"Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you." But to-day it is of the earliest, simplest part of that teaching which we speak, that which the little children need; that which I pray you, dear brethren, to help us to render to-day, in expectant reliance on His word: "Behold, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world."

XVIII.

Youthful Decision: Its Difficulties, Helps, and Results.

DAN. i. 8, 5.

"But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king's meat, nor with the wine which he drank. So nourishing them three years, that at the end thereof they might stand before the king."

LAST Sunday evening I was speaking of life as being

the Christian's portion ("All things are yourslife"); and was saying that though, as a rule, and in the long run, a godly and religious course tends to prosperity and increase even of the good things of this world, yet there are some seeming exceptions to this; some tried and steadfast servants of God there are who seem to have blow upon blow struck at their earthly happiness; whose tears are their meat day and night; they never seem able to make their way, or push their fortune, or rise superior to the crushing weight of untoward circumstances. If they can be said to have joy at all, it is that kind of joy of which the apostle says, "Sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things."* And in cases such as these does the Lord teach His people that man doth not live by bread alone, that there is another life besides that which is fed on bread, and which has this world's dainties and delicacies for its delights. There is a life which is very 2 Cor. vi. 10.

*

far removed from the smooth, easy, unruffled course which some enjoy, which is trained in the hard school of suffering, and the sharp rankling smart of continual crosses. And yet in that spirit of holy dependence, whence springs the loftiest and noblest independence that man can know, are taught of God's Spirit to say, "All things are mine-life."

Daniel's early life in the court of Babylon may be taken as an example of this higher life. God's providence denied him, or himself voluntarily renounced, many of those things which are supposed to make up life that is worthy the name; and yet in the absence of these it could be truly said that life was his. Daniel's outward condition, when we first meet with him in the historical books of the Old Testament, was an example of that mysterious law of the Divine government which is read in our hearing every Sabbath-day: "Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me."* It is not improbable he was one of the royal seed of Judah; in which case he was the inheritor of that ancient curse pronounced against Hezekiah, his ancestor, when his truckling to the king of Babylon and too close identifying his interests with his, drew down the Divine displeasure, which was expressed in the denunciations of the prophet Isaiah: "Hear the word of the Lord of hosts: Behold, the days come, that all that is in thy house shall be carried to Babylon: nothing shall be left. And of thy sons that shall issue from thee, which thou shalt beget, shall they take away; and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon."+

Thus surely were the sins of that pious ancestor + 2 Kings xx. 16—18.

*Exod. xx. 5.

visited on the head of his descendants. It is true that by another still more mysterious law of Divine Providence, the curse in his case was turned into a blessing; but yet it was by a process of deep degradation and humiliation that he came to be exalted to all but the throne of Babylon,-such an humbling providence as may well have led him often to repeat the sacred song of David his forefather: "I refrain my soul, and keep it low, even as a child that is weaned of his mother."*

It is always interesting to trace the early history of distinguished men, who have become burning and shining lights in the Church of God; to notice the events in the midst of which they grew up, the state of society, the prevailing habits of thought around them, the moral and mental training by which they were fitted for the post they were called in God's providence to occupy. And hence the first chapter of Daniel is full of interest to us as showing the kind of influences which Daniel in early life had to resist, the force of character which God's grace enabled him to exert, and the circumstances which gave occasion for its exercise. The wisdom, skill, and learning of Daniel was not all like that of Moses, acquired in the idolatrous court where he was brought up. At the feet of Jewish doctors, it would appear, he had already become a proficient in that kind of literature and science which the wise men of Babylon could appreciate and respect. His natural ability and superior acquirements at once marked him out for distinction and promotion, and the king Nebuchadnezzar, who had already diverted the sacred vessels of the Temple at Jerusalem to the service of his idol

* Ps. cxxxi. 2.

gods, desired to avail himself of the talents, endowments, and aptitude for business which discovered themselves in Daniel and his companions.

But in order to this they must be completely recast into the mould of the religious system of the court; must accommodate themselves to its customs and usages; wear the marks and badges of its idolatry. For in Babylon, government and law and religion were all blent and commingled; the monarch was the high priest of the nation. In every ceremony of national significance he assisted, clad in the robes and decorations of the priesthood. In the banqueting hall, at the council board, or on the march which spread terror and desolation through vanquished nations, he appeared as the vicegerent of Deity; not less honoured and worshipped as a god incarnate, than regarded with terror as a monarch of autocratic sway. And then looked down from their pedestals monstrous and colossal images, eagles, and bulls, and warder lions; and probably as in Nineveh, so in Babylon, music, and painting, and sculpture, and festive pomp, and imposing processions of warriors, with captives and trophies and spoils of war, and temples richly adorned, massive monuments of architectural skill, setting forth in curious symbols the astronomical learning of the Chaldeans; these, and a thousand other institutions of royal and priestly domination, bore down with an ascendancy hard to resist on the awe-stricken spirit of the beholder, and held it spell-bound with a fascination, a witchery which the rites of heathenism are so craftily designed to exercise. And nowhere, perhaps, has idolatry been throned in more gorgeous shrines, nowhere has its magic influence been more calculated to impress,