thus gone down in ruins. During the past few years, from a little town in the Connecticut valley no less than three promising young men have been thus swallowed up in Boston's vortex of dissipation. They were the sons of Christian parents; they were educated in an atmosphere of moral purity. But alone in a great city the temptations were too much for them, and they fell. One died a wretched death amid the scenes of his riotous excesses; one, driven to desperation by sorrow and remorse, took with his own hand the life which God had given him; and the third, when his weakened body could bear the strain no longer, went back to his quiet New England home to die.

Perhaps I am speaking to some who know what it is to be tempted in this way. You are away from the home of your childhood and comparatively alone in this city. Many times you have doubtless said to yourselves when some temptation has presented itself, "Nobody will know if I yield." Somebody will know of it, my brother. God will know it, the angels will know it, and by and by when that yielding has led to another, and that to another, and its legitimate fruits of misery have come into your life, all the world will know about it. Be warned in time. Let the faithful spirit of Daniel possess your soul. Say nothing, do nothing, think nothing, in the isolation of your city life that would bring a shadow to the brow of your mother at home. Say nothing, do nothing, think nothing, that would mar the purity of your manhood, or dishonor the holy law of your God.

But, after all, what is the most conspicuous trait in the character of Daniel? You have looked upon a New England landscape of a summer afternoon, and the feature that most impressed you was not this bit of forest, or that high tableland; not the quiet village on the hillside nor the wide stretch of intervale; but the wonderful purple haze which lay between yourself and the setting sun, and which fell like

a semi-transparent robe of glory over forest, hill and meadow. And so as we look upon the character of Daniel we are impressed not so much by his gentleness, his manliness, his temperance, and his loyalty to principle, as by that wonderful spirit of devotion which falls like an atmosphere of glory around every grace of his character and every act of his life. His success in life was but the legitimate result of his unswerving devotion to God. He was especially beloved of God, because he loved God, and made it his meat and drink to do his will. It was this spirit that enabled him to preserve the integrity of his character through the many temptations which beset him.

It may seem very strange to you at first thought that this man Daniel, whose religious scruples seemed always to be interfering with the habits of the society in which he lived, should be such a universal favorite and advanced to such high honors. By the purity of his life he must have been a constant rebuke to the corrupt young princes of the court. His devotion to the God of his fathers was a constant disclaimer of the heathen practices which were engaged in by all the nobles of the land. And yet the very rulers whose immoralities and idolatry he condemned preferred him above the presidents and princes because an excellent spirit was in him. The world is shrewd enough to detect real worth, and wise enough to know the value of religious principle. Given two young men of equal ability, the one a Christian, the other an undevout man, and the former will stand a far better chance of securing a position of trust and responsibility than the latter. The business man knows that he who serves his God best will best serve his employer, and he gives such a man the preference as did Darius, because of the excellent spirit that is in him.

Then "seek ye first his kingdom, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you." But you must bear in mind that these things which are to be added

unto you are not to constitute the reason for your seeking the kingdom of God and his righteousness. The great object of life is not to be rich or famous, but to develop the purest and truest manhood out of these natures which God has given us; to be able to have it said of us as it was said of Daniel: "We shall not find any occasion against this Daniel, except we find it against him concerning the law of his God."

Charles A. Dickinson.

THE HEBREWS IN THE FIERY FURNACE

DANIEL 3:14-28

"Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us."

The Babylonian plain is the cradle of the race. The narrative of Genesis locates here the scene of the creation, and here historical research is continually uncovering new evidences of the oldest civilization. We are wont to think of Homer as standing at the fountain head of literature. But here were gathered libraries antedating Homer by as many years as those which separate the blind old bard from our day. Abraham seems to us to mark the very beginnings not only of Jewish but of all history. Yet at least three mighty empires had here arisen, bloomed and fallen into decay before the founder of Israel set forth from Ur of the Chaldees. And here remained for centuries afterward the center of the world's civilization and power. Throughout the long succession of dynasties and peoples one purpose appears to have remained fixed and unaltered. From Sargon the First down to Cyrus, whether the controlling dynasty was Babylonian or Elamitic or Assyrian or Chaldean or Persian, each strove to extend its sway to the Mediterranean and to achieve a dominion stretching "from sea to sea, and from the River unto the ends of the earth." Equally persistent was the desire to perpetuate the monarch's fame. Each victorious ruler left some permanent memorial of his successes. Some set up pillars marking the new boundaries established by their conquests and inscribed with the record of their achievements. Others

built temples to their gods and wrote their own glory on the walls. And others still committed their fame to the cylinder rolls of imperishable clay which formed their libraries, and we now dig out from the rubbish of centuries the story of their campaigns and reconstruct the history of the forgotten past.

The colossal image described in the passage before us was apparently designed thus to preserve the fame of Nebuchadrezzar. We are not told why he erected it. But it is natural to conjecture that in accordance with established custom he selected this method of celebrating the glory of his reign. It was his ambition to surpass his predecessors in the magnificence of his memorial. He would make his name honored for generations. And so the great image, covered with gold, towered above the plain, stretching aloft, with its pedestal, a hundred feet into the air. Its dimensions were about those of the Colossus of Rhodes, and its height about two-thirds that of our own statue of Liberty. Its features may have been made in the likeness of Nebuchadrezzar and so have been intended to present the king himself as an object of worship. Later Persian monarchs were sometimes deified during their lifetime, and the worship of the Roman emperor was the common test of loyalty in the early days of Christianity. For refusing to sacrifice before the emperor's image, Polycarp and thousands of others were martyred. Even the mild and philosophic Pliny writes that the Christians, otherwise blameless, were justly slain for their obstinacy in refusing this adoration. Or it may be that the image was merely a symbol of the might of the empire, the embodiment of its pride and power, and that worship before it was therefore made the test of allegiance. The occasion manifestly had political significance, since all the officers of the empire were assembled. Nebuchadrezzar's sway extended over the known world. "Wheresoever the children of men dwell,