such fury that, with a loss
of barely 100 men, they left 20,000 of the enemy dead upon
the field. This marvellous success spread abroad the terror
of the conqueror's name, and prepared the way for his an
nexation of India.
But his greatness was not to be of long continuance, for
though the he-goat waxed strong, the great horn was broken
in the very hour of his strength ; and "for it came up four
notable ones toward the four winds of heaven." Very mel
ancholy is the closing chapter of the great conqueror's
career, and I cannot describe it better than in the following
paragraphs from a very unpretentious but really valuable
work: "Alexander projected the conquest of India, firmly

148 Daniel the Beloved.
persuaded that the gods had decreed to him the sovereignty
of the whole habitable globe. He penetrated to the Gan
ges, and would have advanced to the Eastern ocean, had
the spirit of his army kept pace with his ambition. But his
troops, seeing no end to their toils, refused to proceed. He
returned to the Indus, from whence, sending round his fleet
to the Persian Gulf, he marched his army across the desert
to Persepolis. Indignant that he had found a limit to his
conquests, he abandoned himself to every excess of luxury
and debauchery. The arrogance of his nature, and the ar
dor of his passions, heightened by continual intemperance,
broke out into the most outrageous excesses of cruelty, for
which, in the few intervals of sober reflection, his ingen
uous mind suffered the keenest remorse. From Persepolis
he returned to Babylon, and there died, after a fit of de
bauch, in the thirty-third year of his age and thirteenth of
his reign. On his death-bed he named no successor, but
gave his ring to Perdiccas, one of his officers. When his
courtiers asked him to whom he wished the empire to de
volve, he replied, ' To the most worthy.' Perdiccas, sensi
ble that his pretensions would not justify a direct assump
tion of the government of this vast empire, brought about a
division of the whole among thirty- three of the principal
officers, to each of whom he assigned the charge of a prov
ince, and to himself he reserved the commander-in-chief-
ship of the army, trusting to their inevitable dissensions for
an opportunity to reduce them all under his own authority.
Hence arose a series of wars and intrigues of which the de
tail is barren and uninteresting. It is sufficient to say, the
consequence was a total extirpation of the family of Alexan
der, and a new partition of the empire into four great mon
archies : Macedon, with a part of Greece, which fell to the
share of Canander ; Thrace, Bithynia, and the Northern re
gions, which were the lot of Lysimachus ; Egypt, with Cy-

Vision of the Ram and the He-goat. 149
rene and Cyprus, which were the share of Ptolemy ; and
Syria, with all Upper Asia and the Eastern provinces, which
formed the kingdom of Seleucia."* These were the four
horns on the head of the goat, and correspond also to the
four heads of the leopard in the former vision.
Soon, however, attention is concentrated on the history
of one of these divisions, for thus the record proceeds
(verses 9-12) : "And out of one of them came forth a little
horn, which waxed exceeding great, toward the south, and
toward the east, and toward the pleasant land. And it wax
ed great, even to the host of heaven ; and it cast down
some of the host and of the stars to the ground, and stamp
ed upon them. Yea, he magnified himself even to the
prince of the host, and by him the daily sacrifice was taken
away, and the place of his sanctuary was cast down. And
a host was given him against the daily sacrifice by reason
of transgression, and it cast down the truth to the ground ;
and it practised, and prospered." But with this description
we must combine the interpretation given by Gabriel (verses
22-25) : " Now that being broken, whereas four stood up
for it, four kingdoms shall stand up out of the nation, but
not in his power. And in the latter time of their kingdom,
when the transgressors are come to the full, a king of fierce
countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall stand
up. And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own
power : and he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper,
and practise, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy
people. And through his policy also he shall cause craft
to prosper in his hand ; and he shall magnify himself in his
heart, and by peace shall destroy many : he shall also stand
up against the Prince of princes ; but he shall be broken
without hand."
* " Elements of General History, Ancient and Modern," by Alexander
Fraser Tytler, Lord Woodhouselee, pp. 56-58.

150 Daniel the Beloved.
In seeking to expound these verses, we must have regard
in the outset to the distinction between the " little horn "
in this vision and that in the prediction of the seventh chap
ter. In the latter case, the little horn arose among the ten
horns on the head of the fourth beast, which must, as we
think, be interpreted of the Roman Empire. But in the
vision now before us, the " little horn " springs out of one
of the four horns on the head of the goat ; that is, out of one
of the four kingdoms into which the Grecian Empire was
divided after Alexander's death ; and " in the latter time "
of these kingdoms ; that is, just before they were all super
seded by the Roman power. Now, if we keep this distinc
tion clearly before us, it will save us from much of the con
fusion into which expositors have fallen in treating of this
chapter. Thus there are many, of whom the excellent Bish
op Newton may be cited as a specimen, who take this lit
tle horn to represent the Roman Empire as a persecuting
power. He says, " The persecuting power of Rome, wheth
er exercised toward the Jews or toward the Christians, by
the emperors or by the popes, is still the little horn. The
tyranny is the same ; but as exerted in Greece and the
East, it is the little horn of the he-goat of the third empire ;
as exerted in Italy and the West, it is the little horn of the
fourth beast, or the fourth empire.* But this is to substitute
an idealized principle for a concrete kingdom ; and in the
explanation of Gabriel, the horns are spoken of as repre
senting not abstract qualities, but visible monarchies. We
must adhere to that throughout, and therefore we cannot
accept the theory which sees in the little horn simply the
representative of religious intolerance. There are only two
beasts in this vision. Evidently, therefore, the prophecy is
restricted to the histories of two out of the four great em-
* " Dissertations on the Prophecies," p. 287.

Vision of the Ram and the He-goat. 151
pires to which we have so often alluded; and it is alleged
by Gabriel that these two are the Persian Empire and the
Greek Empire ; first, in its united form under Alexander ;
and, second, in its divided form, under his four successors.
Now, out of one of these four sections of Alexander's em
pire some special development was to come " in the latter
time of their kingdom ;" and to take that as describing
something which occurred under the Roman Empire, by
which all the four were absorbed, seems to me absurd.
Rather must we look for the fulfilment of this prediction in
some great forth - putting of blasphemous pretension, and
some terrible season of persecution, in one of the divisions
of the Greek Empire, not long before it was overcome by the
power of Rome. We cannot, therefore, regard this prophecy
as referring to anything that occurred in Roman history.
For a similar reason, we cannot accept the interpretation
of those who see in the little horn of this vision a represen
tation of the rise and progress of Mohammedanism. This
horn is a development out of one of the four divisions into
which the Greek Empire was broken up, and before they
were destroyed by the fourth world-power.
Still less can we look with favor on the theory of Dr. S. P.
Tregelles on the subject. That eminent critic looks upon
the appearance of this horn as indicating something that is
still in the future. He affirms that it is to arise in one of
the four divisions of the empire that was once held by Alex
ander, and then goes on to allege that "from the mention
of the daily sacrifice and the sanctuary, it is plain that as
part of the actings of the horn these things will be found in
existence : a portion of the Jews will have returned in un
belief to their own land, and the worship of God will be at
tempted to be carried on according to the Mosaic ritual."*
* " Remarks on the Prophetic Visions in the Book of Daniel," by
S. P. Tregelles, p. 94.

152 Daniel the Beloved.
But there is nothing of all this in the words of Gabriel ;
and nothing can be more evident than that we are shut up
to a date near that of the close of the four divisions of Alex
ander's empire, and before the full development of the Ro
man, power. This seems to indicate that the reference is to
Antiochus Epiphanes.
That monarch, who was the son of Antiochus the Great,
succeeded his brother Seleucus Philopater, and reigned
over Syria from 176 b.c to 164 B.C. He was a brutal ty
rant, and proved himself one of the most blood - thirsty en
emies of the Jewish nation. He called himself, indeed,
Epiphanes, or the Illustrious, but he was frequently styled
by others Epimanes, or the Maniac. Many of his evil deeds
are related in the books of the Maccabees, and the merest
summary of these, which is all that we can now attempt to
give, will be sufficient to identify him with the little horn of
this vision. In his youth he had been given by his father as
a hostage to the Romans, but was released by the kindness
of his brother, who sent his own son in his stead. In the
same year his brother was murdered by one Heliodorus,
who seized upon the throne, but was speedily dispossessed
by Antiochus. Flis sister, Cleopatra, who had been mar
ried to the King of Egypt, having died, Antiochus laid claim
to Ccelesyria and Palestine, and this led to a war with
Egypt, wherein " he waxed great toward the south." It
was during this war that he perpetrated those cruelties
upon the Jews — the inhabitants of " the pleasant land " —
which have made his name forever infamous to the chosen
people, and which gave rise to those heroic strivings for in
dependence with which the history of Judas Maccabaeus is
imperishably associated.
While Antiochus was in Egypt seeking to conquer that
country, a false rumor of his death was circulated through
out Palestine, and filled the peoples' hearts with joy, be-

Vision of the Ram and the He-goat. 153
cause by his influence the true high-priest had been thrust
out of his office, to make way for an unprincipled man who
was one of his own creatures. When he was informed of
the satisfaction with which the news of his reported death
had been received by the Jews, and especially of the at
tempt made by the rightful high-priest to regain his posi
tion, he chose to believe that the entire Jewish nation had
revolted ; and, marching with all haste, he laid siege to Je
rusalem and took it, slaying in three days more than forty
thousand persons, and taking as many more captives, to be
sold as slaves. Not content with this, he forced his way
into the Temple, entered the very holy of holies itself, and
caused a great sow to be offered in sacrifice upon the altar
of burnt-offering, while btoth made from the same unclean
flesh was sprinkled by his order over the sacred precincts
for the purpose of defiling them. On his departure, he took
with him the altar of incense, the golden candlestick, the
table of showbread, and other sacred vessels, to the value
of eighteen hundred talents of gold. He established in the
office of high-priest the traitor Menelaus, who had been his
conductor into the Temple, and left behind him a Phrygian
named Philip, a man of cruel and barbarous disposition, to
be governor of Jerusalem.
Two years after the commission of these enormities, re
turning from another invasion of Egypt, where he had been
checkmated by the Romans, he vented his disappointment
upon the Jews, and detailed from his army twenty-two thou
sand men, under Apollonius, with orders to destroy Jerusa
lem. On his arrival at the holy city, Apollonius conducted
himself peaceably, concealing his purpose till the Sabbath ;
but on that day, when the people were assembled in their
synagogues, he let loose his soldiers upon them, and com
manded them to slay all the men, but to take captive all the
women and children. These orders were only too faithfully

154 Daniel the Beloved.
obeyed, so that the streets were filled with blood. He
spoiled the city of its treasures, set fire to it in several
places, pulled down the walls, and, with the materials so
obtained, erected a fortress on an eminence in the city of
David over against the Temple, and thoroughly command
ing its courts. From this stronghold the soldiers fell on all
who went up to worship ; and, as a consequence, the Tem
ple was deserted, and the daily sacrifices ceased to be of
fered. I ought to mention also that the statue of Jupiter
Olympus was introduced into the Temple, and victims offer
ed to it on the altar of Jehovah. In connection with these
enormities, proclamations were issued forbidding circumcis
ion, enjoining the eating of all manner of unclean meats,
and commanding the profanation of the Sabbath and festi
val days. From Jerusalem the persecution spread over the
land ; and, " as a last insult, the feasts of the Bacchanalia,
the license of which, as they were celebrated in the later
ages of Greece, shocked the severe virtue of the older Ro
mans, were substituted for the national festival of Taberna
cles."* Thus the sad description in the seventy- ninth
Psalm was verified : " O God, the heathen are come into
thine inheritance ;• thy holy temple have they defiled ; they
have laid Jerusalem on heaps. The dead bodies of thy
servants have they given to be meat unto the fowls of the
heaven, the flesh of thy saints unto the beasts of the earth.
Their blood have they shed like water round about Jerusa
lem ; and there was none to bury them. We are become a
reproach to our neighbors, a scorn and derision to them
that are round about us." And those who take note of the
fearful cruelties to which they were subjected will not won
der at the prayer which follows : " Pour out thy wrath upon
the heathen that have not known thee, and upon the king
doms that have not called upon thy name."
* Milman's " History of the Jews," vol. ii., pp. 38-44.

Vision of the Ram and the He-goat. 155
In the vision before us, it is said that " a host was given
him against the daily sacrifice by reason of transgression ;"
and in Gabriel's explanation the appearance of this king
of fierce countenance is dated in "the latter time of their
kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full."
We may conclude, therefore, that all this came upon the
Jewish people, as a chastisement for their sins ; and per
haps the historian of the Maccabees gives us the explana
tion of these clauses when he says, " In those days went
there out of Israel wicked men, who persuaded many, say
ing, Let us go and make covenant with the heathen that are
round about us ; for since we departed from them we have
had much sorrow. So this device pleased them well. Then
certain of the people were so forward herein, that they went
to the king, who gave them license to do after the ordi
nances of the heathen, whereupon they built a place of ex
ercise at Jerusalem, according to the custom of the heathen,
and made themselves uncircumcised, and forsook the holy
covenant and joined themselves to the heathen, and were
sold to do mischief."*
But the desolation of the sanctuary, though thus, as it
seems probable, designed to reprove the conformity of the
Jews to heathen customs, was not to be perpetual. The al
tars were to be restored. The sacrifices were again to be
offered daily in the Temple court ; for " many in Israel were
fully resolved, and confirmed in themselves, not to carry out
the ordinances of Antiochus in the eating of unclean things ;
wherefore they chose rather to die, that they might not pro
fane the holy covenant"! Among these faithful ones were
Mattathias and his sons, who, with some others, fled to the
wilderness, where they remained until they gained an oppor
tunity of taking up arms for themselves and their country.
* 1 Mace, i., 11-15. t Ibid, i., 62, 63.

156 Daniel the Beloved.
After a series of the bravest struggles and the most brilliant
triumphs, which flame forth as redeeming features in the
later history of the Jewish nation, Judas Maccabaeus, with
his followers, entered the ruined Jerusalem. He found
shrubs growing in the courts of the Temple, and the cham
bers of the priests thrown down. " With wild lamentations
and the sound of martial trumpets, they mingled their
prayers and praises to the God of their fathers. Judas
took the precaution to keep a body of armed men on the
watch against the Syrian garrison in the citadel, and then
proceeded to install the most blameless of the priests in
their office, to repair the sacred edifice, purify every part
from the profanation of the heathen, construct a new altar,
and replace out of the booty all the sacred vessels.* This
he did with such demonstration of gladness, that, in com
memoration of the restoration of worship in their sanctuary,
the Jews established an annual festival, which was kept for
eight days, and called the Feast of the Dedication, f
In connection with this restoration of the daily sacrifice,
however, the only serious difficulty rising out of the inter
pretation which we have given of this prophecy emerges.
Josephus has alleged that the Temple was cleansed just
three years and six months after the setting-up of the statue
of Jupiter Olympus in the Holy of Holies. $ Now, three and
a half years, taking three hundred and sixty days for a year,
will give twelve hundred and sixty days ; whereas in the
conversation between the two holy ones (verses 13, 14) it is
said that these desolations were to last two thousand three
hundred days. But presuming that the precise number is
given, and not merely a definite for an indefinite number, the

* Milman's " History ofthe Jews," vol. ii., p. 52.
t See John x., 22 ; 1 Mace, iv., 36-59.
J Josephus, " Wars of the Jews," I., i., 1.

Vision of the Ram and the He-goat. 157
discrepancy may be thus accounted for. The vision may in
clude the whole line of events beginning with the siege of
Jerusalem by Antiochus, while Josephus may be restricting
his calculation to the precise interval between the setting-up
of the statue of Jupiter in the Temple and the restoration
of the daily sacrifices. This is the view taken by Calvin
on the subject, for he says : " Two thousand three hundred
clays fill up six years and three months and a half. Now,
if we compare the testimony of history, and especially of the
Book of Maccabees, with this prophecy, we shall find that
miserable race oppressed for six years under the tyranny of
Antiochus. The idol of Olympian Jupiter did not remain
in the Temple for six continuous years, but the commence
ment of the pollution occurred at the very first attack, as if
he would insult the very face of God. As, therefore, relig
ion was then laid prostrate on the ground until the cleans
ing of the Temple, we see how very clearly the prophecy
and the history agree, as far as this narrative is concerned."
It only remains that we refer for a moment to the death
of Antiochus, which is described in the words of Gabriel :
" He shall be broken without hand." Returning from an
unsuccessful expedition against Persia, he died in a small
town among the mountains of Paretacene, not by violence,
but by a strange disease, loathsome almost as that by which
Herod was smitten in the moment of his blasphemy.* But
the pain of his body was not to be compared to the anguish
of his spirit, for he was afflicted by horrible apparitions and
remorse, the consequence, as the historian of the Maccabees
asserts, of his barbarity and sacrilege in Judea. t
But wherein, it may be asked, was the necessity for thus
predicting these enormities, and the destruction of him who
should inflict them ? The obvious answer is because An-
* Acts xii., 23. t See the whole description, 1 Mace, vi., 1-16.

158 Daniel the Beloved.
tiochus confronted the people of God with a danger which
never before had menaced them, and the Lord thus gra
ciously designed to furnish them beforehand with special
grace by which they might be sustained. None of the
world-powers by whom the Jews had been subjugated up
till this time had interfered to any great extent with their
worship. On the contrary, as we learn from many passages
in this Book of Daniel, and in those of Ezra and Nehemiah,
they had been protected in their religion, and had even been
assisted by heathen emperors in rebuilding their Temple.
But now one was about to appear who would endeavor to
destroy their religion altogether, and it was necessary that
they should be forewarned of his attacks, that they might
be forearmed to meet them. Nothing in the whole former
history of Israel can be compared with the sufferings which
the people endured at the hands of Antiochus ; and the
fruit which this prophecy bore was the glorious struggle of
the Maccabees, which gave a new lustre to the Jewish name.
I have left myself little time for any extended practical
remarks, but I may not conclude without gleaning a few les
sons for our modern life from the volume of history which
is outlined in this remarkable vision.
We may learn, then, in the first place, that the strength
of one evil habit may overcome even the mightiest conquer
or. Very suggestive, in this regard, is the history of Alex
ander the Great ; and it is not without a sigh of regret that
we read of the pupil of the famous Aristotle dying as the
victim of his own excesses at the early age of thirty-three.
He could conquer the world by his armies, yet intemper
ance was his master and destroyer. He was filled with
rage and disappointment because he was foiled in his efforts
to reach the Eastern Ocean, yet was he never fired with the
nobler ambition of overmastering the world within himself.
He had the greatness of taking not cities only, but empires ;

Vision of the Ram and the He-goat. 159
yet he knew nothing of the higher greatness of ruling his
own spirit ; and the contrast between his life and that of An
other which lasted only three - and - thirty years cannot but
strike every thoughtful reader of ancient history.
But how many there are, even among ourselves, who have
made similar conquests, and been themselves similarly over
come ! We think of those two poets, the one a peer, and
the other a ploughman, who won for themselves the crown
which is awarded only to the rarest genius, and yet were
held by the chains of ignominious and debasing habit. We
think of the merchant who has acquired ample fortune, out
distancing all competitors, but falls at last into a drunkard's
grave. We think of the workman whose energy and skill
have placed him in the front rank of inventors, but who lived
in thirsty wretchedness, a meaner man than multitudes who
had not half his ingenuity. We think of the youth who has
gained for himself the affection of his circle, and is the idol
of his family and his neighborhood, but sinks at length into
rags and reproach, because he has become the slave of the
bottle. It would almost seem that the dreadful habit of in
temperance has a peculiar affinity for the sensitive organiza
tions of those who are cut out for special excellence in
some department of human activity. The eloquent orator ;
the entrancing musician ; the poet with his frenzied eye and
burning words ; the man with that special magnetism that
attracts the affection of every one to himself ; in a word, the
possessor of that subtle thing which we call genius, seems
to be in particular danger from strong drink ; and not un
frequently reputations that would be otherwise irreproach
able are blurred and blotted by intemperance.
The world has become wiser in many respects since Al
exander's days, but in this it has made little progress ; and
we may be forgiven, therefore, if we seek to point a moral
from the great Grecian emperor's excesses. To no purpose

160 Daniel the Beloved.
shall we gain other crowns, if we are ourselves the slaves of
appetite. The most splendid education, and the most unpar
alleled successes in other respects, will not compensate for
the ruin of character ; and, standing here at the grave of
Alexander, we renew our warning against the deceitfulness
of strong drink. It is easier to acquire a habit than it is to
break it off ; so let me urge every one who is starting out
on the battle of life to wage his first warfare with himself.
Settle at the very outset the question whether you are to be
the body's, or your body is to be yours ; and see to it that
you do not advance to the great work of your existence
handicapped and hampered by an evil habit. Resolve that
appetite shall never overmaster you ; and remember that
when you have vanquished self, you are already a mightier
conqueror than was the great Alexander after he had sub
dued the world.
We may learn, in the second place, that conformity to
the world is fraught with great danger to the people of God.
If we have been right in conjecturing that the evils which
came upon the Jews in the days of Antiochus were designed
as chastisements for their unfaithfulness to the covenant,
the history over which we have come is, in this regard, full
of most salutary warning. Nor does it stand alone. The
same lesson comes out of every chapter of the Book of
Judges, and is most solemnly enforced by the captivity of
the Hebrews in the Babylonish land. And though the sanc
tions of the ancient covenant were mainly national and tem
poral, let no one imagine that these disciplinary chastise
ments which came upon the Jews have no meaning for us
in these New Testament days ; for the peculiar excellences
of the Christian's character are his truest safeguards in the
world. Read, again, the last chapter of the Epistle to the
Ephesians, and you will see that the Christian's graces are,
at the same time, his armor. If, therefore, we would keep

Vision of the Ram and the He-goat. 161
ourselves in safety from the fiery darts of the wicked one,
we must cultivate those peculiarities of the Christian char
acter which are the very raison d'etre of its existence. The
tendency of these days, indeed, is to minimize the difference
between the Christian and other men ; and the boundary be
tween the Church and the world, which in the Word of God
is as clearly defined as the lines of latitude and longitude
on the map, is in actual life almost as imperceptible as are
these lines upon the surface of the globe. So it happens
that the Church of Christ is invaded by the unbelieving, and
its power to resist and overcome the world is thereby sadly
weakened. That which gives salt all its value is its saltness ;
and when that quality is lost by it, men cast it from them
and trample it underfoot. Its wholesome character and anti
septic influence depend upon its peculiarity ; and when that
is lost, it is useless. In the same way, our peculiarities as
Christians are the very elements of our power. By these it is
that the Church has its aggressive force and purifying influ
ence upon the world ; and when these are lost, then we may
look for some avenging Antiochus to menace its very exist
ence on the earth. So long as the Church maintains its
character as a witness-bearer for Christ, and for that truth
and that integrity which he has enjoined, God will keep it
strong and prosperous ; but when it falls below its mission,
and sinks into a mere empty formalism, be sure that Anti
ochus is at the door !
Nor should we fail to mark the bearing of these principles
on our national history. By the great favor of our God,
this republic has been permitted to enter upon the second
century of its life, and many eloquent eulogiums have been
pronounced on those who fought the battles of its early in
dependence. But let us never forget that it is to be con
served by the same qualities as those by which it was gain
ed. Imitation is the grandest panegyric ; and the noblest

162 Daniel the Beloved.
centennial oration will be to follow the example of the fa
thers of the republic. We cannot, indeed, be the mere
repetition of them ; and to attempt to produce anything of
that kind would be as ridiculous as it would be for us to go
back to the fashion of their dress. But we can imbibe their
principles, and apply these to the evils of our times as cour
ageously as they applied them to the circumstances of their
age. They were distinguished by honesty, temperance,
truth, patriotism, and piety ; and concerning these qualities
we may say, as the barons of Runnymede said of their
swords, " By these we have obtained our liberties, and with
these we will defend them." Let us act on their principles
in our conflict with internal corruption, with the same fidel
ity and disinterestedness as they did in their resistance to
external oppression, and the second century of our history
will be even more glorious than the first ; but if we fall from
these, be sure that some Antiochus will come to rifle us of
our treasures, and make our high places desolate !
We may learn, finally, the limited power of the enemies
of God's people. The spoliation of Jerusalem by Antiochus
was to be only for a season. The world -tyrant could go
only a certain length. Like Satan with Job, he was under
a divine restraint, which said to him, " Hitherto shalt thou
come, and no farther." God is stronger than the mightiest
man ; and so to the people of God who continue faithful unto
him there is a limit of calamity. The longest night is fol
lowed by the dawn ; and, as the proverb has it, " Time and
the hour run through the roughest day." Trial will not al
ways last ; and the prediction which to-night we have been
considering was given to Daniel, that it might sustain the
people under new and unheard-of suffering, by the prospect
of a speedy relief. Inspired by the truth which was here
declared, Judas and his faithful band "were strong, and
did exploits." They knew that God was on their side ; and

Vision of the Ram and the He-goat. 163
though the ordeal was tremendous, they clung fast to him.
Nay, the very severity of the conflict developed in them a
courage that was akin to that of the greatest of their fathers.
So let us bear up under all calamity, in the spirit of him
who said, " Our light affliction, which is but for a moment,
worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of
glory. While we look not at the things which are seen,
but at the things which are unseen ; for the things which
are seen are temporal, but the things which are unseen are
eternal." Be patient, be uncompromising, be courageous.
" Stablish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord draweth
nigh." It is but a little while, and then we shall enter the
new Jerusalem, with more triumphant ecstasy than the
great Maccabaeus felt when he stood in the courts of the old
Temple ; and " When the shore is won at last,
Who shall count the billows past ?"

X.
THE SEVENTY WEEKS.
Daniel ix., 1-27.
THOUGH Daniel's hands were filled with the busi
ness of the king whom he served, his heart was ever
turned toward Jerusalem. This was not simply because
that city was the metropolis of his father-land, but rather
because it was the " place which God had chosen to place
his name there." The patriotism of the Jew was rooted in
his piety ; and though Jerusalem was dear to him for the
beauty of its situation, and for the stirring associations
which clustered round its heights, it was especially sacred
in his estimation as " the city of God."
So long, therefore, as it was in ruins, and its Temple lying
waste, Daniel could not but be sad, and, deep down beneath
all other desires in his soul, there was the longing for the
time when Jehovah would return and visit " the vineyard
which his right hand had planted, and the branch which he
had made strong for himself." In the time of his worldly
prosperity, the state of Jerusalem was ever present to his
mind to give deep shadings to his happiness ; while, in the
day of his adversity, the tears which he shed over his own
sorrows were not so bitter as those which he wept when he
remembered Zion. Even amidst the splendors of Shushan,
Nehemiah had great "sorrow of heart," when he heard the
tidings which his kinsman brought concerning " the city of
their solemnities ;" and we do not wonder that Daniel also
was greatly exercised about the condition of the Jewish peo-

The Seventy Weeks. 1,65
pie, and the cause of God with which they were so identi
fied. These subjects, indeed, were never, we may believe,
entirely absent from his thoughts. No doubt he gave him
self diligently to the discharge of the duties of his office ;
but behind his usual occupations, and forming, so to say,
the inner chamber of his life, to which in moments of lei
sure he constantly retired, was the great question, " O God,
how long shall the adversary reproach? shall the enemy
blaspheme thy name forever ?"*
As the years revolved with, to mere human view, no
clearer prospects of improvement, the burden became so
heavy that he gave himself to special prayer for the city
which was called by God's name. More than sixty years
had gone since the day when, as a boy, he had been taken
from Jerusalem and carried off to Babylon. The burden
of fourscore years was now upon him, and he must soon
" go the way of all the earth ;" but his heart was yearning
for the revival of God's work, which to him centred in the
recovery of their own land by the chosen people. So in the
first year of Darius he devoted a season to fasting and
prayer, for the coming of the time " when God should arise
and have mercy upon Zion."
It is interesting to mark that this devotional fervor of
Daniel grew out of his study of the Word of God. Read
ing the prophecies of Jeremiah, he found such passages as
these : " This whole land shall be a desolation, and an as
tonishment ; and these nations shall serve the king of Bab
ylon seventy years ;" and, again, "After seventy years be
accomplished at Babylon, I will visit you, and perform my
good word toward you in causing you to return to this
place. "f Now, as he had been himself for nearly seventy
years a captive, he felt assured that, no matter from what
* Psa. lxxiv., 10. t Jer. xxv., n ; xxix., 10.

1 66 Daniel the Beloved.
particular time the beginning of the Captivity proper might
be dated, its termination was drawing near, and he set him
self to pray to God concerning it. At first sight, this seems
strange. God gives a prediction by the mouth of Jeremiah ;
Daniel discovers it, and believes it, and then prays for its
fulfilment. Could he not have left God to accomplish his
own prophecy, without troubling him with any prayer ? So
reasons the man who believes neither in God, nor in proph
ecy, nor in prayer. But the heart of the child has an in
stinct which is truer than all logic, and when he gets a prom
ise he turns it at once into a prayer. Every parent knows
how true that is in his intercourse with his own children, for
when he has set a time for the bestowment of a particular
gift, the nearer the day approaches, the more frequently he
is reminded of his pledge. Can that, therefore, be ridicu
lous in a child of God which is so natural and so touching
in our own offspring ?
Nor let any one imagine that in pleading for the fulfil
ment of God's prophecies or promises — for every promise
is a species of prophecy — we are doing an unnecessary
thing, for beneath each of his gracious utterances there is
this condition, "for this will I be inquired of them to do it
for them ;" and he who has ordained the end has also or
dained prayer as one of the means by which the end is to
be gained. Indeed, God was beginning to fulfil his proph
ecy given by Jeremiah when he stirred up Daniel to pray
about it ; and whensoever we see a spirit of supplication
poured out upon a people, we may take that as an indica
tion that God has begun to prepare them for receiving the
accomplishment of some promise of blessing. The belief
that the blessing will certainly come is a stimulus, rather
than a hinderance, to prayer. When I receive a check
from a fellow-man, I am not deterred from presenting it at
the bank because I know that the money is sure to be forth-

The Seventy Weeks. 167
coming. Nay, I am only thereby the more encouraged to
take it and turn it into money. But the same thing holds
good when we take God's promises and present them at
the throne of grace. It is not because we do not believe in
them or in him that we ask for their fulfilment, but rather
because we do put implicit trust in them both ; and the
firmer our faith is, the more earnest will be our supplication.
The prayer offered by Daniel on this occasion is remark
able for its simplicity, its fervor, and its appropriateness.
Its introductory portion consists mainly of confession, and
in that exercise, identifying himself with the nation to which
he belonged, he acknowledges the guilt of Israel in former
days, and admits the justness of the punishment which had
been inflicted on them for their iniquities. Then referring
to that great primal deliverance from Egypt by which God
manifested his special interest in the children of Abraham,
he pleads, by implication, the ancient covenant, and earnest
ly begs that God would cause his face to shine upon his
sanctuary. He is careful, also, to add that he presents his
supplications, not on the ground of his own righteousness, or
that of the people, but for God's great mercies. We cannot
but be struck with the Scriptural ground on which this prayer
rests, the straightforward honesty by which its confessions
are characterized, the utter absence of self -righteousness
by which it is distinguished, and the fervent importunity
with which it concludes ; but, as I have elsewhere dwelt on
these things,* I press on to look at the answer which was
given to its request.
While Daniel was engaged in his devotions, the same
celestial one who had explained to him his former vision
appeared to him, and informed him that he was sent to
give him skill and understanding, and to show him yet more
* See " Prayer and Business," Randolph & Co., New York.

1 68 Daniel the Beloved.
fully concerning things to come, because he was a " man
greatly beloved." Truly "the secret of the Lord is with
them that fear him ; and he will show them his covenant."*
Herein also we may see an instance of the fulfilment of the
promise, " It shall come to pass, that before they call, I will
answer ; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear."+
At the very commencement of his supplications this heav
enly messenger was commissioned to repair to him, " being
caused to fly swiftly," and just as his petitions were ended
he breaks in with the answer. We must beware, however,
of drawing from this statement inferences which it will not
warrant. It does not imply, either that the angels have
wings, and move through space by flying, or that the whole
time during which Daniel was praying was required by Ga
briel for coming from heaven to earth. It simply means
that the angel came promptly, like as a man comes who
is breathless and weary with quick running. But that he
needed all this time to pass from heaven to earth I do not
myself suppose. The boundary between the earthly and
the heavenly is not so much one of distance as of nature.
For anything that we can tell, the spiritual is all around us.
True, we teach our children to sing of the " happy land " as
"far, far away ;" but I have never been able to accept that
representation as Scriptural ; and to me no place is nearer
than the realm of spirits. I cannot cross the street without
taking some time in which to do it, but I may be with God
in a moment. The Christian apostle has taught us that " to
depart" is to be "with Christ," and that absence from the
body is presence with the Lord. So it is not distance that
separates us from the spirit land. Now, if these principles
be just, we must take the statement here as figurative, and
regard the marks as if of haste, which Gabriel bore, as de-
* Psa. xxv., 14. t Isa. lxv., 24.

The Seventy Weeks. 169
signed to give to Daniel the assurance that God was deeply
interested in him, and eager to relieve his anxiety. At least
they furnish no warrant for attempting, as some have done,
to calculate the distance of heaven from earth, or speculat
ing, as others have done, on the mode in which the minis
try of angels is carried on ; for everything savoring of ma
terialism must be eliminated from our consideration of such
a subject. The great thing we learn here is the reality of the minis
try of angels. The miracle was not in the fact that Gabriel
was there, but rather in his being made visible to Daniel ;
just as when Elisha was in Dothan, the miracle was not in
the presence of God's hosts round about the prophet, but in
the opening of the young man's eyes, so that he saw them.
God commonly employs his angels as his messengers ; and
if we are his children, and the heirs of his salvation, they
have often ministered to us when we knew it not ; but their
help was not the less real, because at the moment of their
rendering it they were not perceived by us. In a home
which I know well, a mother, before retiring for the night,
went her rounds through the bedrooms of her children, mak
ing them comfortable in their cots. One she tucked care
fully in ; another she lifted and made more easy on his pil
low ; a third she cooled by throwing off the heavy coverlet
by which she was oppressed ; and when she came down
again to her own chamber she said to her husband, " Dear
unconscious ones ! they never knew that I was near them."
But her ministry was real and beneficial, notwithstanding
their unconsciousness. So it is, save in exceptional cases,
with the ministrations of those angelic attendants whom
God has commissioned to wait upon his people. They gird
us when we know it not. They soothe us when we think
not of it; and as on the other side of the veil,-they-give
their report to their Master, they too may say, "Blessed

170 Daniel the Beloved.
souls ! they did not know that we had been near them."
How much God is always doing for us that we know noth
ing of at the moment ! And among these unconscious bless
ings that we are always receiving at his hands, I number the
ministry of angels. " O the exceeding grace
Of highest God, that loves his creatures so,
And all his works with mercy doth embrace,
That blessed angels he sends to and fro
To serve to wicked men, to serve his wicked foe !
How oft do they their silken bowers leave,
To come to succor us that succor want !
How oft do they with golden pinions cleave
The flitting skies, like flying pursuivant,
Against foul fiends to aid us militant !
They for us fight, they watch and duly ward,
And their bright squadrons round about us plant ;
And all for love, and nothing for reward.
Oh, why should heavenly God to man have such regard !"*
But we must look now at the new revelation made to
Daniel by Gabriel. It is given as an answer to his prayer ;
and yet, when we inspect it narrowly, we discover that the
great subject of his anxiety is referred to in it only by im
plication. He asked about God's sanctuary, and the reply
refers to events which presuppose that the Temple must be
restored, and Jerusalem rebuilt. He made a request which
was founded on his discovery of Jeremiah's prediction that
the Captivity should continue seventy years, and the answer
assures him that for the one seventy in exile, there should
be seven seventies of continued occupation of the holy city
by the Jews. It is plain, therefore, that the reference of the
angel's words throughout is to years. The " heptades " are
not weeks of days ; but as Daniel from the beginning was
* Spenser.

The Seventy Weeks. 171
exercised about the seventy years, the seventy sevens must
be understood of the same denomination. We are not,
therefore, taking a day for a year when we interpret these
" heptades " as consisting each of seven years. So far as
we have been able to discover, the day for a year theory, as
it is called, has no foundation in the Word of God, and we
are anxious, at the outset of our interpretation of this pre
diction, to guard against being understood as indorsing any
such fanciful and fictitious views.
In the words of Gabriel, these seventy heptades are
spoken of, first, generally ; then he gives us an account of
certain marked epochs in them ; and finally he presents us
with a foreshadowing of what was to happen at their close.
Let us glance a little at each of these divisions of the
prophecy. The first is given in the twenty-fourth verse ; but, as the
English reader may perceive, from the unusual number of
marginal emendations, that it is difficult to render the origi
nal with exactness, it may be well to give the rendering
which is now preferred by the best Hebrew scholars. I
select that of Dr. Cowles.* " Seventy sevens [of years] are
determined in reference to thy people and thy holy city, to
shut up sin, to seal transgression, to cover iniquity, to bring
in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophet,
and to anoint the Holy of Holies." The phrases " to shut up
sin, to seal transgression, to cover iniquity," describe most
appropriately the sacrificial character and sanctifying influ
ence of the death of Christ, as these are set before us in the
New Testament. The expressions " to bring in everlasting
righteousness," and "to seal up vision and prophet," refer,
as interpreted by the fuller light of the apostolic epistles, to
the work of Christ as furnishing his people with an everlast-
* "Ezekiel and Daniel, with Notes," by Henry Cowles, D.D., p. 401.

172

Daniel the Beloved.

ing righteousness, and sealing up, by fulfilling the proph
ecies of God ; for " the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of
prophecy." The anointing of the Holy of Holies is by
some referred to the purification of the literal Temple by
the presence in it of Incarnate God ; but to me it seems
rather to describe the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Son
of God, whose body was called by himself a temple. So
far, then, as this verse is concerned, it declares that in some
way, and from some date, four hundred and ninety years
were to run their course before the work by which sin should
be expiated and prophecy fulfilled would be performed.
In the next statement, these seventy heptades are broken
up as follows : " Know and understand : From the going
forth of a decree for restoring and rebuilding Jerusalem
unto Messiah the Prince are seven sevens, and sixty-and-
two sevens ; the streets shall be restored, and built again ;
it is decided and shall be, though in distress of times."
The point from which these periods of seven are reckoned
is the date of a commandment to restore and rebuild Jeru
salem. But what commandment is thus referred to ? It
cannot be the edict of Cyrus,* or its repetition by Darius
Hystaspis ;t for these had respect only to the Temple, and
said nothing whatever about the city. There remain, how
ever, only two edicts to one or other of which it can be as
signed. These are the commission to Ezra in the seventh
year of Artaxerxes Longimanus ;-t and the letter to Asaph, the
chief forester, given in Nehemiah, § in the twentieth year of
the same monarch. It is true, indeed, that the commission to
Ezra does not name the city, but it implies the existence of
a place which he was to bring under civic government ; and
so this may very well be taken as the starting-point for these
* Ezra i., 1-4; vi., 3-5. t Ibid, vi., 1-12.
t Ibid, vii., 1 2-26. § . Neh. ii. , 8.

The Seventy Weeks. 173
seventy heptades. Now, if this be so, forty-nine years are
allowed for the settlement of affairs at Jerusalem ; and of
these we can account for thirteen under Ezra and twelve
under Nehemiah, making together twenty -five. But after
an absence of nine years, Nehemiah returned to Jerusalem
toward the end of the reign of Longimanus, and this brings
the total up to thirty-four.* It is, moreover, probable that
he lived for fifteen years more, for he mentions Joiada as
high-priest ;t and his father Eliashib is said to have died
in the eleventh year of Darius Nothus. Now, the eleventh
year of Darius Nothus was forty -five years from the sev
enth of Artaxerxes, and so there are only four years to be
accounted for.t That the city was built and fortified in
" troublous times " is abundantly evident from the record
left by Nehemiah himself. So far, therefore, there is a very
close approximation between the prediction and the history.
The next portion of the prophecy relates to the interval
between the reorganization of the city under Nehemiah and
the appearance of the Messiah. We continue to give it in
Dr. Cowles's version : " And after sixty-two sevens, Messiah
shall be cut off, and there shall be nothing more to him.§
Then the people of a prince that shall come shall destroy
the city and the sanctuary ; its end shall be with that sweep
ing flood ; even unto the end of the war desolations are de
termined. One seven shall make the covenant effective to
* See Alexander's " Kitto's Cyclopedia," vol. iii., p. 307.
t Neh. xiii., 28.
J Pusey 's " Lectures on Daniel the Prophet," p. 1 74.
§ The translation in our version, " but not for himself," makes the
words mean that Messiah died for the sins of others, and not for his
own. This is a truth, but it is not the truth taught here. The words
imply "there is nothing more to him with them." The people reject
him, and he rejects them. We cannot, therefore, quote this as a proof
text for vicarious atonement, though that doctrine is implied in some of
the other clauses of this passage.

174 Daniel the Beloved.
many. The middle of the seven shall make sacrifice and
offerings cease : then down upon the summit of the abomi
nation comes the desolator, even till a complete destruction,
determined, shall be poured upon the desolate." Here it
will be convenient to go back to the date of the edict of
Artaxerxes, in the seventh year of his reign. That, ac
cording to Pusey, corresponds with 457 B.C. So, calculat
ing sixty -nine sevens, or four hundred and eighty -three
years from that date, we come to the year 26 a.d. But it is
well known by those acquainted with chronology that Christ
was born four years earlier than the first of the era which
we call by his name. Therefore, at the year 26 a.d., our
Lord would be really thirty years of age ; and we know*
that his baptism, or public manifestation to the people, took
place when he began to be about thirty years of age.
Further, at the end of half a seven of years, or in the
middle of the heptade, Messiah, according to this predic
tion, was to cause the sacrifice and offerings to cease. Now,
if we suppose this to refer to the fact that Christ's death,
being a real and proper sacrifice for sin, virtually abolished
all those under the law, which were only typical, we have
here a date harmonizing with that of the Crucifixion. It is
as near as possible demonstrable from the Gospel by John
that our Saviour's public ministry lasted three years and a
half ;f and this is corroborated by the parable of the bar
ren fig-tree, t which seems to indicate that three years of
special privilege for the Jews had run their course, and that
a fourth, or a portion of a fourth, was to be given to them.
Here again, therefore, we have a coincidence of date be
tween the prediction and the history. The Messiah was
cut off in the midst of the heptade.
* Luke iii., 23.
t See Robinson's " Harmony of the Gospels," Appendix, p. 199.
J Luke xiii., 6-9.

The Seventy Weeks. 175
Still again it is said,-" One seven shall make the covenant
effective to many." During the first half of this period,
as we have seen, our Lord's personal ministry continued.
He was then and thereby confirming the covenant to as
many as received him. But the people as a whole would
not receive him : " there was nothing to him ;" and the re
maining three and a half years probably mark the time
during which the Gospel was preached to the Jews after
Christ's resurrection, before the conversion of the Gentiles
showed that the special privileges of the Jews were at an
end. Finally, we have here a very distinct indication of the
overthrow of Jerusalem by the Romans. This follows upon
the rejection of the Messiah by the people of his own na
tion, and is connected with it here ; not because it was to
come immediately after it in time, but because it was to be
a part, at least, of the punishment of those national sins
which culminated in the crucifixion of the Lord of Glory.
" The connection," says Pusey,* " is not of time, but of cause
and effect. Some forty years were allowed in which indi
viduals might save themselves from that untoward genera
tion. But the doom of the whole was fixed. They had pro
nounced upon themselves their sentence, " We have no King
but Ccesar." Our Lord, in that tender mourning over Jeru
salem, pronounced that its day was past. " If thou hadst
known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which
belong unto thy peace ! but now they are hid from thine
eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, that thine ene
mies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee
round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee
even with the ground, and thy children within thee ; and
they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another ; be-
* " Lectures on Daniel the Prophet," p. 188.

176 Daniel the Beloved.
cause thou knewest not the time of thy visitation."* Thus
has the Saviour amplified in his prediction what Daniel has
here outlined, and every reader of Josephus knows how fully
and how fatally both prophecies were verified.
The exposition which we have given of this section of
Daniel's predictions, and of the manner of its fulfilment, is
fitted to stir the heart even of the most indifferent. For
myself, I feel awed by the sense of the nearness of God,
which comes over me when I read these verses, and remem
ber how they have been confirmed by the events of which
Calvary was the scene.f God is in this history of a truth.
But let us not forget that it differs from ordinary history
only in the fact that here we are permitted to read out of
the book of the divine purpose and prescience ; while in
other cases that record is hidden from our eyes. God is in
all history as really, and as much, as he was in this. How
solemn, yet how reassuring also, is the thought! "The
Lord reigneth ! let the earth rejoice, and the multitude of
the isles be glad thereof."
But God is in this book as really as he is in history.
Here is an arch spanning the gulf of half a millennium.
Who built it? Such a structure it is beyond the skill of
human architecture to plan, and the might of human engi
neering to construct. You cannot account for its existence
without admitting that it is the production of God. We can
clearly trace this portion of Daniel to a date long before the
* Luke xix., 42-44.
t This fulfilment is in no degree less marvellous, even if we accept
(which we are by no means disposed to do) the era of the Maccabees as
the date of the Book of Daniel. There is no evading the force of this
prophecy in that way ; for we have evidence of the existence of this
prediction when the Greek version of the Old Testament was made, and
that is quite enough to prove that it could not have been a human in
vention.

The Seventy Weeks. 177
birth of Christ. It was a well-known prophecy among the
Jews, and they began to cavil at its genuineness and authen
ticity only when they found that, fairly interpreted, it pointed
to Jesus of Nazareth as the promised Messiah. Its struct
ure is not such as a pretender to prescience would be likely
to adopt ; for there is nothing so perilous for a false prophet
as to attempt in any way to fix the date of the event which
he affects to foretell.
Again, the facts by which it was fulfilled were mainly such
¦ as could not have been manipulated for the purpose of its
accomplishment. The Crucifixion, for example, was an event
which could not have been planned beforehand by impos
tors who wanted to make it appear that they were fulfilling
a prophecy ; yet by it, in a wonderful way — unthought of
even by Christ's own followers at the time — the sacrifices
and offerings were made to cease. We must say, therefore,
of this prediction, as the magicians said to Moses when their
enchantments were at fault, " This is the finger of God !"
But this prophecy does not stand alone. It is one of a
series, the members of which are indissolubly connected,
and must stand or fall together. Thus it gives support to
the whole revelation of which it forms a part ; and is itself
a supernatural fact which laughs to scorn all the arguments
of that sceptical philosophy which presumes to say that the
supernatural is impossible. No hypothesis can stand before
a certainly established fact that contradicts it. Here, then,
in the fact of this prediction, known and acknowledged as in
existence for at least two hundred years before the events
by which it was fulfilled, we have something superhuman.
No sagacious forethought, no shrewdness in guessing at
what is in the future, will explain this. It is either inexpli
cable, or it is divine ; and we need not adopt the alterna
tive that it is inexplicable when the other fully fits into and
explains all the facts of the case. I am the more particu-
7*

178 Daniel the Beloved.
lar to insist on this, because, in recent controversies about
the possibility of miracles, I do not think that enough has
been made by Christian apologists of the fact of prophecy.
What need is there to argue an a priori question in the
presence of a fact? Let our sceptical apostles of "modern
thought " explain on natural principles such facts as the ex
istence of this prophecy and its fulfilment, and it will be
something to the purpose. Is not the great principle of the
inductive philosophy something to this effect — "that noth
ing which claims to rest on actual fact is to be rejected on
examination?" And is it not an axiom in science "that
nothing shall be accepted as a cause which is not adequate
to produce the effect that is attributed to it ?" Let these
principles be applied to the facts brought out to-night, and
I think that every candid inquirer will be led to the admis
sion that God is here of a truth.
Finally, we may see in this prophecy, written as with a
sunbeam, this other truth, that God is in Christ. The lines
of prophecy coming from many quarters, and given at dif
ferent times, all converge toward and meet in Jesus of Naz
areth, designating him as both Lord and Christ. The well-
known words of Micah point out his birthplace ; many ut
terances made to David, and through him, indicate his par
entage ; the marvellous oracle of Isaiah regarding " the Ser
vant of the Lord " details the manner of his life, and the char
acter of his death ; and here in the prediction of the seventy
heptades, dates, the most crucial of tests, are given. Now
all these fit precisely into his history, even as in an old-fash
ioned indenture, the edges of the upper portion correspond
in every minute particular to those of the lower. Were
there no other predictions than these, they would be enough
to mark him out as the Great Deliverer. But when we
have, in addition, a multitude of others, all fulfilled in him,
why should we hesitate for a moment about receiving him ?

The Seventy Weeks. 179
Be sure that, in believing on Jesus, you are following no
cunningly devised fable ; but are becoming the disciples of
him to whom God has pointed, by the finger of Moses and
David, and Isaiah and Jeremiah, and Micah and Daniel, as
well as by that of John the Baptist, saying, " Behold the
Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world !" In
building on this foundation, you are not laying stones on
a quicksand, in which they disappear as soon as you have
placed them, but you are resting them on the immovable
Rock of Ages. In venturing on this bridge, you are not
trusting yourself to a tiny plank which will break beneath
your weight, but you are treading on a structure stable as
the throne of God itself. " God is in Christ, reconciling
the world unto himself ; not imputing their trespasses unto
them." Salvation comes through confidence in him, and
loyalty to him. But remember that it is death to reject
him. He who spared not the people of his choice, and the
city of his habitation, but delivered them up to destruction
for their unbelief, will not spare you. Thus alike the good
ness and the severity of God call upon us anew to-night to
repent and return to him : his goodness in sending the Mes
siah to take away sin by the sacrifice of himself ; and his
severity in punishing the Jews for their neglect of the great
salvation. Let not the call be unheeded by us. Rarely
have I felt the strength of the foundation on which, as a
minister of the Gospel, I stand, as I do at this moment. If
Christ is not certainly the Son of God, then there is no cer
tainty. If this is not proof that he is the author of ever
lasting salvation to all them that obey him, then all proof is
impossible. I repeat, therefore, with a firmer emphasis, and
a stronger assurance than ever, the precious words, " This is
a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ
Jesus came into the world to save sinners." But as I think
of old Jerusalem, and see the Roman eagle shining in the

180 Daniel the Beloved.
lurid light of the conflagration that is consuming the Tem
ple on Moriah, I am constrained to add, " Because of unbe
lief, they were broken off ; and thou standest by faith. Be
not high-minded, but fear ; for if God spared not the natural
branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee."

XI.
THE VISION ON THE BANKS OF THE HID
DEKEL.
Daniel x., xi.
THE law of gradual development seems to pervade the
government of God, and may be traced alike in the
material and spiritual departments of his administration.
The earth was not called into existence precisely as it now
is, but was prepared by a long series of progressive changes
for the abode of the human race. The stalk of ripened
grain does not spring up in a moment from the corn of
wheat planted in the soil, but there is first the blade, then
the ear, and then the full corn in the ear. The tidal wave
does not sweep in upon the shore all at once ; but it flows
in steadily increasing strength, until its height is reached.
The man does not come into the world full-grown, as it was
fabled that Minerva sprung from the brain of Jupiter ; but
he is first an infant, then a child, then a youth, and so from
hour to hour he " ripes " into maturity. So the revelation
which God has given to men has grown into its complete
ness. The primal promise to our common parents in para
dise was the first faint ray that emanated from the coming
Sun of Righteousness ; but as the morning of the race wore
on, that solitary beam expanded, through the Abrahamic
covenant, the Mosaic economy, and the prophetic writings,
until at length, foreheralded by the Baptist as the morning-
star, the divine luminary arose "with healing under his
wings."

182 Daniel the Beloved.
But what was thus characteristic of revelation as a whole
is equally apparent in the communications made to individ
ual prophets ; and just as, to-day, we measure our growth
by the increase in our understanding and appreciation of
their words, so they themselves attained their altitudes of
spiritual perception by degrees, and their loftiest peak was
also their last. In none of them all is this more conspicu
ous than in Daniel. While he was yet a youth he received,
in connection with the dream of Nebuchadnezzar, a vision
of the four monarchies, and the great spiritual kingdom of
the Son of man, by which they were to be destroyed. Defi
nite in its great outstanding features, that prophecy was
meagre in details. But in the later visions which were given
to the prophet himself, the outline of the royal dream was
filled in, at first with some leading events in the history of
the world, and latterly with the particular details of a critical
period in the experience of the Jewish people. The vision
of the four beasts is an amplification of the interpretation
of Nebuchadnezzar's dream ; while again the account of the
conflicts between the ram and the he-goat, with the appen
dix concerning the little horn, is a supplement to the de
scription of the four beasts ; and the prophecy of the seven
ty heptades gives definiteness to the time of the appearing
of him who in the one case is represented as a stone cut
out of the mountain without hands, and in the other is
spoken of as the Son of man who received a kingdom from
the Ancient of Days.
Once more, the vision which Daniel received "by the side
of the great river, the Hiddekel," and which is contained in
the eleventh chapter, soon to be considered, is an expan
sion of that described in the eighth chapter into such ful
ness of incident that it reads almost like a history of the
times to which it refers. As the vision of the seventh chap
ter is to that of the second, so is that of the eleventh to

The Vision on the Banks of the Hiddekel. 183
that of the eighth. Thus these prophecies lead us from a
general summary of the future as a whole into minute par
ticulars of special chapters in the history of the peculiar
people ; and by so much the more detailed their statements
are, by so much the stronger is the proof which their fulfil
ment furnishes of the divine origin of the communications
which Daniel received. In the drawing of a map, the
scholar begins with the outline of the country, and seeks to
define its boundaries ; then he puts in its physical features
of mountain-ranges and rivers ; then he marks out its divis
ions into states and counties ; and then he inserts the prin
cipal towns. Each new stage in his progress thus increases
his liability to err, and is therefore a more searching test of
the accuracy and extent of his knowledge than that which
went before it. So Daniel, in this wonderful series of pre
dictions, goes on from the general to the particular, and
brings in at every step new details by which his accuracy
may be tested, and by which, if his writings stand the ordeal
which they have themselves prepared, his inspiration may
be abundantly established.
The latest of his visions is contained, for the most part,
in the eleventh chapter of his book ; the tenth being what
Auberlen has well styled the prologue, and the twelfth what
the same suggestive author has called the epilogue. For
the present we must confine our attention to the two former,
and even in our consideration of them it will be impossible
to give more than the merest outline of their contents, with
an indication of their fulfilment in the pages of the secular
historians who have described the events to which they refer.
The date of this revelation was the third year of Cyrus,
King of Persia. This corresponds with the seventy-third
year of Daniel's own captivity ; so that if we were correct in
our conjecture that he was a boy of fourteen years of age
when he was taken to Babylon, he must have been fourscore

184 Daniel the Beloved.
and seven years old at the time when this " thing " was re
vealed to him. This, therefore, is the latest communication
which he gave to his people, and the last glimpse which we
get of himself. He had not set out, probably on account of
his extreme old age, with the exiles who returned to Jerusa
lem after the issuing of the edict of Cyrus-. Perhaps, also,
he felt that he might be of more service to Zerubbabel and
his companions by remaining at the seat of the imperial
government than he could have been by accompanying them
to the Holy City. At least, we do not hear of his having
gone to them ; and the testimony of tradition is that he died
in Shushan, where a monument which Benjamin of Tudela
reports that he , saw in front of one of the Jewish syna
gogues was said to have been erected to his memory.
He was, at this time by the side of the great river, the
Hiddekel, or Tigris, and gave himself up to earnest prayer
to God, accompanied with marks of humiliation and sorrow.
In his own words, he " was mourning three full weeks, he ate
no pleasant bread, neither came flesh nor wine in his mouth,
neither did he anoint himself at all, till three whole weeks
were fulfilled." Now, a question arises as to the cause of
this grief on the part of the prophet, and we find the prob
able answer in the fact that unexpected difficulties had
arisen before those who had gone to Jerusalem, so that they
were discouraged and well-nigh hopeless. The state of
matters is described by Ezra* thus : " Now when the adver
saries of Judah and Benjamin heard that the children of the
captivity builded the temple unto the Lord God of Israel ;
then they came to Zerubbabel, and to the chief of the fa
thers, and said unto them, Let us build with you : for we
seek your God, as ye do ; and we do sacrifice unto him
since the days of Esar-haddon king of Assur, which brought
* Ezra iv., 1-5.

The Vision on the Banks of the Hiddekel. 185
us up hither. But Zerubbabel, and Jeshua, and the rest of
the chief of the fathers of Israel, said unto them, Ye have
nothing to do with us to build a house unto our God ; but
we ourselves together will build unto the Lord God of Is
rael, as king Cyrus the king of Persia hath commanded us.
Then the people of the land weakened the hands of the
people of Judah, and troubled them in building, and hired
counsellors against them, to frustrate their purpose, all the
days of Cyrus king of Persia, even until the reign of Darius
king of Persia." Now, remembering what we said in our
last discourse concerning the interest, not patriotic only, but
pious, which the Jews had in their city and Temple, and the
deep concern which Daniel had for the cause with which the
chosen people were identified, we have no difficulty in be
lieving that the arrival at Shushan of the counsellors hired
by the adversaries to frustrate the purpose of the returned
exiles, was the occasion of that sadness which prompted
Daniel to the fasting which he has so minutely described.
At the end of his three weeks' mourning and supplication,
he was blessed with the vision of " a certain man clothed
in linen, whose loins were girded with fine gold of Uphaz;
his body also was like the beryl, and his face as the appear
ance of lightning, and his eyes as lamps of fire, and his arms
and his feet like in color to polished brass, and the voice of
his words like the voice of a multitude." This description,
according as it does in almost every particular with that
given by John of Him who appeared in Patmos, and called
himself "Alpha and Omega, the first and the last,"* leads
us to conclude that the mysterious stranger was none other
than the Son of man, to whom, in Daniel's former vision,
the kingdom had been given by the Ancient of Days, and at
whose girdle John saw the keys of Hades and of Death.
* See Rev. i., 10-16.

1 86 Daniel the Beloved.
As in the case of Paul journeying to Damascus, the men
who accompanied him heard a voice, but saw no man, though
the Lord appeared to him in the way, so this celestial one
was visible to Daniel, and not to those who were with him ;
though it is probable that they heard the sound of one
speaking, and that may explain why " a great quaking fell
upon them, so that they fled to hide themselves."
Thus the prophet was left alone, looking on the great vi
sion, until " there remained no strength in him," and he sunk
into a deep sleep, with his face toward the earth. Out of
this unconsciousness he was roused by the voice which was
like the voice of a multitude, and the hand of a heavenly
one touched him, and lifted him upon his knees and the
palms of his hands. Then, as he stood trembling, in spite
of the soothing ministrations of the spiritual attendant, he
heard these words : " Fear not, Daniel : for from the first
day that thou didst set thine heart to understand, and to
chasten thyself before thy God, thy words were heard, and
I am come for thy words. But the prince of the kingdom
of Persia withstood me one -and -twenty days : but, lo, Mi
chael, one of the chief princes, came to help me ; and I re
mained there with the kings of Persia. Now I am come to
make thee understand what shall befall thy people in the
latter days : for yet the vision is for many days."* This
prince of the kingdom of Persia is evidently not a man, but
an evil angel, who may be supposed to have received from
the Prince of Darkness the special commission to foster the
bad influences in the Persian Empire, and, if possible, to
thwart and overturn the purpose of God concerning it. In
his character and actions, he is the adversary both of the good
angel who is here conversing with Daniel, and of Michael,
the archangel, who had come to the assistance of his subor-
* Dan. x., 12-14.

The Vision on the Banks of the Hiddekel. 187
dinate. We thus learn that among the hosts of God there
are gradations in rank and influence, and that angels are
put by the Lord in charge of the nations. It would seem
also that Satan has employed some of his subtlest and most
powerful spiritual agents in working among the governments
of earth to counteract and, if possible, to neutralize and over
come, the efforts of the good angels to advance the welfare
of the human race and the glory of God.
In other portions of the Word of God we find language
employed which warrants the belief that individual saints
have their guardian angels ;* and in our last lecture we
found one such angel in attendance upon Daniel ; but if we
admit that these spiritual beings may influence the affairs
of men as units, there is nothing unreasonable in recogniz
ing that their ministry affects also the history and destiny
of nations. Accordingly, we find mention in this chapter of
two angels — the one called the Prince of Persia, because he'
had the special care, in the interests of God and his people,
of that empire ; and the other, the Prince of Grecia,f be
cause his attention was confined to the realm of Greece —
whose object was to forward the attainment of God's pur
pose in the heathen world. Above these two angels, and
apparently at the head of those who were employed on such
missions, was Michael, who is elsewhere called the archan
gel^ and who is ready to come in with his assistance in
all moments of emergency. Against these Satan and his
legions wage ceaseless war, seeking by every means to de
lay their movements and to counteract their efforts. It was
natural, therefore, that the angel of Persia should come at
this time to give this revelation to Daniel. He had just
been engaged on the very matters affecting the interests of

* Matt, xviii., 10. t Dan. x., 20.
t Dan. xii., 1 ; Jude 9 ; Rev. xii., 7.

188 Daniel the Beloved.
those who had gone back to Jerusalem which had furnished
the occasion of Daniel's special humiliation and prayer;
and the words which he drops, as it were, incidentally, in
explanation of the tardiness of his appearance, give to the
venerable man of God the assurance that, though for a sea
son evil counsels would prevail with the Persian monarch,
to the delay of the work which had been commenced in the
Holy City, yet ultimately the interests of the returned exiles
would be cared for, and their desires fulfilled. As Auber
len says, " He lets the prophet catch a glimpse of the invis
ible struggles between the princes of the angels, in which it
is decided who is to exert the determining influence on the
worldly monarch: whether the God -opposing spirit of the
world, or the good spirit whose aim it is to further the in
terests of God's kingdom. We are wont to speak in a spir
itualizing way of a struggle between the good and the evil
spirit in man, and Holy Scripture teaches us to regard such
a struggle as real and substantial. But the angelic influ
ences, of which we have more particular knowledge through
the language of Jesus and his apostles, are not essentially
different from this. The liberty of human actions is not
hereby taken away, for the spirits exercise no compelling
influence on men's hearts, and their chief activity consists
probably in the arrangement of outward events. The ques
tion about the relation of the Divine government to human
liberty rather loses, than gains, in difficulty, when we take
the element of angelic ministry into consideration."*
The reception of such information concerning the imme
diate future of his people, together with the intimation of
the fact that he was about to be informed of what should

* " Daniel and the Revelation," by Carl August Auberlen, translated
by Rev. A. Saphir, p. 57. See, also, "Excursus on the Angelology of
Daniel," in " Speaker's Commentary," vi., pp. 348-351.

The Vision on the Banks of the Hiddekel. 189
befall them in the latter days, completely unmanned the ven
erable prophet, so that he set his face toward the ground,
and became dumb. But one "like the similitude of the
sons of men touched his lips," and the first use he made of
his recovered power of utterance was to say, " O my lord,
by the vision my sorrows are turned upon me, and I have
retained no strength. For how can the servant of this my
lord talk with this my lord ? for as for me, straightway there
remained no strength in me, neither is there breath left in
me."* This brought new words of comfort from the an
gel, whereby Daniel was strengthened. Then, resuming his
former theme, the heavenly revealer indicated that he had
to return to fight again with the Persian evil angel, and that
while he was going forth for, or continuing, that conflict, the
prince of Grecia would come, and a new battle would begin
with him, in which the representative of God's people would
be left to his own resources, with the single exception of the
assistance of Michael.
This description of the conflicts in the spirit -world be
tween the rival angels foreshadows the opposition encoun
tered by Zerubbabel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and their compatriots
during the reigns of the Persian kings Darius Hystaspis,
Xerxes, and Artaxerxes, and also that which, at a later time,
the descendants of the restorers of Jerusalem met with at
the hands of the Syrian representatives of the Greek Em
pire. It prepares the way, therefore, for the literal state
ments which follow in the eleventh chapter,f and from
which we learn that, while the Persian kingdom lasted, the
enmity of the world-power to the people of God would be
largely restrained, and the monarchs would be either posi-
* Dan. x., 16, 17.
t The divisions into chapters here are singularly unfortunate, and
ought to be disregarded by the English reader. The tenth, eleventh, and
twelfth chapters should be read in continuous connection.

190 Daniel the Beloved.
tively favorable to them, or, at least, indisposed to harm
them. But with the Grecian Empire, especially in one of
the four divisions into which it was to be broken up, a dif
ferent course would be pursued, and the descendants of Is
rael would be reduced by it for a season to the most terri
ble extremities.
The revelation is introduced with the remarkable phrase,
" I will show you that which is written in the Scriptures of
truth," which, of course, refers not to the book which we
call the Bible, but to that of the divine foreknowledge and
purposes ; and the prophet, as a man greatly beloved, is
permitted, through the eye of the angel, to read so much of
that as God chose to communicate to him. Thus, all his
tory is already written in the plan and prescience of Deity.
If its events were not certain, they could not be thus fore
known. Yet that they are certain does not interfere with
the liberty of those by whose agency they are brought about.
This looks like a logical impossibility. But let us remem
ber that we are speaking of God, and then we shall begin to
see that infinity cannot be compressed into a finite syllogism.
That we cannot understand how these two propositions can
be both true, may be admitted ; but it does not follow that
they are absolutely inconsistent with each other, in the ad
ministration of God. At least, we must be ourselves infinite
before we can determine ; and, even as we are, I do not see
how any man, looking even at the course of his own life, can
get quit, on the one hand, of the overruling control of God,
or, on the other, of the freedom of his own will. There are,
and always will be, the two sides of this subject, and our
wisdom is to accept them both. He who runs off in the di
rection of the absolutism of God will end in fatalism. He
who accepts only the freedom of man will land himself at
length in chance. But the disciple of Christ accepts them
both ; and, adoring where he cannot comprehend, exclaims,

The Vision on the Banks of the Hiddekel. 191
with Paul, " O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom
and knowledge of God ! how unsearchable are his judg
ments, and his ways past finding out ! For who hath known
the mind of the Lord ? or who hath been his counsellor ?
Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed
unto him again ? For of him, and through him, and to him,
are all things : to whom be glory forever. Amen."*
The prophecy contained in the eleventh chapter may
be divided into three parts, increasing in circumstantiality
as they advance. There is, first, a brief description of the
Persian and Grecian empires ; second, a sketch of the more
important events in the struggles between the kings of Syria
and Egypt; and, third, a detailed and minute account of the
character and actions of Antiochus Epiphanes.
The prediction opens thus : " Behold, there shall stand
up yet three kings in Persia ; and the fourth shall be far
richer than they all : and by his strength through his riches
he shall stir up all against the realm of Grecia. And a
mighty king shall stand up, that shall rule with great domin
ion, and do according to his will. And when he shall stand
up, his kingdom shall be broken, and shall be divided to
ward the four winds of heaven ; and not. to his posterity, nor
according to his dominion which he ruled : for his kingdom
shall be plucked up, even for others besides those." The
three kings yet to appear were Cambyses, Smerdis, and
Darius Hystaspis. The fourth was Xerxes, commonly now
identified with the Ahasuerus of the Book of Esther, whose
wealth, and whose immense expedition against Greece,
reckoned by many as consisting of five millions of men, are
well known. He was succeeded by other Persian monarchs,
but no mention is made of them, because they were of no
account in the conflicts between Persia and Greece, and be-
* Rom. xi., 33-36.

192 Daniel the Beloved.
cause it was in the reign of Xerxes, and by the battle of
Salamis, that the Persian Empire received that blow from
which it never recovered, and from which, therefore, its de
cay may be dated. Moreover, it was the invasion of Greece
by Xerxes which was put forth by Alexander as his pretext
for attacking Persia. Therefore, connecting effect with
cause, the prediction leaps over a hundred and fifty years,
and lets us see the nemesis following the crime even after
three half - centuries ; thereby reminding us of the saying,
" God does not pay at the end of every week, but at the
1-ast he pays."
The character and success of Alexander are summed up
in a sentence ; and the partition of his empire among his
generals after his death is accurately foreshadowed, accord
ing to the account which we have already given in these
pages.* The second portion of the prophecy, extending from the
fifth to the nineteenth verse, epitomizes the more promi
nent of the wars between " the king of the north ;" that is,
the dynasty of the Seleucidae, which occupied the throne of
Syria, and " the king of the south," that is, the dynasty of
the Ptolemies, which ruled over Egypt. These have been
particularized, because Palestine, lying between the two, was
grievously wasted in their long-continued conflict. As Lu
ther pithily puts it, "The Jews, placed thus between the
door and the hinge, were sorely tormented on both sides.
Now they fell a prey to Egypt, and anon to Syria, as the
one kingdom or the other got the better, and they had to
pay dearly for their neighborhood : specially when that im
pious man was king in Syria whom histories call Antio
chus Epiphanes. He assaulted the Jews most fiercely, and
raged and slaughtered like a demon among them. It was
* See ante, pp. 145-149.

The Vision on the Banks of the Hiddekel. 193
on account of this wretched and cruel villain that the vision
was given to comfort the Jews, whom he was to torment
with all kinds of plagues."*
The sixth verse thus begins the sketch: "And in the
end of years they shall join themselves together; for the
king's daughter of the south shall come to the king of the
north to make an agreement : but she shall not retain the
power of the arm ; neither shall he stand, nor his arm : but
she shall be given up, and they that brought her, and he
that begat her, and he that strengthened her in these times."
This describes an attempt to patch up an alliance between
the two dynasties when Ptolemy Philadelphus gave his
daughter Berenice in marriage to Antiochus Theos, the con
dition being that he should divorce his wife Laodice, and
exclude her children from succession to his throne. But
no good came out of the arrangement, for Ptolemy died two
years after ; and then Antiochus, having put Berenice away,
took back his former wife Laodice, who, fearing her hus
band's fickleness, procured his murder, and subsequently,
through her son, caused the death of Berenice with her son
and servants.
Then follows, in the seventh, eighth, and ninth verses,
an account of an expedition undertaken by the brother of
Berenice, here called " one out of a branch of her roots,"
and known in history as Ptolemy Euergetes, who sought, by
an invasion of Syria, to avenge her murder. In this he was
so far successful that he made himself master of all the
country as far east as the Tigris, and returned to Egypt
with forty thousand talents of silver, a vast number of gold
en vessels, and two thousand five hundred images, among

* Quoted by Auberlen, in " Daniel and the Revelation," p. 59. See
an admirable summary of the history of the Jews during this period in
the " Speaker's Commentary," vol. vi., p. 377.
9

194 Daniel the Beloved.
which were many of the Egyptian idols, which Cambyses,
on his conquest of Egypt, three hundred years before, had
removed to Persia.* He outlived Seleucus four years, and
thus " continued more years than the king of the north."
The next section of the chapter refers to Antiochus the
Great, and his struggles with the kings of Egypt during his
reign. This king, at first the ally, and after two years the
successor, of his brother Seleucus Ceraunus, prosecuted the
hereditary quarrel with Egypt vigorously, and, in the begin
ning, with success. Afterward, however, he was defeated
with great loss, and compelled to enter into a peace with
his rival, which lasted for fourteen years. This is clearly
foreshadowed in the words, " the king of the south shall be
moved with choler, and shall come forth and fight with him,
even with the king of the north : and he shall set forth a
great multitude ; but the multitude shall be given into his
hand." But the Egyptian monarch could not follow up his
advantage, for "his heart was lifted up;" and though he
" cast down many ten thousands," yet he was not strength
ened thereby. Accordingly, at the end of fourteen years,
when Egypt had a boy of five years old for king, Antiochus
renewed the war, " setting forth a greater multitude than
the former." On this occasion he was assisted by many
Jews, who are here called violent men (for so the word ren
dered " robbers " may be understood) " of thy people." In
acknowledgment of their services, Antiochus granted many
privileges and favors to the Jews, and it might appear, at
first sight, that they had made a valuable alliance in secur
ing the friendship of the Syrian monarch ; but, in reality,
they made a great mistake. The true policy of the Jews
was to stand aloof from both parties ; but in seeking to gain

* See Prideaux, " Connection of the Old and New Testaments," etc.,
vol. ii., p. 76.

The Vision on the Banks of the Hiddekel. 195
protection from Antiochus, they very speedily found that
they had gone for refuge into a lion's den. Their expecta
tions, though at the time apparently realized, were in the
end disappointed ; for as Keil has said, " The apostasy of
one party among the Jews from the law of their fathers, and
their adoption of heathen customs, contributed to bring
about that oppression with which the theocracy was visited
by Antiochus Epiphanes."*
During this campaign, Antiochus the Great, after an en
gagement at the source of the Jordan, took Tyre and Sidon,
and was received by the Jews in their metropolis with great
gladness, and entertained by them with the most liberal hos
pitality. So "he stood in the glorious land ;" but his visit
was more a calamity than an honor, for the garrison left in
the castle by the Egyptian general proved so obstinate that
he was compelled to bring up his whole army to reduce it,
and during the siege the country was eaten up by the sol
diers. The city, too, suffered such damage that it was near
ly ruined ; and so it came to pass as it is here written, " he
shall stand in the glorious land, which by his hand shall be
consumed. "f
In his desire to possess Egypt as well as Syria, Antiochus
gave his daughter Cleopatra in marriage to Ptolemy Epiph
anes; but his plan was frustrated by the fact that she
sided with her husband rather than her father, according to
the statement made in this prophecy, " He shall give him
* Quoted by Dr. Strong, in Lange, vol. xiii., Old Testament, p. 244.
t This is the explanation given by Prideaux in his " Connection of the
Old and New Testaments," etc., vol. ii., p. 134 ; but a different interpre
tation is offered in the " Speaker's Commentary," which renders the
phrase " consumption shall be in his hand," and, rejecting the applica
tion of the words to the exhaustion of the land consequent upon the.
siege referred to in the text, leaves the difficulty thereby created among
those which are as yet unsolved.

196 Daniel the Beloved.
the daughter of women, corrupting her : but she shall not
stand on his side, neither be for him." When he could not
succeed against Egypt, he turned his arms against the
islands of the ^Egean, and, after various successes, he en
tered on a war with the Romans, in which he was defeated
by Scipio, who assumed the name of Asiaticus, in honor of
his victory. Compelled to give up all his possessions west
of Mount Taurus and to pay the whole expenses of the war,
Antiochus subjected his kingdom to immense taxation ; and
in an attempt to rob the temple of Elymais, he was slain by
the infuriated people. Thus were fulfilled the words of this
prophecy : " After this shall he turn his face unto the isles,
and shall take many : but a prince for his own behalf shall
cause the reproach offered by him to cease ; without his own
reproach he shall cause it to turn upon him. Then he shall
turn his face toward the fort of his own land : but he shall
stumble and fall, and not be found."
He was succeeded by his son Seleucus Philopator, who
was bound by the agreement of Antiochus to pay a thousand
talents annually as tribute to the Romans ; and who, to raise
that sum, became, according to the expression of the twen
tieth verse here, " a sender of taxgatherers over the glory
of the kingdom." During the absence of both his sons, he
was poisoned by Heliodorus, his treasurer, whose ambition
it was to mount the throne in his room. We have thus the
verification of the twentieth verse : " Then shall stand up in
his estate a raiser of taxes in the glory of the kingdom : but
within few days " (he reigned only eleven years) " he shall
be destroyed, neither in anger nor in battle."
From this point on to the close of the eleventh chapter,
we have an account of the character and cruelties of Antio
chus Epiphanes, concerning whom, in a former discourse,
we have so fully spoken.* How he should come to the
* See ante, pp. 152, 157.

The Vision on the Banks of the Hiddekel. 197
kingdom, not by right of inheritance (for the eldest son of
his deceased brother was still alive), but by flatteries ;* how,
after various military successes, he should depose the Jew
ish high-priest, Onias III., from his office ;f how, after
making a covenant with his Egyptian rival, he should deal
deceitfully, and with a small force of his own, but assisted
by Judah, become strong in Edom, Ammon, and Moab ;%
how he should possess himself of Ccelesyria and Palestine,
and, contrary to the custom of his ancestors, should scatter
liberal largesses among the people of the subject lands, pur
suing bribery as a policy, § is all minutely described in these
verses. With the same accurate forecast we have here presented
to us the details of his wars with the Egyptians. With great
force on both sides, it was a contest of deceiver with de
ceiver, but victory belonged to Antiochus ;|| and it was when
his heart was lifted up by reason of this success that he en
tered upon those efforts against the Holy Covenant which
have made his name detestable in the estimation alike of
Jews and Christians. IT But as I have already referred to
these matters in detail, I need not dwell upon them here.
Let me only point out that in this remarkable prophecy we
are told, three hundred years before the time, that he should
pollute the Temple of Jerusalem,** and take away the daily
sacrifice ; that he should corrupt some of the chosen people
by his flatteries, and stir up others of them to be strong and
do exploits ;ft that he should exalt himself above every God,
and speak marvellous things against the God of gods, per
secuting every faithful Israelite without regard to age or
sex ;t that he should honor a false deity with gold and sil-

* Verse 21. t Verse 22. t Verse 23.
§ Verse 24. || Verses 25-27. IT Verse 28.
** Verse 31. tt Verse 32. } Verses 36, 37.

198 Daniel the Beloved.
ver and precious stones ;* and that he should make an ex
pedition, first into Armenia, and thence into the East, where
he should come to his end, and none should help him.
Now, all these things actually came to pass. It would, I
fear, exhaust your patience if I were to attempt to show you
here how each verse in the prediction has been fulfilled.
Instead, therefore, of reproducing the history which is thus
so remarkably forewritten, I would recommend you to study
with attention the statements made by the commentators in
their exposition of this chapter ; and though it is the fash
ion among those who would be accounted scholarly to decry
the writings of Matthew Henry and Albert Barnes, I am
free to confess that, after an amount of reading on this sub
ject which I should not care to repeat, I have found no ex
positors more clear, more connected, or more judicious than
the two whom I have named. f They are, besides, easily
* Verse 38. " The King's own special deity was not of his Grecian
ancestry, but one borrowed from Rome — whether the war-god Mars, fa
ther of the Roman people, or Jupiter of the Capitoline Rock, to whom
he began to build a splendid temple at Antioch — in either case, filling
even the Jews, to whom all these divinities might have been thought
equally repugnant, with a new thrill of sorrow, as indicating a disrespect
even ofthe religion of his own race, and introducing a strange and terri
ble name." So Stanley expands this verse, "Jewish Church," vol. iii.,
PP- 329. 33°-
t The earlier volumes of Mr. Barnes — those, namely, on the Gospels
and the Acts — are meagre enough ; but he improved as he advanced,
and his latest efforts are his best. His commentaries on Job, Daniel,
and the Psalms are every way admirable, and cannot be consulted with
out advantage. To those writers named above we ought to add the un
pretending but valuable volume of Dr. Cowles, of Oberlin, and the anno
tations of Mr. Fuller in the " Speaker's Commentary," although the latter
are in some places halting and unsatisfactory. Dean Stanley, in his last
volume on the Jewish Church, is, as usual, brilliant in description, but he
is too much under the spell of Ewald throughout ; and nowhere more
than in this volume does he verify the criticism of Dr. Pusey, given in

The Vision on the Banks of the Hiddekel. 199
accessible to every one who wishes to study the Word of
God, and every reader of their comments will be constrained
to come to the conclusion indicated by F. W. Newman in his
article on Antiochus Epiphanes in Kitto's " Cyclopaedia,"
that " either this chapter was written after the events, or it
was given by inspiration of God." The latter, I fear, is the
alternative which that writer would adopt ; but the very ob
scurities which remain in the chapter, despite all the efforts
of interpreters to explain them, are inconsistent with that
hypothesis, for one writing after the facts had occurred would
not have left any such difficulties. Besides, even the Mac-
cabean date of this book does not eliminate the supernatu
ral from its pages, for, as we have seen, the prophecy of the
seventy heptades is as clearly beyond the limit of human
ingenuity when we regard it as given two hundred as when
we estimate it as written five hundred years before its ful
filment. Indeed, even in the estimation of such a critic as
Ewald, this book furnished the inspiration by which the
handful of Jewish patriots under Judas Maccabaeus were
moved to the performance of those prodigies of valor by
which their Temple was recovered and their religion pre
served. But if that be admitted, it is every way more nat
ural to view it as handed down from the exile than to sup
pose, as he does, that it "sprung from the necessities of the
noblest impulses of the age," and " rendered to that age the
these words : " It seems to be a principle with Dean Stanley to hold that
to be uncertain which is assailed. Conviction amidst contradictions of
truth seems to him undue dogmatism. His mind has been remarkably
characterized as one which, ' having a poetical faculty of seeing resem
blances, lacks the philosophical power of seeing differences.' " — Preface
to Daniel the Prophet, pp. 26, 27.
All the writers on this chapter from Prideaux downward draw their
materials mainly from Josephus and the books of the Maccabees. Mil-
man's " History of the Jews " will be read with interest by young and
old alike.

200 Daniel the Beloved.
purest service."* The examples of Daniel in the den and
the three youths in the furnace quickened the faith of those
who were called to suffer for conscience' sake, while the de
tails of this prediction assured them that after a little while
their oppressor would be taken away.
It remains that I should look for a moment at the opin
ion of those who believe that we have in this prediction a
reference to the Antichrist of the New Testament as well
as to Antiochus. Of these, there are some who think that
up to a certain point the description is applicable solely to
the Syrian despot, but that from that point he is dropped,
and the rest is to be explained of the evil principle or pow
er of which both Paul and John have spoken. But for such
an idea we can find no sure foundatioji. There is nothing
in the chapter to indicate that a transition from one subject
to another is made ; and if we begin to expound it as refer
ring to the sufferings of the Jews in the conflicts between
Syria and Egypt, we must adhere to that principle of inter
pretation throughout. Others, however, affirm that the An
tiochus of this prophecy, though himself an historical per
sonage, in whom all that is here written was accomplished,
is also a type of the papal Antichrist, in whom, in a yet
more terrible sense, it will be again fulfilled. But it is a
question not yet settled, whether the Papacy really is the
Antichrist of the New Testament ; and, however that may
be solved, it is a perilous thing to make any person in the
Old Testament a type, in any proper sense of that word,
unless we have authority for doing so in the New Testament
itself. No doubt the language here used concerning Antio
chus is very similar to that employed by Paul to describe
the evil power that is to exalt himself above all that is
called God? or that is worshipped ; yet mere resemblance is
* Quoted in Stanley's " History of the Jewish Church," vol. iii., p. 336.

The Vision on the Banks of the Hiddekel. 201
not sufficient to warrant the conclusion that we are to look
for a minute fulfilment of this prediction in some wicked
ruler during the Gospel dispensation. I deem it safer,
more reverent, and more instructive also, to see in this
chapter a forecast of one great crisis in the history of an
cient Israel, and to draw from that the inference that every
power, whether temporal or spiritual, which sets itself up
against the cause of God, however for a time it may seem to
be successful, shall come to an end, and none shall help it.
We have thus repeated to us the old truth, which sounds
with more than earthly music in the jubilant strophes of the
Forty-sixth Psalm, and we hear again the words of Isaiah :
" No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper ; and
every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou
shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the
Lord, and their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord."*
Reverting, now, in conclusion, to the benefit which we
may ourselves derive from the study of this portion of
Scripture, we may learn, for one thing, that God prepares
his people for special trial by special grace. If it be true,
as it surely is, that the Lord never gives faith without in
some way, ere long, putting it to the test, it is no less so that
he never sends tribulation without giving us something to
support us under it. He anticipates the evil with his help.
His assistance is ever beforehand with our emergency, and
in his words of prophecy and promise he has already pro
vided us with all we need in any hour of trial. " He send-
eth no man a warfare on his own charges ;" and before he
sets one out upon a pilgrimage, he puts a staff in his hand
to support him by the way. That was the great purpose for
which this prediction was given, and the " exploits " which
were done by the faithful few who knew their God, and had
* Isa. Iiv., 17.
9'

202 Daniel the Beloved.
understanding to recognize the meaning of the revelation
which he had given to Daniel, were the outcome of his good
ness. But the relation of this portion of God's Word to the cir
cumstances of the people under Antiochus is precisely that
of all his promises to our trials, temptations, and necessities.
Every promise of God is a prophecy ; and if, knowing him
who gives them, we grasp his assurances as firmly as the
Maccabeans.did in their time of peril, we too shall be val
iant for the Lord God of Israel. There is not one among
us of any maturity in Christian experience who cannot point
to some portion of Scripture that has been to him, in an
hour of conflict, or agony, or need, just what this portion
of Daniel was to those who "resisted unto blood striving"
against the persecuting King of Syria.
One of the most profitable conference-meetings which we
ever attended had for its subject " favorite texts." It soon
appeared that special interest was felt in the topic by all
present, and more than the usual number were eager to
make themselves heard, not because they wanted to show
themselves, but because they wished a word to be said
about the passage which was to them so dear. It came out,
also, that every text that was -referred to was dwelt upon,
not for its literary beauty, but because of a certain experi
ence through which the individual had passed, and in which
it had been to him like the hand of God himself, held down
for him to grasp. In some cases the verse particularized
had been the instrument of conversion, and then were re
lated the circumstances in connection with which the soul
had passed from darkness unto light. In others, the words
had been the stay of the heart in agony and trial ; and then
the story of " toiling in rowing " on the midnight lake, and
against the howling wind, was rehearsed, while the voice
quivered as the speaker referred to the calm influence of

The Vision on the Banks of the Hiddekel. 203
the Saviour's " Peace, be still !" Young and old and mid
dle-aged had some special text to honor; and, as we lis
tened, we all felt that we had never looked so deeply into
each other's hearts, or seen so much of the manifold adap
tation of the Scripture to the conditions of men, as we did
then. Brethren, there is nothing that can support the soul like
the Word of God ; and it would be well for us, in our days
of health and happiness, to study its pages so that, when
trouble is upon us, we may be able at once to lay hold of
the promise which our father has put in it beforehand for-
our solace and succor. Thus out of each new trial we shall
come with a new text, brightened and glorified for us by the
experience which it recalls ; and so we shall understand how
it happens that, though the words are the same in every
copy, the Bible is not the same to every believer ; for, as the
years roll on, each writes his autobiography over its verses,
and sees something in it which is invisible to all but him
self. Oh, if we had but understanding to use its revelations
thus, no mousing rationalism would be allowed by us to eat
away its treasures, and the deeds of the Maccabeans would
be outshone by our steadfast and unflinching adherence to
its Lord.
But we may learn, in the second place, from this section
of prophecy that faith in the invisible Is essential to our
getting the full benefit of Scripture. Much may be gained
from it in history and in morals, even if we should repudiate
everything that is supernatural in its pages. I do not stay
now to ask whether this can be done consistently or not. I
simply admit that it is possible ; but to obtain the utmost
benefit from its words, we must accept-its revelation of that
which is hidden from mortal sight. The relation of the
tenth chapter of Daniel, with its details about the angelic
world, to the eleventh, with its descriptions of earthly con-

204 Daniel the Beloved.
flicts, is that of the unseen to the future. So, when the
Maccabeans saw the events which Daniel had foretold hap
pening before their eyes, they would have recalled to them
the revelation of the invisible by which the prophecy was
accompanied, and would be encouraged and supported by
the thought that "the angel of the Lord encampeth round
about them that fear him, and delivereth them." They
would feel that the God of Michael was on their side, and
that would nerve them to new courage.
But the revelation of Christ to the eye of the protomartyr
stands for us in the same relation to that precious assurance
of his, " Lo ! I am with you alway, even unto the end of the
world;" and if, when we are beleaguered by spiritual ene
mies, we could but recall the description, " He, being full
of the Holy Ghost, looked steadfastly up into heaven, and
saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand
of God, and said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and
the Son of man standing on the right hand of God," we
should not be moved by " Reviling tones,
Nor sell our hearts to idle moans,"
but continue firm and unfaltering in our allegiance to our
Lord. The promises of Jesus are not to us like the lega
cies of one long dead ; they are not the words merely of a
great philosopher, like the Grecian sage, whom death has sev
ered from all personal contact with our modern life. They
are the assurances of a living and present though unseen
friend ; and, when so accepted, they are full of power. De
pend upon it, the precious assurance, " My grace is sufficient
for thee, my strength is made perfect in weakness," meant
far more to Paul, because of the revelation of the unseen in
the third heavens which he had so shortly before received.
That gave them reality and present availability, and in these
were their comforting influence. Let us, therefore, remem-

The Vision on the Banks of the Hiddekel. 205
ber that, behind every pledge which this book contains,
there is the living though unseen God, and that " he maketh
his angels ministering spirits for them that shall be heirs of
salvation." This will uphold us in all time of extremity;
and the only issue of our calamities will be " to purge and
to make us white, even unto the time of the end." The in
spiration of Moses' life came from the fact that "he en
dured as seeing him who is invisible ;" and the Bible will
be to us no better than the moral maxims of Antoninus or
Epictetus, unless we receive its revelation of the unseen in
connection with its forecasts of prophecy and promise. The
two must go together ; for we have no motive to rest in the
one unless we accept the other.

XII.
THE EPILOGUE TO THE VISION.
Daniel xii.
THIS chapter is not only the epilogue to the vision
which we considered in our last lecture, but also the
formal conclusion to the Book of Daniel as a whole. It
stands in a relation, primary and immediate to the predic
tions which have just preceded it, and secondary and more
remote to all those which are contained in this interesting
portion of the Sacred Scriptures. Its interpreters may be
divided generally into those who regard its announcements
as already fulfilled, and those who, denying their accomplish
ment in the past, are still looking for it in the future.
Its first clause, " at that time," fixes the reference of all
that follows to the period spoken of in the closing verses
of the eleventh chapter. If, therefore, we were right in
expounding that section of Antiochus Epiphanes, we must
take this also as relating to the fearful time when that
abominable tyrant persecuted the people and defiled the
house of Jehovah. It is no objection to this view that this
era is described as " a time of trouble such as never was
since there was a nation even to that same time;" for, not
to say that this expression must be more or less hyperboli
cal, we have only to read the books of the Maccabees to be
convinced that the atrocities committed by Antiochus and
his subordinates were such as might well enough be charac
terized by these emphatic words. Since the days of Daniel,
history has recorded many cruelties to which men have been

The Epilogue to the Vision. 207
subjected for their faith, both in ancient and modern times ;
but though those inflicted by Antiochus have been some
times equalled by others, they certainly have never been ex
ceeded. Hence, there is nothing in this language incon
sistent with the interpretation of those who would explain
it, as we do, of the time when that brutal monster desolated
Jerusalem, and desecrated its Temple.
Neither do we find any difficulty arising out of the last
clause of the first verse, which says, " at that time thy peo
ple shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written
in the book." For the phrase "written in the book" sim
ply means "designated by God as to be delivered," or
"known by God, and protected by him, as his own." No
doubt the words are very similar to those which are em
ployed in the New Testament description of the last judg
ment ; and they might very well be regarded as alluding to
the same thing here, provided there were anything in the
preceding context that would make such a reference natural.
In the absence of that, however, it is every way safer to
content ourselves with explaining the words, as descriptive
of the deliverance of God's faithful ones in the days of
Judas Maccabaeus.
A far more serious objection to this exposition seems to
arise from the statement made in the second and third
verses: "And many of them that sleep in the dust of the
earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to
shame and everlasting contempt. And they that be wise
shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they
that turn many to righteousness, as the stars for ever and
ever." Here there is, unquestionably, a reference to the
resurrection of the dead, and the future state of rewards
and punishments. It is idle to attempt, with Barnes, to
give these words a figurative sense, and make them describe
a general uprising of the people against the Syrian despot.

208 Daniel the Beloved.
Every one feels instinctively that such an interpretation is
far beneath the full significance of the verse, even though it
be admitted, as the author referred to does admit, that there
is a typical allusion to the resurrection from the dead. I
do not wonder, therefore, that ingenuous minds turn with
dissatisfaction from such an explanation. Nor is it strange
to me that almost all those who, as expositors of the Book
of Revelation, believe in two literal resurrections, do also
regard these words as referring to one of them, and en
deavor to make the predictions with which they are connect
ed fit in with their general system of prophetic interpreta
tion. But as I have not been able to accept their scheme
of prophecy, as, indeed, on quite other grounds than those
of mere exigesis I have been constrained hitherto to reject
it, I must look for some other exposition which will meet
the circumstances of the case.
Is there no interpretation, then, which, while regarding
these words as referring to the literal resurrection of the
dead, will harmonize also with the view which explains the
whole passage of the days of Antiochus ? I think there is ;
and it is to me an additional recommendation of the expla
nation which I am about to present, that I find it in the
pages of Auberlen, who is himself an adherent of the pre-
millennial school. I ask your close attention while I en
deavor to unfold it. The phrase " they that be wise," in
the third verse of this twelfth chapter, corresponds to — is
indeed, in the original, identical with — that rendered " they
that understand among the people," in the thirty-third verse
of the eleventh chapter. It recurs in the thirty-fifth verse
as, " they of understanding." Again, the " turning of many
to righteousness," in the third verse of the twelfth chapter,
answers to the "instructing of many," in the thirty-third
verse of the eleventh chapter. Now here we have the key
to the explanation of the reference which is made to the res-

The Epilogue to the Vision. 209
urrection. The coming-forth of the dead from their graves
is not introduced as a new fact which was to occur in the
immediate line of the incidents which have been so par
ticularly indicated. It is not a new element in this proph
ecy, and does not belong to it specially and particularly.
The words do not imply that a resurrection of those who
had fallen in the Maccabean struggle should immediately
follow that struggle. Rather the resurrection is mentioned
as a great fact which is to come at the close of all human
history, and from it both warning and encouragement are
drawn appropriate to the emergency of that dreadful time.
It is alluded to for the purpose of setting clearly before the
men of that generation the solemn truth — true for all gener
ations as for that — that they who remained faithful to the
covenant of their God, and strengthened their brethren in
the same course, would be ultimately raised to eternal glory;
while they who apostatized from the right path would be
eternally lost. The design of the apocalyptic angel thus
was to stimulate the Jews of the days of Antiochus to fidel
ity by the consideration of the momentous individual issues
that hung upon their conduct. " We have here," says Au
berlen, " a parallel to the epistles to the Seven Churches in
the Revelation of John, which contain promises for those
who overcome, and threats for those who fall away. The
sole purpose for which the resurrection is introduced is to
show the causal connection between the behavior of the
people during the time of their probation and their eter
nal state ; but not the slightest intimation is given as to the
chronological relation between the time of distress and that
of resurrection."* In proof of this, we may direct attention
to the fact that the phrase " at that time," occurring twice
in the first verse, does not appear in either the second or
* " Daniel and the Revelation," by Carl August Auberlen, etc., p. 174.

210 Daniel the Beloved.
the third. In these last no note of time is given. Hither
to the angel has prophesied the development of history,
without adding any remark or exhortation. Here, however,
he concludes his predictions by adding the strongest possi
ble incitement to faithful perseverance ; an incitement which
must have had all the stronger effect, since, though it is oc
casionally referred to in earlier prophets, the resurrection
had never before been brought forward so distinctly and
powerfully, and especially had never been shown in its con
nection with retribution.
This view of the passage is rendered still more probable
when we turn to the history of the period referred to, and
learn that the hope of resurrection to eternal life did sustain
the sufferers under the infliction of the most dreadful cruel
ties. Thus, in the seventh chapter of the Second Book of
Maccabees, which contains an account of the martyrdom of
seven brothers and their mother, whose tortures are given
as a specimen of those by which the faithful were tried, we
read that the second son, when he was asked whether he
would eat swine's flesh before he should be punished in
every member of his body, made answer, " No ;" and being
put to torture, exclaimed, with his latest breath, " Thou like
a fury takest us out of the present life, but the King of the
world shall raise us up, who have died for his laws, unto
everlasting life." So, also, the fourth brother said, " It is
good, being put to death by men, to look for hope from God
to be raised up again by him ; as for thee, thou shalt have
no resurrection to life." And the mother, who was marvel
lous above all, exhorted her sons, saying, " Doubtless the
Creator of the world will also give you breath and life
again, as you now regard not your own selves for his laws'
sake." In the patient heroism, therefore, of those noble
ones who counted not their lives dear unto them, that they
might keep the ordinance of their God, and who upheld

The Epilogue to the Vision. 211
their hearts by faith in the resurrection' to eternal life, we
see the fruit of this reference to that grand and crowning
miracle which is to put the cope-stone on human history.
Fitly, too, does the allusion to the resurrection at the last
bring the whole series of predictions to a close, and lead
the angel to say, " Shut up the words, and seal the book
even unto the time of the end. Many shall run to and fro,
and knowledge shall be increased." " The time of the end "
is the appointed time for the fulfilment of these predictions,
which was to be marked by an increase of knowledge among
men, consequent upon the passing of multitudes from place
to place. It is indeed a general law, that knowledge grows
in proportion as the facilities of travel between different
countries are multiplied. Of this there have been many il
lustrations in the course of human history. We have a very
signal one in our own age ; and there was another, no less
remarkable in its way, in that to which these prophecies re
fer ; for, after the yoke of Antiochus was broken, the Roman
power began to spread over the East ; and to this era, when
communication between the nations became more easy and
more frequent, we trace that general diffusion of the Greek
language and literature which, in the purpose of God, was
destined to prepare the way for the publication of the Gos
pel in all lands. The age which culminated in the culture
and .pre-eminence of Alexandria, with its scholarship and
philosophy, and in which the translation of the Old Testa
ment into the Greek language was made, was certainly one
to which these words are applicable : " Many shall run to
and fro, and knowledge shall be increased  "
After the angel had ceased speaking to Daniel, the proph
et saw other two messengers from heaven, standing, one on
each side of the river Tigris ; and, as he looked and listened,
he heard one of these ask the glorious One whom he had
first beheld, " How long shall it be to the end of these won-

212 Daniel the Beloved.
ders ?" He received for answer, with a solemn asseveration
of their truth, the following words : " It shall be for a time,
times, and a half ;* and when he shall have accomplished to
scatter the power of the holy people, all these things shall
be finished." That is to say, it shall be for three years and
a half; and when the tyrant shall have done all that he
could to scatter the power of the Jews, the deliverance shall
come. Daniel, however, did not understand the answer, and
repeated the question which the angel had asked, only in a
slightly different form : " O my Lord, what shall be the end
of these things ?" To this the following reply was given :
" Go thy way, Daniel : for the words are closed up and sealed
till the time of the end. Many shall be purified, and made
white, and tried ; but the wicked shall do wickedly : and
none of the wicked shall understand ; but the wise shall un
derstand. And from the time that the daily sacrifice shall
be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate
set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety
days. Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thou
sand three hundred and five-and-thirty days. But go thou
thy way, till the end be : for thou shalt rest, and stand in
thy lot at the end of the days."
We have already seen that the desolation of the Temple
by Antiochus extended over three years and six months,
which is here styled " a time and times and the dividing
of time ;" but we cannot pass this note of number without
remarking on the singular coincidences presented by its
frequent recurrence both in history and prophecy. The
drought in the days of Elijah lasted three years and six
months. The little horn which appeared on the head of
the fourth beast was to have the saints given into his hands
" until a time and times and the dividing of time." The
* Literally, " a time, two times, and a half."

The Epilogue to the Vision. 213
public ministry of the Messiah was to continue for half a
week or heptade of years; that is, for three years and a
half. His Gospel was to be preached to the Jews after his
ascension for another half-heptade before it was proclaimed
to the Gentiles. Then, in the Book of Revelation, it is said
that the woman shall be nourished in the wilderness "for
a time, and times, and half a time,"* and that the Holy City
should be trodden under foot forty and two months, which
are three and a half years. Now, all these are marvellous
coincidences, and point to the existence of some hidden har
mony which has not yet been discovered. I might add that
three and a half is the half of the number seven, which, found
in the week, has been made the symbol of perfection, and
as such frequently recurs in the Word of God. The sacred
lamp had seven branches ; the seventh was the Sabbatic
year; and at the end of seven sevens came the year of
Jubilee. So, also, the seventy years of the Captivity were
made the basis of the seven seventies of years which were
to run their course from the time when the edict to rebuild
Jerusalem went forth until the appearance of the Messiah
upon the earth. I do not know what to make of all this.
I frankly acknowledge that it baffles me to find a reason for
it. I merely state the fact, and leave you to ponder it for
yourselves, that you may learn how much there is not only
in prophecy, but also in history, which lies beyond our ken.
The two other dates referred to in verses eleventh and
twelfth may be thus explained. The profanation of the
Temple by Antiochus continued from the month Ijar, of the
year 168 b.c, till the restoration of the worship by Judas
Maccabaeus on the twenty-fifth day of the ninth month, 165
b.c. This, according to the Seleucid era, occupied twelve
hundred and ninety days. Forty five days more bring us to
* Rev. xii., 14.

214 Daniel the Beloved.
the month Shebat, of 164 B.C., in which Antiochus died — so
ending for the time the miseries of the people. Thus the
thousand three hundred and five-and-thirty days are ac
counted for.*
If any choose to regard all this as being not only applica
ble to Antiochus, but also, through him, typical of the New
Testament Antichrist, and should take the days in the his
tory of the one for years in. the history of the other, I have
only to say that I find nothing, either here or in the New
Testament, to sanction such a procedure. For me, the in
terpretation which I have endeavored to give is sufficient.
They who go further leave the domain of certainty for that
of speculation, and the very number of their conflicting in
terpretations is a warning to every expositor not to venture
beyond his depth into these dark waters. For myself, I am
content to stand upon the shore and wait, like him to whom
were first addressed these reassuring words, " Go thy way ;
for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the
days." But though there may be some difference of opinion as to
the interpretation of the prophecies contained in this chap
ter, there can be no controversy among Christians as to the
lessons of comfort and encouragement which God's people
in every age may draw from its verses. I name now only
the three most prominent. We have, in the first place, the
hope of the suffering saint. " Many of them that sleep in
the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life,
and some to shame and everlasting contempt." The doc
trine of the resurrection of the dead does not come very dis
tinctly out in the earlier portions of the Old Testament. It
is alluded to in some of the Psalms, and is referred to with

* See " Critical and Experimental Commentary," by Jamieson :
Fausset & Brown. Vol. iv., in loco.

The Epilogue to the Vision. 215
somewhat more precision in the Book of Isaiah ; while the
miracles of Elijah and Elisha must have made many minds
among the nation familiar with the idea. But here, for al
most the first time, it is broadly asserted, and that in such a
way as to connect it with retribution, and make it an en
couragement to fidelity under trial. Under the old cove
nant, the sanctions of the divine law were mainly temporal.
The blessings promised, and the punishments threatened,
had reference, for the most part, to the life that now is. But
here we have an approximation to the New Testament way
of treating such subjects, and those who are enduring trial
are exhorted to look beyond the present, and to rely that, in
the future life, there shall be for them a reward as exalted
as their sufferings have been severe. Of the Lord himself
it is said that, because he humbled himself to the death of
the cross, therefore God hath highly exalted him ; and they
who in his service, and for their adherence to his laws, are
oppressed and persecuted in this world, may depend upon
it that in the life that is to come they shall rise to everlast
ing honor. Not always shall might be triumphant and truth
lie torn and bleeding in the streets ; not always shall the
wicked prosper, and the righteous perish at the hands of
cruel and unprincipled men. In the day when those " who
sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake," all these appar
ent anomalies shall be rectified. Then the right shall come
uppermost. Then justice shall be done. Then shall the
crown be given to those who on earth were nailed to the
cross of ignominy, or trampled under the heel of oppression ;
while the wicked, who on earth seemed so exalted, shall
have as his portion " shame and everlasting contempt."
Thus, viewed in connection with the final judgment, the
doctrine of the resurrection of the dead is not only a sup
port to those who are suffering wrongfully, but also a warn
ing to all who are dealing unrighteously with God and his

216 Daniel the Beloved.^
people. The present life is connected most intimately and
inseparably with that which is to come. Now is for every
one of us the germ of hereafter; and " whatsoever a man
soweth " on earth, " that shall he also reap " in the future
state. The awards to be made on the day of resurrection
are not things of caprice. They are the outcome and devel
opment of the characters which we have formed and the con
duct which we have practised in the life of probation which
has been granted us on earth. Our future destiny will be,
in the case of each of us, as much the natural outgrowth of
our present character as the ripened stalk is of the corn of
wheat which we cast into the soil. We often speak of the
day of judgment, indeed, as the day for which all other days
were made ; but it would be more correct to call it that
which all other days are making. It will make nothing new.
It will only reveal and make indelible the results of the old.
We are making it now. We are even at this present time
laying up for ourselves eternal glory or everlasting contempt.
" The tissue of the life to be, we weave with colors all our own,
And in the field of destiny we reap as we have sown ;
Still shall the soul around it call the shadows which it gathered here,
And, painted on the eternal wall, the past shall reappear."
Oh, my brethren, with what importance does this consid
eration invest the present life! Every thought we think,
every action we perform, every word we speak, every oppor
tunity of usefulness improved or neglected, is a seed sown
by us, the fruit of which shall meet us either in richest bless
ing or in untold misery, in the eternity into which we go.
And yet, how little we think of all this, and how seldom we
act under the influence which these truths are fitted to pro
duce and foster within us !
In the stirring days of English martyrology, we read of
one. eminent victim, that when he had been brought from his

The Epilogue to the Vision. 217
dungeon to a magnificent chamber hung all around with rich
est tapestry, and was being gradually drawn into a conversa
tion concerning himself and his fellow-confessors, he heard
the sound of the nib of a pen moving upon paper behind the
arras, as if one were writing there in concealment, and in a
moment he became silent, for well he knew that a thought
less word might bring down upon himself or upon his com
panions the severest woes. But, brethren, though we hear
it not, a record of all we think and say and do is being
taken ; yea, we ourselves are writing it on the tablets of our
memories and hearts — and the effects shall be eternal. What
need, then, of prudence and prayerfulness, that so these con
sequences may bring to us eternal life, and not shame and
everlasting contempt It is told of Zeuxis, the famous paint
er, that he was remarkable for the pains which he bestowed
upon his works, and that on one occasion, when he was ac
cused of being long in drawing his lines, and slow in the
use of his pencil, he replied, " I am long in doing what I
take in hand, because I want to do it with care ; for what I
paint, I paint for eternity." Beloved, shall this be so in the
case of one seeking permanent earthly fame ? and shall not
we be infinitely more careful in our words and ways, know
ing that we are making ourselves for eternity ? Let us see
to it that we so finish our life-work here that when we are
confronted with it on the resurrection morn, we may not be
filled with everlasting shame ; and to this end, let us live for
Christ ; for where he is, there is life and glory.
But we have here, secondly, the reward of the working
saint. " They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of
the firmament ; and they that turn many to righteousness,
as the stars for ever and ever." I do not know whether there
be any implied comparison here between the wise and those
who turn many to righteousness, or whether the design of
the angel is to represent that the glory of the one tran-

218 Daniel the Beloved.
scends that of the other. Possibly the two clauses may form
one parallelism, after the manner of the Hebrew poets. We
remember, at least, that Solomon hath said, " He that win-
neth souls is wise ;" and perhaps the celestial speaker here
refers to the same class of persons in both the expressions
which he has employed. But however that question may
be decided, I take out of the verse what is undeniably in it,
when I say that they who turn many to righteousness will
be honored with bright and particular glory in the heavenly
state. " They shine as the stars for ever and ever." Here
is the grand aim toward which Christian ambition should be
directed. If there be any rivalry or competition among us,
it ought to be, as to which of us shall convert the greatest
number of sinners "from the error of their ways," and shine
the most lustrously in the firmament of the future. Earthly
ambition seeks to gain something for itself, and too often
it rises to its greatest elevation by trampling others down ;
but the glory of the Christian is to be attained by saving
and serving men. Here is the law: "He that will be great
est among you, let him be your servant ; even as the Son of
man came, not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and
to give his life a ransom for many." This is the great fun
damental distinction between the world-kingdoms of which
in this book so much has been said, and the kingdom of
Christ, by which, at length, they are all to be superseded.
Among the nations of the earth decorations and honors
are given to those who have done the greatest work of de
struction. Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus, Alexander, Caesar, all
rose to their proud pre-eminence through the crushing force
of that physical power which they brought to bear upon
their rivals. They waded through blood to their thrones ;
and the steps up which they mounted to their elevation
consisted of the bodies of their prostrate foes. But in the
kingdom of Christ it is far otherwise. The places of pre-

The Epilogue to the Vision. 219
eminence under him are assigned to those who have been
likest him in the holiness of their characters, in the self-
sacrifice of their lives, and in the hallowing and ennobling
influence which they have shed around them. They who
have done the most in the diffusion of righteousness, by
their own character and efforts ; they who have fought, not
with carnal weapons, but with spiritual, against cruelty and
wrong, and injustice, and iniquity of every form ; they who,
by the diffusion of the light of the Gospel, and through the
might of the Holy Ghost, have been instrumental in trans
forming the greatest number of their fellows from the vota
ries of wickedness into the followers of righteousness : these
are they who shall sit nearest the throne of Jesus when he
cometh in his kingdom.
Oh, what a firmament is that wherein these orbs are
placed, and by how many " bright particular stars " is it al
ready gemmed ! There are Paul and Peter, and John and
Timothy, and Polycarp and Chrysostom, and Augustine and
Athanasius, and Luther and Latimer, and Calvin and Knox,
and Wesley and Whitefield, and McCheyne and Burns, and
Edwards and Payson, and Nettleton and Harlan Page.
There, too, are multitudes who, unassuming and almost un
known on earth, kept working on, their grandeur and noble
ness revealed to themselves only when they went into the
Saviour's presence. My brethren, is there nothing here to
attract you ? What are all the titles and rewards of earth,
compared with this undying honor from the hand of Christ ?
Be it yours to strive for that. Let no difficulty appal you ;
let no danger keep you back ; let righteousness be the gir
dle of your own loins, and live to make others righteous
through the diffusion of the Gospel of regeneration and
holiness. " Get all the good you can, do all the good you
can, to all that you can, and as long as you can ;" and then,
when you go hence, you will be greeted with the welcome,

220 Daniel the Beloved.
" Well done, good and faithful servant : enter thou into the
joy of thy Lord."
Finally, we have here the rest of the waiting saint : " Go
thou thy way till the end be : for thou shalt rest, and stand in
thy lot at the end of the days." How prone we are to trou
ble ourselves about the future ! Yea, even after we have re
ceived the assurances which God has given us in his word,
we are apt, like Daniel, to cry, "What shall be the end of
these things ?" We may be worried about personal affairs';
we may be distressed about the after -lot of our children;
or, with a degree of public spirit, we may be anxious about
what shall emerge either in the State or in the Church.
Now, to each of those who are in this uncomfortable condi
tion of heart, provided they be the people of God, we are
warranted to say, " Go thou thy way till the end be : for
thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days."
Do not disquiet yourself about the future. Leave that in
God's hands. You shall rest in him during the remainder of
your life on earth ; and when that shall end, you shall rest
with him. Nay, more ; at the consummation of all things
you shall stand in your lot, having God himself as your in
heritance. Nothing can really harm us if we are united to
God, through faith in Jesus Christ. What says Paul ? — and
he had passed through trials enough before he wrote the
words, so that we may regard him as speaking with the au
thority of experience — " I am persuaded that neither death,
nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things
present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any
other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love
of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Let us wait
patiently, therefore, upon him. Though things around us
may seem full of threatening, God is over all ; though things
within us may be tremulous and desponding, God is in us,
and he will be our strength ; though things before us may

The Epilogue to the Vision. 221
look dark and lowering, God will go forward with us, and
make all safe for us. Why, then, should we be afraid?
Go thy way, forlorn and weary one. Go thy way, and rest
in God. Let him think and plan for thee ; and then when
the end of the days shall come, thou shalt be found in the
lot of heaven's inheritance. Trust in God, for that is rest
on earth. Wait on God, and he will give thee the higher
rest of the better land.

XIII.
THE CHARACTER OF DANIEL.
Daniel x., ii.
"0 Daniel, a man greatly beloved."
OUR later studies in this book have been so entirely
devoted to the wonderful series of predictions with
which it concludes, that we have, to some extent, lost sight
of the man to whom these prophecies were communicated
at the first, and by whom they were transmitted to others.
It is fitting, therefore, that in closing our series of discourses
on this portion of the Word of God, and while yet the re
corded incidents of Daniel's life are fresh in our recollec
tion, we should endeavor to give you some analysis of his
character as that has revealed itself to us during our exam
ination of his work.
That work was as noble as it was peculiar. Called, at
the beginning of the Babylonian Captivity, to witness for
Jehovah, he was honored to maintain a blameless record
throughout the entire seventy years of the exile, and to take
a principal part in the events which led to the famous edict
of Cyrus, by which permission was given to the Jews to re
turn to their own land. He lived thus through a critical era
in the history of his nation. He was tried by adversity, and
by the more searching test of sudden prosperity ; yet he was
always true to the convictions of his conscience, and faithful
to the commandments of his God. Though in the world
of Babylon, he was not of it ; his heart was ever holding
fellowship with Jehovah ; and the temptations to honor and

The Character of Daniel. 223
emolument were as impotent to move him as were the flames
of the furnace or the lions of the den.
One cannot read the earlier chapters of this book without
having recalled to memory another exile in another land,
who through the same " patient continuance in well-doing,"
under suffering and temptation, rose to the second position
in the State, and lived to be the savior of his people in a
time of strait. Of Daniel, as of Joseph, it was true that "the
Lord gave him favor in the sight " of those who were above
him, and raised him to honor through the interpretation of
a monarch's dreams ; and of both alike it might be said that
they wore " The white flower of a blameless life,
In that fierce light which beats upon a throne,
And blackens every blot."
But when we come upon such an expression as that which
I have chosen as my text, we are made to think of " that
disciple whom Jesus loved," and who "leaned upon his
breast " at the Last Supper, rather than of any Old Testa
ment worthy. And indeed there are many points of resem
blance between these two seers. Both were peculiarly dear
to the heart of God ; and because " the secret of the Lord
is with them that fear him," to both were revealed more
clearly than to others " the things which are written " in the
book of the divine purposes. In their relation to their fel
low-servants they occupied a position of remarkable simi
larity. If, among the evangelists, Matthew may be said to
have had the face of the ox, and Mark that of the lion, and
Luke that of the man, to John must be ascribed that of the
eagle, whose eye looks undazzled at the brightness of the
sun, and sees afar the minutest objects with distinctness.
But the same is true of Daniel, as connected with Isaiah,
Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. The son of Amos is the ox, with
his patient, plodding endurance ; Jeremiah is the man, with

224 Daniel the Beloved.
the tear of sorrow in his eye, or the tone of denunciation in
his speech ; Ezekiel is the lion, with his mien of majesty
and voice of thunder ; but Daniel is the eagle, " whose nest
is on high," and "whose eyes behold afar off."
Yet, reminding us though he does of John, the beloved
disciple and apocalyptic seer, Daniel has an official great
ness distinct even from that of the prophet of Patmos. His
predictions took their character from his position in life.
He was educated in earthly kingdoms, that he might tell of
the higher greatness of the kingdom of Christ. We owe to
him, more than to any others of his brethren in the Old Tes
tament, our ideas of the royalty of Jesus. His "prophetic
watch-tower," as Auberlen has finely said, "was erected be
side the throne of Babylon ; and standing there in, and yet
above, the first world-monarchy, he looked out into the far
thest future, and discerned with prophetic eye, which God
had opened, the changing shapes and events of coming king
doms,"* and the growing glory and ultimate triumph of the
kingdom of Christ. Thus his distinctive prophetic mission
grew out of, or was grafted upon, his position in public life ;
but that, again, was the result of his personal character ; and
so we are led most naturally to the consideration of his in
dividual peculiarities.
Among these I mention, first, his early piety. We know
little of his parents. It comes out incidentally that he was
of the seed-royal ; but he was taken away from his home,
and from his country, while yet he was a boy. As we saw
in our, first lecture, he could not have been more than four
teen years of age when, with his three companions, he was
sent to be educated at the college of the Chaldeans. Yet
even then he had learned to love Jehovah, and to make the
divine law the rule of his life. Now, I am particular in giv-
* "Daniel and the Revelation," by Carl August Auberlen, etc., p. 21.

The Character of Daniel. 225
ing prominence to this fact ; for it has come to be believed
by the young people of our day that early piety is a simper
ing, sentimental thing, betokening the existence in its subject
both of physical and mental weakness. Much of this com
mon and pernicious heresy must, I fear, be traced to the in
fluence of our popular Sunday-school literature ; for in the
books which are put into the hands of our children it is too
often the case that when we read of a winning and obedient
child, who is distinguished for purity and devotion to God,
we find that his life came to a premature end. Thus the
idea is fostered that when one becomes, in the years of his
boyhood, an earnest Christian, he is "too good for this
world," and is removed as soon as maybe to a better. Now,
such books are pre-eminently unhealthy, because they are
untrue ; and the mischief is that, in the great majority of
instances, they repel their readers from religion altogether.
Our young people do not want to become Christians if their
history is to be of that sort. They are conscious of the pos
session of overflowing vitality, and they have, besides, the
natural, and indeed laudable, ambition to do something in
the world. They shrink from a life of physical weakness,
and from an early death ; and therefore they should be told
not simply of the piety of those who have died in childhood,
but also, and even more fully, of that of those who lived, it
may be, to a good old age, and who were honored to do
good and noble service for God and for their generation.
Now, this is to them a very great attraction in the history
of Daniel. He gave himself to the Lord while he was a
boy, yet he lived to be well-nigh ninety years old.
And his piety did not interfere with his pre-eminence.
He was, shall I say? the valedictorian of his year. He
held all through the very highest place in his class, and was
not the less distinguished as a student because he was so
prominent in the matter of religion. Nay, his elevation, as

226 Daniel the Beloved.
we see in the various incidents of his career, was closely
connected with his piety. No doubt he had to suffer for
his religion ; for it was true then, as it is now, that all who
will live godly in the world must suffer persecution of some
sort; but still he proved it to be true that "godliness is
profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that
now is, and of that which is to come." Nor was there any
element of feebleness about him. He was healthy alike in
body and in mind ; and in his conduct in the matter of the
meat and the wine that came from the royal table, there
were those characteristics of pluck and manliness which
have always been so attractive and so stimulating to young
men. He had the courage not only to have convictions, but
also to act upon them ; and that courage, so far from stand
ing in the way of his promotion, was one of the things which
contributed to it.
I desire, therefore, to call the attention of my youthful
hearers to these points. You will make a terrible mistake
if you suppose that piety unfits you for life, or imagine that
its existence in youth is an abnormal thing that indicates
the presence of disease. Believe me, there is nothing so
healthy, or so wholesome, as to give yourselves early to the
Lord. It will lay in you the foundation of a vigorous and
energetic character. It will bring the highest of all motives
to bear alike upon education, recreation, and business, and
enable you to make the very best of yourselves for God and
for your fellow-men. It will secure for you all that is best
worth having in the world, while, along with that, you will
have the enjoyment of God's favor, and the prospect of
heaven's happiness. For the case of Daniel is not ex
ceptional. You have the same things illustrated in the
lives of Joseph and Moses and Samuel, and in some degree,
also, in that of Timothy ; while, if you care to look around
you and inquire into the histories of many of those among

The Character of Daniel. 227
ourselves who are most loved and trusted by their fellow-
citizens, you will discover that they also have " feared God
from their youth."
Nor can I refrain from adding that, in all such individ
uals, there is a full, rounded completeness of character, a
well-balanced equilibrium of disposition, which you look for
in vain in those who have been converted in later life. In
these last, indeed, you will often find some marked excel
lences. They will be very earnest and enthusiastic ; they
may be very liberal, and self-sacrificing ; but there is usual
ly in them also some prominent angularity, which mars the
rotundity of their nature, and prevents them from doing or
enjoying as much as those who, like Daniel, have been from
their boyhood devoted to the Lord.
From every point of view, therefore, the history of Daniel
is encouraging to the young. It bids them consecrate them
selves to the Saviour ere yet " the cares of the world," or
"the deceitfulness of riches," or the engagements of busi
ness have stolen away their hearts. It shows them that the
world's prizes may be gained by one who means to lay them
in the lap of Christ. It proves to them that manliness is
by no means incompatible with godliness, and that the lofti
est intellectual culture may be reached while yet the stu
dent is sitting lowly at the feet of Jesus ; while, on the other
side, it is full of loftiest inspiration to parents and teachers.
There are those who sneer at piety in boyhood, as if it
would soon die out, and leave the soul more hardened than
it would have been if no such emotions had ever entered it.
But who will sneer at Daniel ? Were not his parents more
than rewarded for their exertions in his early religious train
ing by the noble stand he made, and the lofty elevation he
reached ? And when, though he could then have been no
more than forty years of age, Ezekiel the prophet singled
him out for special commendation, placing him beside Noah

228 Daniel the Beloved.
and Job, was there not given the strongest possible endorse
ment to the efforts and the prayers of those who are seek
ing the early conversion of their children? "The man
greatly beloved " began himself to love God in his boyhood.
I mention, secondly, among Daniel's characteristics, his
devoutness in the closet. This comes out first in con
nection with the recovery and interpretation of Nebuchad
nezzar's forgotten dream ; for then not only did he engage
his three friends to pray on his behalf, but he also himself
poured out his heart in thanksgiving to Jehovah. But it
was the habit of his life to wait at stated times on God ; for
when his enemies prevailed on Darius to issue that decree
which forbade any one to pray save unto the king, we are
told that "he kneeled upon his knees three times a day,
and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as aforetime."
His custom was to observe these appointed seasons of de
votion ; and from the record which we have in the ninth
chapter of his study of the prophecies of Jeremiah, we are
warranted in concluding that when he was in his closet, he
gave himself to meditation on the Sacred Scriptures, as well
as to earnest supplication. This helps to explain much of
his conduct. We cease to wonder at his boldness before
Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, and Darius, when we learn
that he maintained such constant communion with his God.
The roots of his character were " mellowed and fattened "
by the dews of heavenly influence which fell upon them
in the closet. • He drew his strength from the heaven with
which he was in such continuous communication. He was
"Daniel," the judge of God; because he was first "Israel," a
prince of God, who prevailed with him in prayer. His pub
lic life was holy and incorruptible, because his hidden life
was prayerful and devout. He carried his business habits
with him into the closet; and so he was enabled to carry
his devout spirit with him into business. His life was not

The Character of Daniel. 229'
divided into two portions, separated from each other like
the water-tight compartments in a ship ; but it was one and
the same everywhere. In the closet, he was transacting
business with God ; in the presidential bureau, he was trans
acting business for God ; and his sincerity in the former
enabled him to maintain faithfulness in the latter.
Now, here we may all learn much from him. Amidst the
rush and hurry of our modern life, the closet is apt to be
neglected. " The world is too much with us :
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers."
And the recreative influence of devotional retirement is
neither sought nor valued as it ought to be. But we can
not go on thus without deterioration. Sooner or later, the
freshness will wear off from our spirits ; the keen edge of
our consciences will be blunted ; and the general level of
our conduct will be lowered. We need to have our hearts
constantly purified by communion with God ; otherwise the
contamination of the world will cleave to them, and they
will " become subdued to that they work in, like the dyer's
hand." Hence, to counteract the influence of the age, we
ought to give now more than ever prominence to the exer
cises of the closet. Instead of overlaying the Bible with
other books, we ought to go more frequently to its refresh
ing pages ; and while we do not in the least disparage the
habit of ejaculatory prayer, we ought to give more time and
attention to supplications in the closet. They give a tonic
to the piety of the heart, and a stimulus to the life of the
day, which we cannot miss without detriment ; and when
men tell us, as they sometimes do, that the highest style of
living is when we are always in a prayerful spirit, even al
though we have no set times for devotion, we are tempted
to reply that it is impossible to maintain a devotional spirit
without having an appointed time for its cultivation.

230 Daniel the Beloved.
He whose apostle said, " Pray without ceasing," said him
self, " When thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and shut
thy door;" and the hour of private devotion is as essential
to the preservation of the spirituality of the day as the holy
rest of the Sabbath is to the maintenance of the piety of
the week. Periodicity is one of the laws of our being. The
tear and wear of the day needs to be repaired by the sleep
of the night; and the exhaustion consequent upon labor
must be removed by the taking of food at regular and
stated intervals. So, also, the spiritual waste of the day
must be repaired by the exercises of the closet ; and every
one who has tried this specific can say for himself, with
David, " He restoreth my soul ; he leadeth me in the paths
of righteousness for his name's sake."
It is no answer to all this to allege that the habits of so
ciety, and the demands of business upon us, are such that
we cannot find opportunity for retirement. That is only a
confession that the necessity for it is most urgent ; for we
need it the most just then when it is hardest to take it.
Hence, in these days, we ought to value the closet even
more than our fathers did. They had abundance of lei
sure. No clicking telegraph followed them everywhere with
its messages; no whistling steam-engine hurried all their
movements ; the postman was not forever ringing at their
doors ; and the clamorous deputation was not continually
in their parlors seeking a contribution or an address. Yet
they delighted in meditation and prayer, and felt themselves
strengthened by their influence. Oh, how much more we
need them than they did ! But how little we plan for them,
and how slightly we relish them ! Brethren, this is all
wrong. I repeat the warning : We cannot go on at this
rate without spiritual deterioration ! Do not tell me that
this is a practical age. It is so only because a thoughtful
and devotional age preceded it ; and if we eliminate the de-

The Character of Daniel. 231
votion and the meditation out of it, we shall soon destroy
its practicalness. The inspiration which gives us wisdom
to discern, and ability to do, and happiness to enjoy our
work, comes from the closet, and if we more fully realized
that fact, we should more seldom be inclined to say, " I
have no time for private prayer." As well might the manu
facturer say that he has no time to kindle the fire which is
to raise the steam that is to drive his machinery ! No time
for the closet ! Say, rather, " I have no time to eat," or, " I
have no time to sleep." Yea, let the hours consecrated to
secret fellowship with God be the very last which you will
allow either fashion or business to crowd in upon or in
fringe. I mention as another distinctive feature of Daniel his de
cision of character. When the unclean articles of diet were
set before him, he did not hesitate as to the course which
he would follow. Come what would, he was determined
that he should not touch them. True, he very prudently
made application to the prince of the eunuchs in the matter.
Yet he had already purposed in his heart that he would not
defile himself ; and this conduct of his, in his youth, enables
us to understand the valor of his later life, when he braved
the fury of the lions rather than give up the privilege of
prayer. Of what good would longer earthly existence have
been, when that which gave it its charm and inspiration was
no longer to be enjoyed by him ? So this habit of decision
grew up in him, and was fed in him, by the communion of
the closet, whereof we have already spoken. He learned
there to look at things as in the sight of God ; and he car
ried that test with him through life. He acted " as seeing
him who is invisible." God was more to him than all else ;
and that made it easy for him to decide questions which to
others would have been difficult, and to brave dangers which
to others would have been appalling. This sense of the

232 Daniel the Beloved.
divine presence, and assurance of the divine favor, lifted him
above the influences of the world, and kept him ever on the
side of the right and the true. It made no matter what
men threatened — God was on his side ; and so he was not
terrified. It made no matter what men promised — God was
already his ; and so it was impossible to bribe him. The
man who had heard these words from the lips of Gabriel,
"O man greatly beloved," could not be allured by any
title of worldly dignity or any token of mortal favor. He
lived above all these things ; so he could speak with calm
faithfulness to Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar, and look
with composure on the lions of Darius. He saw not the
grandeur of the former by reason of the greater glory of
Jehovah ; and he feared not the fury of the latter by rea
son of his confidence in the omnipotence of God.
It is easier to describe such a life, and to understand how
it could be lived, than it is to reproduce it. And yet the
God of Daniel liveth ; there is no change in him. Only we
lack the faith of Daniel, and from that lack all our difficul
ties spring. Could we but " see him who is invisible," we
might rival him whose faith " stopped the mouths of lions."
The child is brave when he knows his father is by his side ;
and we should feel it easy to do right, and to brave danger,
if we could only believe that God is with us of a truth. The
prophet's servant understood his master's composure in a
moment when his eyes were opened to see, what his mas
ter's faith had seen all the while, namely, " chariots of fire
and horses of fire round about him." And if we only be
lieve in the presence with us of our reconciled God and
Father in Jesus Christ, no bribe could allure us to sin, and
no threat could terrify us to commit iniquity. " This is the
victory that overcometh the world, even our faith."
We complicate matters so long as we take into account
only the opinions of men, or the probable social results of

The Character of Daniel. 233
our actions. But when we see God, we become indifferent
to all these things, and decide only according to his will.
Is it not so, my friends ? Do not all our perplexities arise
from earthly considerations ? Have we ever any hesitation
as to how we ought to act when we look at the question en
tirely as between us and God ? And if that be so, ought
we not to acquire the habit of acting always as seeing " him
who is invisible." Before him all subterfuges flee, and all
disguises disappear. We cannot juggle with our consciences
while we feel that he is near. We cannot parley with the
tempter while he is at our side ; and if he will say to us as
he did to Daniel, " O man greatly beloved," there is no
longer any charm in the applause of men that shall win us
from his allegiance. Thus decision of character is inti
mately connected with — nay, directly springs from — faith in
the presence, the protection, and the favor of God.
Young men, will you lay that to heart ? Your strength to
resist temptation depends on the positiveness of your con
viction that there is a God, and that he is your God through
Jesus Christ. Oh, what power would fill your souls, not
only for withstanding evil, but also for cultivating holiness,
if but you would realize what Hagar meant when she said,
" Thou, God, seest me !" He whom she thus addressed was
no dogging detective, come to upbraid her with her sin, and
to apprehend her for punishment, but a loving father who
gave to her the soothing solace of his sympathy, and the
gracious promise of his love and care ; and if we could only
rise to the assurance that he is our own God, through Je
sus Christ, we would welcome his presence as a source of
strength and an element of power. It is easy to decide
and to be firm when we know and believe that God is near.
Another distinctive feature of Daniel was his diligence in
business. As a student his industry was so great that he
easily overtopped his fellows, and in the management of

234 Daniel the Beloved.
imperial affairs he developed a faculty for organization, and
evinced an energy and perseverance that were beyond all
praise. After a time of devotion, we read that "he arose
and did the king's business ;" and the principles on which
he conducted the department that was entrusted to his care
may be inferred from the fact that, when his enemies sought
an occasion against him, they could find nothing wrong in
his office, and had to endeavor to entrap him in the matter
of his God. He had his ups and downs, like others, but in
the main he was what even the world would call a success
ful man, and his prosperity was not the result of any acci
dent, but was the consequence of the perseverance and in
tegrity by which he was distinguished.
Nor is it at all unimportant, in these days, that promi
nence should be given to these facts. For the common idea
among many is that religion and business are incompatible.
If one have the reputation of being a godly man, he is at
once written down as unfitted for the highest kind of com
mercial success. On the other hand, if one have risen to em
inence in mercantile life, it is supposed that he cannot be
a very devout man ; and if he make the profession of be
ing so, he is summarily characterized as a hypocrite. Now,
these ideas are as injurious to business as they are to re
ligion, and I am glad to have so excellent an opportunity
of denouncing them as false. Daniel was no hypocrite, and
yet he rose, deservedly, to the highest position which Baby
lon had to give. And, when we look at the matter candidly,
we must admit that religion, so far from being inimical to
his business success, was a powerful and important factor
in its production.
Why should the cultivation of the heart be inconsistent
with eminence in commerce any more than the gratification
of a taste for literature ? Yet how many men, honored on
our exchanges or in our assemblies, are devoted also to the

The Character of Daniel. 235-
prosecution of literary pursuits! The noblest statesman
that England has seen for more than a generation has been
able, without at all detracting from his eminence, either as
a financial reformer or as a prime minister, to find time for
the cultivation of Homeric studies, and for the unearthing
of the designs of Vaticanism. And, in our own city, the pa
triarch of letters who is making the writings of Homer into
American classics is known also as one of the most suc
cessful of newspaper editors. If, therefore, men may culti
vate the head without entailing upon themselves a business
failure, why may they not also cultivate the heart ?
But, more than this, the very duties of business furnish
an opportunity for the fostering of religion. For what is
religion ? Is it not, above all other things, the science of
character? Is it not the process of self -formation, ac
cording to the purest model, and from the loftiest motives ?
And if that be so, does not public life give the noblest op
portunities for its practice ? Whatever we do, and wherever
we are, we are making or manifesting character, and we must
do so either in the right way or in the wrong. Religion is
the doing of this in the right way ; and if that be incompat
ible with prosperity in business, then all I have to say is, so
much the worse for business. But it is not incompatible
with business success. It may not give a rapid fortune, in
deed, but that is not a misfortune ; for these rapid fortunes
often end in the prison, or in exile. But it has often given,
and it will give again, a solid, substantial, and enduring
prosperity, which no persecution can destroy, and no panic
can sweep away.
Nor is this all. Consider what religion does for a man.
It brings him under the influence of the most powerful mo
tives. As we have seen already, it opens his eyes to the
sight of the invisible God ; and so it sends him to work for
him. But is there anything in that to paralyze industry, or

236 Daniel the Beloved.
to overlay diligence ? Nay, verily, he who is doing busi
ness for God will always be in earnest. His diligence in
business will be a part of his religion, and he will enjoy the
fulfilment of the proverb, that " the hand of the diligent
maketh rich." True, his religion will keep him from all
double-dealing and dishonesty, and so he may not rise so
rapidly as the wicked sometimes do ; but then, neither will
he fall so swiftly and ignominiously as they. He will go by
the king's highway, not through any short cuts ; and if he
do not reach the goal so soon as others seem to do, he is
saved from being mired in the morass, in which they shall
surely sink.
Believe not, therefore, my young friends, that your alle
giance to God will ultimately interfere with your commercial
success. Even if it did, it would still be your duty to be
true to him. But it does not. God's providence is moral,
and if you make a fair induction of facts, you will find
that, other things being equal, the religious man is in the
end the most prosperous as well as the most happy of mer
chants. I know this is a low view to take of it. But I
know, also, that the assertions which I have referred to are
made by those who would seduce you from the paths of in
tegrity; and therefore I have taken the trouble to refute
their reasonings. Do not allow yourselves to be led away
by their plausibilities ; probe them to the bottom ; examine
them with the keenest scrutiny, and you will remain true to
Christ, who has said not only, " Blessed are the pure in
heart, for they shall see God ;" but also, " Blessed are the
meek, for they shall inherit the earth."
But here we must conclude. We have had great enjoy
ment in tracing the history and studying the prophecies of
this man of God. We have learned to know his principles,
and he has taught us to know our Christ as " the King of
kings and Lord of lords." Let us pray for his faith, and let

The Character of Daniel. 237
us cultivate his devotional spirit. Then we shall be able to
manifest his firmness in the face of temptation, and to prac
tise his diligence in the details of common life. Let us car
ry his business energy into our religious duties, and his de
vout spirit into our business transactions. Let us live as he
did, as seeing him who is invisible, saying, with the noble
poet, "All is, if we have grace to use it, so
As ever in the great Task-master's eye,"
and then we, too, " shall stand in our lot at the end of the
days."

INDEX.

Abercrombie's "Intellectual Powers" quoted from, 29, 30.
Abstinence from strong drink enforced, 20-22, 94-96, 160.
Accusation not always an endorsement of excellence, 118.
Alexander the Great, founder of the Grecian Empire, 42 ; chief victories
of, 146; death of, 148; partition of empire of, 149, 192.
Alexander, W. L., D.D., Kitto's " Cyclopaedia " by, quoted or referred
to, 90, 173-
Angels, reality of the ministry of, 169 ; over earthly kingdoms, 187.
Antichrist of the New Testament, 200.
Antiochus Epiphanes, the little horn on the head of the goat, 152 ; char
acter of, 152 ; cruelty of, to the Jews, 153 ; death of, 157, 214 ; his
tory of, foretold to Daniel, 196-198 ; desolation of the Temple by,
213.
 the Great, wars of, with Egypt, 194 ; conquered by the Romans,
196. ¦ Theos, 193.

Artaxerxes Longimanus, decree of, 1 72.
Ashpenaz chooses Daniel and his friends for special training, 1 1 ; ap
plied to by Daniel, in reference to the unclean diet, 15.
Auberlen, Carl A., " Daniel and the Revelation," quoted from or referred
to, 35, 125, 188, 193, 209, 224.
Babylon, description of, 73 ; taken by Cyrus, 102.
Babylonian Empire described, 126, 127.
Barnes, Rev. Albert, " Notes on the Book of Daniel," quoted from or
referred to, 8, 45, 47, 111, 198, 207.
Bear, the, of Daniel's vision explained, 127.
Beast, a, the appropriate symbol of a great empire, 136.
Beasts, the four, vision of, explained, 126-13 1.
Belshazzar, difficulty relating to, explained, 90-92 ; character of, 92 ;
feast of, 93 ; profanity of, 96-98 ; supernatural condemnation of, 98 ;
visit of Daniel to, 99 ; death of, 102.
Berenice, daughter of Ptolemy Philadelphus, 193.
Brougham, Henry, Lord, autobiography of, quoted from, 28.

240 Index.
Calvin, John, " Commentary on Daniel," quoted from or referred to,
13, 129, 157.
Captivity of the Jews, history of, 8-10 ; three instalments of, 10.
Christ, kingdom of, superhuman in its origin, 49, 140 ; feeble in its be
ginnings, 50 ; gradual in its progress, 51 ; universal in its extent, 53 ;
eternal in its duration, 54 ; different from earthly kingdoms in the
matter of its rewards, 218.
Cleopatra, daughter of Antiochus the Great, 195.
Closet, devoutness of Daniel in the, 228 ; necessity of earnestness in,
now, 230.
Coincidences in the recurrence ofthe date of three years and a half, 212.
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, curious experience of, in the composition of
" Kubla Khan," 30, 31.
Condition ofthe world before the advent ofChrist an argument for the
divine origin of the Gospel, 140.
Conformity to the world, evil of, 160.
Conscience, duty of adhering to, 18, 120; liberty of, an inalienable right,
66.
Cowles, Henry, D.D., "Ezekiel and Daniel, with Notes," quoted from
or referred to, 171, 198.
Cowper, William, quoted from, 69, 137.
" Critical and Experimental Commentary," by Jamieson : Fausset &
Brown, referred to, 214.
Cruelty of earthly empires, 136-139.
Cyrus, King, founder of Persian Empire, 41 ; takes Babylon, IC2 ; edict
of, regarding Jerusalem, 172.
Daniel, Book of, authenticity ofthe, 7 ; two divisions ofthe, 123.
Daniel, captivity of, 10 ; age of, when carried away, 11 ; education of, 11 ;
chosen by Ashpenaz for special training, 1 1 ; refuses the food pro
vided for the students, 13 ; applies to Ashpenaz for relief, 15 ; recov
ers Nebuchadnezzar's dream, 33, 40 ; parallel between, and Joseph,
34, 223 ; interprets the vision of the composite image, 41-43 ; proba
ble absence of, from Dura, when the colossal image was set up, 65 ;
interprets Nebuchadnezzar's second dream, 76 ; fidelity of, 86 ; reads
the mystic writing to Belshazzar, 100 ; elevated by Darius to the
chief place in the empire, 105 ; an object of envy to the princes, 106 ;
faithfulness of, to his religious convictions, 112; consigned to the
lions' den, 116 ; delivered by God's angel, 116; first vision of, 124-
126; second vision of, 144-163; concern of, for Jerusalem, 164;
study ofthe Word of God by, 165 ; last glimpse of, 184 ; occasion
of his mourning by the banks ofthe Hiddekel, 184; parallel between,
and the Apostle John, 223 ; early piety of, 224-227 ; devoutness of,
in the closet, 228 ; success of, in business, 229 ; decision of character
in, 231 ; faith of, 232 ; diligence of, in business, 233.
Darius Hystaspis, edict of, 172 ; referred to in one ofthe visions, 191.

Index. 241
Darius the Mede, questions concerning, 92, 105 ; divides the empire into
provinces, 105 ; makes a decree forbidding prayer, except to himself,
for thirty days, 109; weakness of, 114; decree of, after Daniel's de
liverance, 117.
Dates, striking coincidences in, 212.
Decision of character, value of, 120, 231.
Development gradual, in prophecy and revelation, 181.
Development, moral, of the empires downward, 138.
Dreams, popular ideas of, among the ancients, 26 ; God's providence in,
77 ; instances of, 28 ; forgotten, instances of, 29, 31.
Eadie, John, D.D., LL.D., "Cyclopaedia" of, quoted from, 73.
Early piety, of Daniel, 224 ; not associated with mental weakness, 225 ;
not necessarily connected with early death, 226.
Fairbairn's " Imperial Bible Dictionary " quoted from or referred to.
58, 90.
Faith in the invisible essential to our getting full benefit from God's
Word, 203.
Favorite texts, 202.
Fiery furnace described, 62.
Foreknowledge of God and human freedom, 190.
Friendship, faithful, illustration of, 38.
Gibbon's " History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire "
quoted from, 44, 45.
Goat, a one-horned, the symbol ofthe Macedonian Empire, 145, 146.
God, care of, for his people, 22 ; grace of, given to support his people in
suffering, 69; supremacy of, over the nations, 88; faithfulness of, to
his threatenings as well as promises, 103 ; people of, not exempt from
accusation, 118; is in histor)', 176; is in the Bible, 176; is in Christ,
178; prepares his people for special trial by special grace, 201.
Gospel, the, is the hope of the world, 142.
Gratitude, illustration of, 127.
Grecian Empire, the, 42, 127.
Habit, influence of one evil, 158.
Hamilton, Patrick, martyrdom of, and its effect, 70.
Hebrew youths, the three, refuse to worship Nebuchadnezzar's image,
62-64; cast into the fiery furnace, 64; had with them one like unto
the Son of God, 65.
He-goat in Daniel's vision explained, 145.
Henry, Matthew, "Commentary" of, quoted from or referred to, 83, 198.
Hereafter, the development of now, 216.
Homer's idea of dreams, 27.
Hope, the, ofthe suffering saint, 214. II

242 Index.
Horn, the little, on the head ofthe fourth beast, 131 ; on the head ofthe
goat, 150-152.
Humility illustrated by Daniel, 37.
Insanity of Nebuchadnezzar, 77-80 ; modern treatment of, 80.
Inscription, Standard, quotation from, 74, 81.
Intemperance, evils of, 94.
Intolerance in religion condemned, 66, 67 ; how it is to be met, 68.
Jehoahaz, King of Judah, deposition of, 8.
Jehoiachin carried to Babylon, 10.
Jehoiakim, King of Judah, conquered by Nebuchadnezzar, 9 ; rebels
against Nebuchadnezzar, 9 ; death and burial of, 9.
Jerusalem taken by Nebuchadnezzar, 9 ; taken by Nebuzar-adan, 10 ;
taken by Antiochus Epiphanes, 153 ; destroyed by the Romans, 175.
John the Apostle, parallel between, and Daniel, 223.
Joseph, parallel between, and Daniel, 34, 223.
Josephus quoted from, 156.
Josiah, King of Judah, death of, 8.
Jupiter Olympus, idol of, set up by Antiochus Epiphanes in the Temple,
154, 156.
Kingdom of the Messiah, 46-55 ; superhuman in origin, 49, 140-142 ;
feeble in beginning, 50; gradual in progress, 51 ; universal in extent,
53 ; eternal in duration, 54; honors of, different from those of earthly
kingdoms, 218.
Kingdoms, earthly, have beasts as their appropriate emblems, 136 ; give
their honors to destroyers, 218.
Kitto, John, D.D., " Daily Bible Readings," quoted from, 12, 13.
Knowledge increased by travel, 211.
Lange's "Commentary" referred to, 195.
Laodice, wife of Antiochus Theos, 193.
Leopard, winged, in Daniel's vision, explained, 127.
Liberty, human, and divine foreknowledge, 190.
Liberty religious, principles of, 71.
Lion, winged, in Daniel's vision, explained, 126.
Lions, den of, described, no.
Luther, Martin, quoted from, 192.
Maccabeus, Judas, valor of, 156 ; reference to, 207.
Maccabees, martyrs among the, sustained by faith in the resurrection, 210.
Martyrology, English, incident in, 216.
Milman, Dean, " History ofthe Jews," referred to, 154, 156, 199.
Milton, John, quoted from, 237.
Musical instruments used in the time of Nebuchadnezzar, 61.

Index. 243
Napoleon I., words of, concerning Christ, 55.
National sins followed by divine retribution, 16.
Nebuchadnezzar, victory of, over the Egyptians, 9 ; king jointly with his
father, 24, 25 ; dream of, forgotten by him, 29 ; requires the magicians
to recover and interpret his dream, 31 ; dream of, recovered and in
terpreted by Daniel, 33, 41 ; erects colossal image in Dura, 56-58 ;
devotion of, to Bel-Merodach, 60 ; beautification of Babylon by, 72 ;
buildings of, 74 ; second vision of, 75 ; insanity of, 78-80,; recovery
of, 80 ; supposed reference to his insanity in Standard Inscription,
81, 82 ; decree of, regarding his insanity, 82.
Newton, Bishop, " Dissertations on the Prophecies," quoted from or re
ferred to, 131, 150.
Opposite of wrong not always right, 70.
Palissy, the potter, anecdote of, 115.
Peculiarities ofthe Christian the elements of his power, 161.
Periodicity a law of our nature, 230.
Persian Empire, the breast and arms of Nebuchadnezzar's image, 41 ;
wickedness of its rulers, 42 ; kings of, worshipped by their people,
109 ; description of, 127, 145.
Pharaoh Necho, victory of, at Megiddo, 8.
Piety, early, not necessarily connected with mental weakness, or business
failure, or early death, 226-228.
Power of the enemies of God's people limited, 162.
Prayer, united, value of, 35 ; toward Jerusalem, meaning of, 112 ; can
not be prevented by human power, 121 ; relation of, to God's prom
ises and prophecies, 166.
Pride, warning against, 84 ; punishment of, 89.
Prideaux, Dean, " Connection of the History of the Old and New Tes
tament," quoted from or referred to, 41, 57, 194, 195, 199.
Profanity, evil of, 97.
Prophecy, argument from, not sufficiently considered, 176-178.
Ptolemies, dynasty of the, 192.
Ptolemy Epiphanes marries Cleopatra, daughter of Antiochus, 195,
 Euergetes, 193.
 Philadelphus, 193.
Pusey, Rev. E. B., D.D., "Lectures on Daniel the Prophet," quoted
from or referred to, 7, n, 43, 58, 61, 62, 78, 79, 109, 127, 173-175. IQ8.
Ram in Daniel's vision explained, 145.
Rawlinson, Sir Henry, quoted from, 91.
Reason, duty of thanking God for our, 87.
Religion the science of character, 235.
Religious intolerance condemned, 66 ; how it is to be met, 68.
Resurrection of the dead, reference to, in the Book of Daniel, 207 ; Mac
cabean martyrs sustained by faith in, 210.

244 Index.
Retribution a law of God's providence, 117.
Reward ofthe working saint, 217.
Roman Empire, the legs of iron in Nebuchadnezzar's image, 43 ; dete
rioration of, at the last, 43, 44; cruelty of, 138-140.
Saint, suffering, hope of the, 214; waiting, rest of the, 220; working,
reward ofthe, 217.
Scott, Thomas, " Commentary " of, quoted from, 83.
Seleucidaa, dynasty of, 192 ; kingdom of a part of the Greek Empire, 129.
Seleucus Ceraunus, 194.
 Philopator, 196.
Seventy heptades, prophecy of, 171 ; fulfilment of, 174.
Smerdis alluded to in one of Daniel's visions, 192.
Smith's "Bible Dictionary" quoted from or referred to, 10, 58, 61, 74,
82, 90.
Society of Friends, members of the, pioneers in religious liberty, 68.
" Speaker's Commentary" referred to, 188, 193, 195, 198.
Spenser, Edmund, quoted from, 170.
Spirit-world, nearness ofthe, 168.
Standard Inscription referred to, 74, 81.
Stanley, A. P., Dean, quoted from or referred to, 198, 200.
State, province ofthe, defined, 67 ; duty ofthe, in religious matters, 71.
Stone, kingdom of the, 45.
Suffering always to be preferred to sin, 120.
Suffering saint, hope of, 214.
Temperance, value of, 20.
Tennyson, Alfred, quoted from, 101, 223.
Texts, favorite, 202.
Too late, sadness of being, 101.
Tregelles, S. P., " Remarks on the Prophetic Visions of the Book of
Daniel," quoted from, 46, 151, 223.
Trollope, Anthony, quoted from, 140.
Tytler, Alexander Fraser, " Elements of General History," quoted from,
149.
Vision of the four beasts, 126-135 ; of the ram and the he-goat, 144-
157 ; on the banks of the Hiddekel, 184.
Walton, Izaak, " Complete Angler," Bohn's edition of, quoted from, 78.
Washington treaty, the, a new thing in diplomacy, 136.
Weeks, seventy, prophecy of, 170-174.
Westminster divines, episode in the history of, 35.
Whittier, J. G., quoted from, 216.
Wordsworth, William, quoted from, 229.
Working saint, reward ofthe, 217.

Index. 245
Xerxes referred to, 191.
Zedekiah made King of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar, 10 ; carried into
Babylon, 10.
Zeuxis, illustration from, 217.
Zoanthropia described, 78.

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*RAWLINSON'S MANUAL OF ANCIENT HISTORY. A Manual
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NICHOLS'S ART EDUCATION. Art Education applied to Industry.
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BAKER'S ISMAILI A. Ismailia : a Narrative of the Expedition to Cen
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VAN-LENNEP'S BIBLE LANDS. Bible Lands : their Modern Cus
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SHAKSPEARE. The Dramatic Works of William Shakspeare. With
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SMILES'S HISTORY OF THE HUGUENOTS. The Huguenots:
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SMILES'S HUGUENOTS AFTER THE REVOCATION. The Hu
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SMILES'S LIFE OF THE STEPHENSONS. The Life of George
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SQUIER'S PERU. Peru : Incidents of Travel and Exploration in the
Land of the Incus. By E. George Squier, M. A., F.S.A., late U. S.
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STRICKLAND'S (Miss) QUEENS OF SCOTLAND. Lives of the
Queens of Scotland and English Princesses connected with the Regal
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THE "CHALLENGER" EXPEDITION. The Atlantic: an Account
of the General Results ofthe Exploring Expedition of H.M.S. " Chal
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ous Illustrations, Colored Maps, and Charts, from Drawings by J. J.
Wvld, engraved bv J. D. Cooper, and Portrait of the Author, engraved
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BOURNE'S LIFE OF JOHN LOCKE. The Life of John Locke. By
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