"Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy." It is the poor man's privilege; the Sabbath is emphatically the poor man's day; and nothing is to me more beautiful than this thought, that there is a day that comes round among the days of the week, in which the poorest man and the richest man may meet in the sanctuary, and say, "We are peers; though equally sinners by nature, we are equally saints by grace;" and in this world, where men have divided so much and monopolized so much, there is still a place where the rich and the poor, the mightiest noble and the meanest peasant, can meet together and feel that "the Lord is the maker of them all." I advocate the maintenance of the Sabbath on these low grounds; but I advocate it also on higher grounds than these, but which I need not now repeat. I say again, therefore, my dear friends, never give up your Sabbaths. Labour, as many young men do labour, to gain more time on your week-day evenings for the cultivation of your minds, and for the study of all that can adorn, and beautify, and perfect them, as Christians and heirs of immortality; but never, never surrender this greatest of privileges the Sabbath.

And lastly, I would say, in your homes "seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all other things shall be added unto you." Wherever there is a fireside, let there be an altar; seek the blessing of God in your homes, and depend upon it that blessing will not be withheld from you. One reason why there are so many sad homes is just this, that there are so many homes in which there are no altars. One reason why there are so many undutiful children is, that no blessing has been asked by the parents on behalf of the children. Seek, therefore, in your homes, "first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all other things will be added unto you."

In short, Daniel found, what every true Christian has found, that Christian principle is the highest expediency.

55

LECTURE V.

BABYLON, THE GOLDEN HEAD.

"Thou, O king, art a king of kings: for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory. And wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the heaven hath he given into thine hand, and hath made thee ruler over them all. Thou art this head of gold."-Daniel ii. 37, 38.

THIS chapter records a prophecy revealed to Nebuchadnezzar, and through him, as the mere organ of utterance, to us, of what shall be the succession of the kingdoms of the world till the day when the great stone, the rock that is laid in Zion, shall grind them to powder, and there shall rise and flourish on their ruins the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign for ever and ever. This great image is meant to be a standing symbol, representative, as Daniel explains it, of four successions. of supreme and sovereign kingdoms, beginning in the days of Nebuchadnezzar. History shows that there have been just four universal kingdoms in the world, and only four; those very four which were clearly foreshadowed to the king, and explained by Daniel as the interpretation of the dream. The first supreme kingdom without a rival, was the kingdom of Babylon, or symbolically the Head of Gold; the second kingdom was the MedoPersian, which I shall hereafter more fully explain. The third kingdom was the Macedonian, which every one knows to have been for a season universal. The fourth kingdom was divided into ten kingdoms, as the two feet of the image were divided into ten toes. These ten kingdoms, which I shall also show to have actually existed, and the prediction thus to have been fulfilled, have tried to mingle, one or other having set up to absorb the rest and be supreme, and all, in every instance, have failed. Since the Roman empire was divided into ten kingdoms, Charlemagne has swept the world, and retired unsuccessful from the effort to make

a universal sovereignty. After him, and others who might be named, Napoleon visited every land, and subjected almost every country in Europe: but just as it seemed to be within his reach to lord it over all the world, and to construct out of the ten kingdoms a new and universal sovereignty, the snow fell softly and beautifully from heaven, as the light upon an infant's eye; but those same insignificant snow-flakes formed themselves into ramparts that checked his troops, and ultimately made shrouds and graves for all his chivalry. So that we have already, in the history of the past, clear evidence that what Daniel here describes as a dream, and gives the interpretation of, was a prophecy of that which has actually occurred, so that history in its chapters sounds the echo of truth in the prophecies of God.

In looking at the introduction to this vision, and the failure of the magi to explain it, you will notice the unreasonable requirement of the king. He substantially said, "I shall not be satisfied by you astrologers giving me an interpretation of my dream; you must state what the dream itself was, and I shall thereby have proof-for it seemed as if he were a skeptic even in his own religion-I shall have proof by your thus telling me the nature of my dream, that you have a divine authority adequate to expound and unfold the substance of that dream." The magicians and astrologers made every excuse and apology: first, that the thing was uncommon; and secondly, that no king or dreamer had ever made such a requirement before, and that no wise man, or magician, or astrologer, had even explained such a thing before. At this, the king became furious, and, like all men who have great power as well as ungovernable passions, he orders them to be slain. That king is but a specimen of what unsanctified man becomes when he has too great power. It is well that man in this world should not have absolute power. It is too awful a prerogative for him to possess in this dispensation; it never has been wielded rightly, and it never will be until man is made a new creature, and all things are become new. At present we need restraint, modifications, and limitations-constitutional laws that counterbalance the excessive weight of democracy on the one hand, and check the effects of despotism in its fury on the other, so that the machinery of government may best answer its ends.

Daniel, hearing of the king's decree, went into the royal presence and begged for a little time. And why did Daniel ask time? the answer is given in the subsequent verse: he asked time in order that he might go and speak to God, and implore on bended knee his help, instruction, and guidance. And accordingly, we find him, after making his request to Arioch, "making the thing known to his companions, that they would desire mercies of the God of heaven concerning this secret; that Daniel and his fellows should not perish with the rest of the wise men of Babylon." If we are in difficulty, the right resource is prayer. There is no

question that God does answer prayer. He may not answer it in the precise way which we in our ignorance prescribe, but he will answer it in the way that is most for his glory and our good. Whatever be the nature of our trial, we are warranted in approaching God, and beseeching him to remove it; whatever be the thorn that is most poignant, we are warranted in asking God to extract it. It is no just objection to this, to say, we may be asking what is not good for us; it is not our province to determine this, but God's. It is our part to unbosom the wants of our hearts, and offer up the honest petitions of our souls, and to rest confident in this, that God will not give what would prove our present or our eternal ruin.

When Daniel had prayed to God and had received an answer to his prayers, what did he next do? He instantly returned to thank God. The man who prays sincerely in the morning will praise as sincerely at night. "Is any man afflicted? let him pray. Is any merry? let him sing psalms." It is wrong to be Christians when we are in want of any thing, and to be atheists when we have obtained it. Let us ask as Christians, and praise as Christians. Let us appeal to God for what we want; and then let us give the glory to God when we have obtained what we asked.

Daniel then goes to the king, and announces to him this great fact, that "there is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets." And with beautiful humility he adds, "It is not because of the wisdom that is in me, that I am able to make known this secret, but it is for the glory of Him who has taught me, and who is willing to do good to thee."

He next proceeds to explain to the king what he had seen in

his vision—an image which is here described. He then explains what that image represented. In this lecture I shall only be able to call your attention to "the head of gold." The text, therefore, on which I shall specially speak in this Lecture is, (verses 37, 38,) "Thou, O king, art a king of kings: for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory. And wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the heaven hath he given into thine hand, and hath made thee ruler over them all. Thou art this head of gold;" plainly meaning, "thy kingdom or thy state is so."

The church of God was now captive in Babylon. How deeply distressed was the whole of Israel at this era! The glory had departed from between the cherubim; the sons and the daughters of Judah were captives beside the Euphrates; the sacred vessels of the sanctuary were now the property of the spoiler. Their grand temple was in ruins; and "Ichabod, Ichabod," "The glory is departed," was the sad inscription too legible to the heart of every captive in Babylon. But in this state of outward depression you will notice how God compensated for all external disadvantages by special manifestations of his wisdom and his power. He showed them that he was not dependent upon outward things; that when all ordinances have passed away, the Lord of the ordinance can take their place, and more than compensate for their absence. Is it not still often felt in the experience of the people of God, that when the outward fabric is dissolved, the inward glory, that seemed restricted to its walls, only breaks forth with greater splendour, and spreads throughout the world with greater speed? Was it not to the church in the wilderness; to the two witnesses prophesying in sackcloth; to the woman who was obliged to flee from the persecuting power of the Roman apostasy, that God revealed most clearly the riches of his grace, and made known with the greatest power the manifestations of his mind and will? Often, when the visible church is in ruins, does God construct upon its wreck a yet more glorious fane—a house not made with hands-more beautiful than the temples of Balbec, than the cathedrals of Europe, more splendid than the theatres of Ionia, more magnificent than the temple of Solomon in all its glory. It is often when the church has no mitre on her head, no Urim and