would be defrauded and the people oppressed. Enough, that notwithstanding all his goodness, they did hate him, and hate him with a deadly hatred. They meet, a band of malignant conspirators, to devise what is to be done. They canvass with lynx-eyed scrutiny every act of his administration, to see if there be anything on which they can base a charge of wrong but there is nothing-no unfaithfulness, no peculation, no undue assumption of authority, no injustice to the people. One can imagine with what looks of blank disappointment they would turn to each other, as they were compelled to acknowledge that there was not a single act on which they could ground an impeachment. At length the thought arises in some mind more crafty than the rest, "Cannot something be devised? He fears his God. In any circumstances he will do what his religion requires. If we can only succeed in placing some decree of the king in opposition to the law of his God, his destruction is sure." The suggestion is hailed with delight, and by and by the plan is matured. They will ask the king to pass a decree, that for the space of a whole month no one shall ask a petition of either God or man, save only of the king; and they will further ask that the penalty of disobedience shall be, that the transgressor shall be cast into the den of lions. The plot succeeds. They approach the king with all deference, and, as it would seem, with no other desire than that there should be rendered him due homage; probably suggesting that the proposed requirement would be a fitting test of the obedience of his new subjects, and a becoming acknowledgment of his greatness. His vanity is flattered, and, without reflection, he signs the decree. And now it is the law, that for thirty days every religious service shall be suspended, except that of which he may be the object. No matter what the depth of a man's convictions, or what the greatness of his need, he must not pray. He may be in mortal agony; his life may be in peril; strong and numerous foes may assail him; his dearest friends may be in the utmost necessity; but he must not pray. For thirty days, all temples must be closed, all observances of domestic religion must be suspended, and there must not even be secret prayer. There may be things which men can do for each other; but, so stringent is the decree, that not even of man must anything be asked. With what fiendish delight those wicked men would pass from the royal presence, assured that the decree they had obtained would be the certain destruction of the man they hated so bitterly! Multitudes would submit without a murmur. Their only fear would be, lest in some inadvertent manner they might infringe the statute, and so be cast to the dreaded lions. But there would be many who would say at once, "We cannot and we will not obey." It is not to be supposed that Daniel was the only man of all his people brave enough to refuse obedience. If the men who had obtained that decree had sent their emissaries through the city, they would have found many a lattice open towards Jerusalem, and have heard many an utterance of prayer. But the princes would be at little trouble to find out who else disobeyed, so only that Daniel did. He was their mark, and they cared for no meaner game. Daniel knew that the writing was signed, and he knew that it had been obtained against himself. He would be deeply grieved that the king had been so thoughtless and so weak; but there would not be a moment's debate in his mind as to what he ought to do. He might have said, "I will baffle them completely: I will close my windows; I will change my times of devotion; I will retire into my most secret chamber; no one shall hear me pray; but I will pray. Without a word; without a whisper; without bending my knee-so that if they burst in upon me when I least expect them, they shall not be able to say I was at prayer, I will still lift up my heart to God, and God will hear me." But there were grave reasons why he should not say this. Daniel held-what has ever been held by all good men-that a man is bound, not only to be a servant of God, but to let it be known that he is such; and that a manly profession is a duty only secondary to that of having the heart itself right with God. To close his windows, and to resolve that he would pray where no one could know that he prayed, would have been virtually, so far as example and influence were concerned, to obey the king's decree. He would have proclaimed by doing so, in the hearing of his enemies and of all Babylon, that he acknow ledged that the king was to be obeyed rather than God; and he would thus have declared to his people, who rightly venerated him as one of God's most faithful servants, that he feared the teeth of the lions more than the displeasure of Heaven, and that any subterfuge was lawful in order that life might be preserved. He had no alternative, therefore, but to refuse the submission which was required. He knew that there was no likelihood of the decree being reversed, and that there was no prospect before him but that of being cast into the den of lions. But he believed in God. His three friends had been preserved unhurt amidst the flames of Dura; and he was quite sure that, in like manner, God could shut for him the mouths of the lions. His own life had more than once been preserved from impending peril; and if that life were needful for God's service, he did not doubt that it would be preserved again but whether or not, there was another world, in which God would abundantly recompense him for any sacrifice or suffering he might have to endure in this. The root of all his stedfastness was his faith in God. He went to his house and did just as he had been accustomed to do. If he had done more, and in some place of public resort had braved the wrath of the king, by meeting with a number of his countrymen in a service such as they had never hitherto observed, he might have been justly condemned. That would have been a needless courting of martyrdom. Instead of that—and it is a circumstance to which our attention is pointedly called in the inspired narrative-" he went into his house, and his windows being open in his chamber towards Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime." His enemies knew how it would be; but there must be evidence which they could lay before the king. They themselves would be the witnesses; and, princes though they were, they did not deem it beneath them to creep stealthily within what, in all honour, they ought to have deemed the sacred enclosure of Daniel's house, and to listen. They would most likely stand beneath the opened window, and hear his fervid utterances of thanksgiving and prayer. They then hastened to the king, reminded him of his decree, and told him what they had witnessed. Darius saw that he had been entrapped. This, then, was what they meant when they flattered him and persuaded him to sign the writing-to destroy the man in whom he had more confidence than in all of them put together, or in any man in his kingdom! How he would curse his folly, and wonder that he had not suspected some ulterior and base design! He determined, however, if it were possible, to deliver Daniel; "set his heart to do it," and laboured to do so till the going down of the sun. It was all in vain. It had been the custom of the Medes and Persians, from time immemorial, that if a decree were once signed, though it were ever so foolish and wrong, it should be carried out to the very letter. There was no alternative, and all he could do was to commit him to his God, in the faint hope that he would interpose: "Thy God whom thou servest continually, he will deliver thee." The command was issued: Daniel was cast down into the den; a heavy stone was rolled over its mouth, and sealed with the king's signet and that of his lords, that all possibility of escape might be precluded. The king was sad, and returned to his palace heavy and displeased; and there would be many a heart of God's people sad that night-sad, that a good man and a prophet, a true patriot and a kind benefactor, was no more; sad, because they would regard what had thus befallen Daniel as the precursor of calamities which might overwhelm themselves in utter destruction. But, doubtless, some of them would have faith enough to lift up their prayer that he might still be preserved; and the prayer was not unheard. A dark and dreary den no doubt it was into which the prophet was cast; its gloom relieved only by the fitful glare of those wild beasts' eyes. But Daniel and the lions were not its only occupants that night. God was there, sustaining and gladdening the soul of his servant, assuring him of his love, and filling him with unspeakable peace and joy. And God's angel was there; perhaps in some form like one of these in which God's angels have appeared to men, or it might be invisible; but, seen or not, closing the mouths of the ferocious beasts, and making it as though, for the time at least, their hunger were completely forgotten, and as though their very natures were changed. So that in the morning, when Darius went, hoping to find Daniel still alive, but fear largely preponderating over hope, and cried with a lamentable voice, "O Daniel, servant of the living God, is thy God, whom thou servest continually, able to deliver thee from the lions?" Daniel could reply, "O king, live for ever. My God hath sent his angel, and hath shut the lions' mouths, that they have not hurt me." With indescribable gladness the king commanded that he should be taken up out of the den; and it was found that there was "no manner of hurt upon him." It was a glorious vindication by God himself of his servant's integrity; it was the signal fulfilment of his promise, "Them that honour me, I will honour;" and it was his approval of his servant's faith, for it is expressly said that he was thus delivered "because he believed in God;" and never, surely, was there a more evident proof of his delight in those who pray! We have in this episode in the life of Daniel a noble instance of a good man stedfastly carrying out his convictions of duty, in spite of the strongest motives to repress them. Is he not, in this respect, an example to us? The fear of God and the fear of man are often in diametrical opposition, and we have to choose whom we will please, God or man. Let us do nothing rashly; let there be no boast of our deter mination; let there be everything that is conciliatory in the way in which we carry out our resolve; but, once fully persuaded that it is a right one, let us not flinch from it. There is one thing suggested by the form of Daniel's decision to which we would especially call the attention of young men. You have been accustomed to pray, and your conscience tells you that you ought to pray; but it may happen to you to have to occupy the same room with others; and amongst those with whom you are thus associated, may be some who do not pray, and who laugh at prayer. "What must I do?" is a question which has, many a time, been debated very anxiously by a young man placed in such circumstances. "If I kneel down and pray before them, I shall be laughed at. Cannot I pray somewhere else? Cannot I retire to rest, and pray in my bed before I fall asleep? I shall thus avoid their ridicule, and God will hear me all the same." But would not the issue of such a course be their triumph over you and your religion both? Would it not give them occasion to say that you were just as prayerless as themselves, and so encourage them to continue to "cast off fear, and to restrain prayer before God?" Hear the voice of conscience, and do what you feel to be manly and right. You may thus be the means of confirming the decision of some one less resolute than yourself, and of awakening, even in the minds of the scoffers themselves, such serious thoughts as may issue in their conversion. We offer this, however, only as one thing which may furnish an occasion for faithfulness. Take God's Word, and instructed by it in all the great principles of truth and duty, resolve that by the help of his Spirit you will do everything that is becoming and right, standing "perfect and complete in all the will of God." "And if I do this," perhaps you ask, "what will be the issue? I read that after his deliverance Daniel prospered;' and it seems plain that his prosperity was the reward of his decision. Can you promise me that if I do right, I shall prosper?" No, we reply, we cannot : God may reward you by temporal prosperity, but he may not. It must not be concealed, that thousands have, by doing right, rendered their lives, so far as earthly prosperity was concerned, an utter blank. They have lost everything; lost even their good name; lost their very lives. A servant now, you may be a servant to the end of your days: struggling now, you may have to struggle till you can struggle no more. Everybody cannot make the best of this world, if to do so means getting rich. What then? Will stedfast integrity go unrewarded? Will it be all the same as though you shaped your course on principles of mere expediency? No: you will have a good conscience and the smile of God; you will leave to your children the precious heritage of a right example and an honoured name; but, most of all, you will hear, in the great day of final account, the approval of the everlasting Judge, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." On Self-Surrender. WHY is it that so many professedly Christian persons pass their lives in habitual anxiety about the things of time? You are unwilling to doubt, you cannot doubt, their vital union to the Saviour; and yet they are the morbid victims of a corroding care which it is painful to witness and distressing to feel. They magnify the sorrows and troubles of life, and, with perverse ingenuity, reverse the telescope when they look at its joys and pleasures. They have a ready sympathy with the gloomy, as if the arrival of heavy tidings was a matter of course, and an instinctive incredulity in relation to intelligence fitted to make the heart sing for joy. And their prayers have a foreboding tone, as if, though speaking to the Father of lights, they fully expected scenes of darkness; whilst their praise, if praise it must be called, is fairly typified by the lines "Lord! what a wretched land is this, That yields us no supply! No cheering fruit, no wholesome trees, |