tree that bears the best fruit is always the most assailed, shaken and stoned. The loftiest mountains are most familiar with storms and thunderbolts. The prophets before us were reviled, persecuted, falsely accused and evil-entreated because they were loyal to their Lord. The most perfect Man the world ever saw, and the greatest benefactor it ever had, was defamed, accused, condemned and crucified. It must needs be that some suffer for truth and righteousness, or the whole world would go to destruction. The salvation of the race is by the shedding of innocent blood-by the sacrifice of the bodily peace, fortunes, comforts and lives of the righteous. It is part of God's redemption-plan. And therefore we are not to think it strange when trial comes, as if God had vacated His throne or abandoned His rule over things. We are not to conclude that we are saints because we suffer, but neither are we to give up as forsaken of our heavenly Father because our way lies through deep and stormy seas and howling wildernesses. Daniel must endure his conspiring foes, and may be so compassed by them as to see no outcome but through horrible death.

See, then, also from his case, and let it be firmly rooted in the soul, how we may best conduct ourselves with reference to all these things. From early youth Daniel gave himself to God, and was very strict not to defile himself with anything questionable or contrary to God's law. Here was the first and grand planting for a true and successful life. There is nothing like an early rooting and grounding in the truth and in the fear and love of God. This was the spring of

Daniel's greatness. This was his shield and buckler in the midst of his adverse surroundings. This steadied him for one of the sublimest careers that ever was run by mortal man. Nor can a young man or woman possibly do a better or a wiser thing for the successful running of the race of life, wherever or whatever it may be, than to give the heart to God, to live and die cleaving always and above all to His Word and laws. This gives fixedness, shape and purpose to the being. This fashions character into solidity, worth and beauty. This supplies a base and groundwork on which to repose and compose one's self, whatever storms life may develop.

In pursuance of his early principles, Daniel was very diligent in his devotions. He had his oratory for prayer, with its window ever looking to Jerusalem. He had no temple to which to betake himself, but he made a temple of his own house, and his upper room was his holy of holies. Three times a day he went into it with the incense of praise and prayer to the Lord God of his fathers. Not all the cares of state, nor all the perturbations of the affairs of empire, nor all the subtle plottings and malignant watchings of his foes, could induce him to demit this constant habit of his life. He kept himself in communion with heavenly greatness, and it served to make him great and to fill him with the spirit of the holy Powers. The manner, form or precise number of times a day in which he performed his devotions was not the material thing, but he kept open communications with Heaven; and this was

the secret of his strength and the nurturing force in all his great qualities. Nor can any man make

of himself and of his life what he should without systematic earnestness in his prayers.

But the crowning feature in Daniel was that he dared to obey God rather than man, and would not abate a tittle of his religious habits, though knowing that he must pay the forfeit with his life unless saved by miracle. He lived up to his principles. Those who watched and studied him the closest, incited with all the energy of hate, gave up, confessing it impossible to find whereof to accuse him, and built their final plot on their confidence in his unflinching fidelity to his God even though he should die for it. Nor were they mistaken. He treated the infamous decree as if it were not. No king or parliament has any right thus to interfere with private conscience. The edict was itself an act of treason to the sovereign Maker and Lord of all things. It was an attempt to legislate a divorce between the creature and the Creator, without consent of either. It was therefore no disloyalty, but a higher loyalty, to disregard and disobey it. So Daniel went on with his prayers precisely as he had done aforetime, and could not be turned from them in the slightest particular. He went to the same place; he went just as often; he went at the same hours of the day; he knelt by his window toward Jerusalem the same as ever; he prayed just as loud and as long as before the decree existed; and he was as calm and undisturbed about it as if the decree had never been. Here was

open

the man of principle and faith, and here is our example for a successful life and a proper death. There was no bravado or defiance. There was no ostentatious putting of self forward for applause. There was no indecent haste or low ambition to appear a martyr. But here was the dignity of a meek and honest faith, living only for God, and made up to die, if it must be, just as the life was shaped, unruffled with regrets or fears and peaceful in the keeping of a faithful God.

"Oh for a faith that will not shrink,

Though press'd by many a foe;

That will not tremble on the brink

Of poverty or woe;

That will not murmur or complain
Beneath the chastening rod,
But in the hour of grief and pain
Can lean upon its God!

Lord, give us such a faith as this,
And then, whate'er may come,

We'll taste e'en here the hallow'd bliss
Of our eternal home!"

LECTURE NINTH.

THIS WORLD'S GOVERNMENTS; OR, THE VISION OF THE FOUR BEASTS.

THE

Daniel : 1-28.

HE Book of Daniel is made up of two main sections the historical part and the prophetical part. The first part, over which we have thus far travelled in these Lectures, consists of a succession of scenes relating to the more personal history of the prophet and those with whom he had to do; whilst the second part, which begins with the chapter now before us, consists of a collection of his own prophetic visions, beheld at different periods of his life and explained by the heavenly Powers. Prophetic visions are described in the preceding chapters also, but they were not Daniel's visions, though he was called to interpret them. So there are also some personal particulars given in the chapters remaining, but only to indicate the time and circumstances under which the visions were given and explained. The topics from this onward are all prophetic.

In point of time the chapter on which we now enter takes us back again to the reign of Belshazzar, king of Babylon. It was in the first year of that monarch's regency that Daniel had this vision. It came to him in the night-time, for it was a period of great