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things. He was in the very heart of the world, and could not escape from it; yet he was not of it. As far as his heart was on earth, it was with his own people of God's chosen nation, and "towards Jerusalem," from which he was banished-" towards Jerusalem," because that was "the city of the great King," the promised Messiah; and because, though it was then left desolate, he knew that God would restore it as his chosen city, to be the place of the chief manifestation of his glory, and the joy of the whole earth. But chiefly his heart was in heaven with God; and, while "sitting by the waters of Babylon, and remembering Zion," he could say of Jerusalem, "If I forget thee, let my right hand forget her cunning: if I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy." He could say also, with the psalmist, "Whom have I in heaven, O Lord, but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee." Not only life, to which the poor and wretched cleave, but life with all its highest honours, wealth, and grandeur, he was ready and willing to lay down whenever God pleased: he could lay it down cheerfully and gladly, rather than commit a sin against his heavenly King to please his earthly king; so truly did he use this present world as not abusing it; so fully did he see and feel that "all that is of the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world; and that the world passeth away and the lust thereof, but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever."

Now, if we ask how it was that Daniel became so eminent among the faithful servants of God, we must first answer, because it pleased God that he should; because upon Daniel God had set his especial favour and love, choosing him even above others of his chosen ones, training him up for his service by special providence and care (see chap. i. 9), and imparting to him abounding measures of grace. This was according to the "good pleasure" of God's will; that same "good pleasure", by which in every age he sets apart some from among others, to be his own, and to these imparts different measures of his grace, making a few more eminently holy, and faithful, and useful than the rest. But, subject to this, the text shews us one great reason and means by which Daniel was what he was. He was eminently a man of prayer: he prayed without ceasing to God. With this constant habit he allowed nothing to interfere: neither business, nor pleasure, nor danger could turn him from the

throne of grace. And he, who three times a day retires, as Daniel did, to be present and alone with God in prayer, and who at those times is enabled to worship God, as Daniel was, in spirit and in truth, cannot be far from God; nor will God be far from him during any part of the day. These stated constant prayers maintained the unceasing spirit of prayer in Daniel's soul; and in the spirit of prayer he moved in his appointed path, he transacted business, he discharged his daily duties, he served the king, and walked with God. Such prayer without ceasing was the great means and secret of his spiritual strength-of his "innocency," his consistency, his resolution, his courage, his resistance to the temptations he was surrounded with, his readiness to die for the sake of God. Thus the precious oil which fed the holy flame was kept ever flowing from above into his heart. If he had been remiss in prayer, soon would his heart have been overcharged and clogged with the cares of this life, and he would have fallen into some "evil which the craft and subtilty of the devil or man worked against him." Daniel knew this; he knew the need and the comfort of prayer, and he experienced its blessed and effectual fruits.

What a rebuke is the example of Daniel to those who say they have not time for religion-not time for private prayers, and for the house of God, and for reading and searching the scriptures! There are few who can have so much business to transact as Daniel had in his high and responsible office of state. Yet he had time for this, because he would have time, would find time, and make time for it, and accounted it the most needful, important, and happy business of his days. O, it is hard to find time for that which we dislike; but it is easy to find time for that which above all things we love.

Now, brethren, I leave you to contemplate the character of Daniel as a pattern. May the God of Daniel bless your contemplation. Remember that there must be a likeness of heart, and character, and experience, and conduct, between you and that servant of God, if you are to be numbered with God's saints in glory everlasting-if the "lot" in which you "shall stand at the end of days" is to be like his. There is a resemblance in main points between all who are of the family of God, a spiritual family-likeness, under all the differences of ages and dispensations, under all the varieties of natural character and endowments, and all the manifold degrees of spiritual attainment. All are partakers of the same grace, though not all in the same measure and in the like circumstances. There are diversities of gifts both

of nature and of grace, and diversities of land in which it is found. * "Ye," said spiritual development and growth, of light, Christ to his people, the little "holy seed" that and knowledge, and experience, and faith, was gathered round him upon the mount, "ye and love, and obedience, among those on are the salt of the earth:""ye are the light of the world." From them the savour of God's grace, earth who are made meet for the inheritance the savour of his blessed truth unto salvation, of saints in light; but in many features they was to diffuse itself and to spread, even as the are all alike, moulded by the hand of God leaven hid in the measures of meal, that worketh into one image; and in those same respects till the whole lump is leavened. After all, it is they are all unlike to the children of this not so much the logic of the lip as the logic of the world-to those of them who have, as well life, the eloquence of the tongue as the eloquence as to those of them who have not, a form of as the force of a godly, practical conduct and conof the example, the force of mere human reasoning godliness. A new heart and a right spirit; versation, telling and testifying silently and a love of prayer, which nothing can extin- quietly, wherever the believer is, however the beguish; the love of God; the love of Christ; liever is engaged, whatever the believer is doing; a hatred of sin, deepened by an humbling it is this that God employs, for the enlargement sense of their own sinfulness; a hungering of his kingdom and for the diffusion of the and thirsting after righteousness; a willing- abstract from any land called Christian the meablessed savour of his grace; so that, could you ness to suffer any affliction rather than sure of vital godliness that lingers within it; commit sin; a separation of heart and cha- could you (as an illustration) withdraw from our racter from the world; a manifested devoted-own beloved country every experimental and ness to God, with perseverance and con- genuine child of God within her borders; could sistency in his service; a boldness in the you take from our churches and our various asprofession of their faith, as circumstances semblies for public worship all those ministers may require, but in the spirit of meekness who believe what they preach, and practise what towards God; a 66 love of the truth," and of they believe, whose lives are a commentary holiness and obedience, far above that which "preach Christ crucified" when they stand up as on what they proclaim with their lips, who they set upon any temporal advantages-ambassadors in his name; could you take from all wealth, honours, pleasure, ease, learning, the multitudes of nurseries of our church, our reputation, friendship, and life-these, which sabbath-seminaries, our God-fearing teachers; were eminently seen in Daniel, "the man greatly beloved," are features to be traced and recognized with more or less distinctness in the characters of all who are saved by grace, and sanctified by the Holy Spirit of God. May these things be in us, and abound, so that we be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour, and that we may by our lives, more plainly than by our lips, declare that we are followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

THE HOLY SEED THE SUBSTANCE OF A
NATION*.

"THE holy seed" is "the substance" of a na-
tion, because God regards all beside in a nation
but as dross and foliage-dross without gold,
foliage without fruit. Whatever there may
be of moral virtue, whatever there may be of
intellectual distinction, whatever there may be
that is admirable in the eyes of their fellow-men,
if "weighed in the balances of the sanctuary,'
they are found utterly wanting there is no so-
lidity, no "substance," no reality in them.
But God looks upon his people as "the sub-
stance," in contradistinction to the mere shell,
the mere foliage, the mere outward hollow
semblance of a land.

*

*

*

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could you take from among the ministers beloved country, the men (would that there were of state, and members of parliament of our more of them!), who dare to "preach Christ crucified" in their places in parliament, and to bear the scorn and the indignity which, alas! must lie on those "who are not ashamed of Jesus" where most are ashamed of him; could you take away from our exchanges and our marts of business all the godly and the faithful merchantmen and tradesmen, that do to others as they would be done by, and act under a constant sense of God's presence and the constraining influence of Christ's love in the whole of their transactions with their fellowmen; could you take away from our workshops and from our cottages, and from our streets and lanes and alleys, and from our scattered hamlets, and from our rural villages, all the lowly mechanics, all the humble cottagers, all the devout peasants, all the poor simple-minded but heaventaught widows, who know and love Jesus on earth, who are God's seed, who are, whether they know it or not, secretly and quietly spreading the influence and the odour of the name they love; could you, I say, abstract from the land in any one day all these, and leave the land without "the holy seed," what would be the result! How soon would the neglected corruption, with no salt to savour it, become abominable and loathsome! How soon would the outbursts of iniquity, checked no more by the sacred mound which God's people ought to rear, carry away everything in its desolating sweep! The world does not know it-it even denies it; .... but as God is true, and his word cannot be made void, "the holy seed" is "the substance" of a land: they are its savourers, and they are its preservers.

But "the holy sced" is still more "the substance" of a land, because for their sakes God spares a guilty land when otherwise his whole displeasure would be allowed to rise against it. His word gives us ample evidence of this truth. And you remember that, when "the father of the faithful" interceded with such godly importunity on behalf of the wicked and debauched cities of the plain, God was prevailed to say: "For fifty's sake, for forty's sake, for thirty's sake, for twenty's sake, yea, for ten's sake," could ten righteous be found in the doomed dwellings of abomination, he would spare the whole land. Yes, brethren and the prophet tells us in another part of his prophecy, that, before desolating judgments break forth upon a country, "the righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart; not considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come;" and, when the righteous are rapidly and signally removed from a country, therefore it is that they may be housed, even as the husbandman houses the golden grain before the winter storm sweeps the land. When the pillars are taken

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down, the whole fabric is tottering to its fall: the people of God are they that avert the lightning, when it is ready to strike: ... they are the rampart of fire round about the borders of a land, hindering the invader's fury, and arresting the sword of the spoiler. * Well might Elisha the prophet, as he saw his beloved father in God going up to heaven in a chariot of fire exclaim: .. My father, my father, the chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof!" And that poor despised man, clad in his lowly garb, and set at nought by the mighty of the world, did more to guard Israel from many foes, to keep her borders in peace and her children in prosperity, than all the chariots and the horsemen in which her monarchs trusted. The true "chariots and horsemen" of Israel were the "holy seed:" the true "wooden walls" and embattled ranks of England are God's "holy seed" yet found within her, ay, and of hapless Ireland too. Long since would God have left her for the beast to devour her utterly, had it not been that for the sake of the many faithful found in her he has kept in check the ravening lion, when it sought to devour her.

But there is yet a further reason (and it is the strongest of all) why "the holy seed" is "the substance" of a nation-because the holy seed" are the spiritual warders of a nation, who watch with prayer, and stand in the breach, and implore God that he should not destroy it. Need we remind you, brethren, that, when Israel had so sinned that God came down in his heavy displeasure to consume them in a moment, Moses pleaded, and pleaded with an enthusiasm that would take no denial, that God would not dishonour his own name by consuming his own heritage; and God used, too, language such as we almost tremble to repeat: "Let me alone, that I may destroy this people;" as though the arm of Omnipotence were held back by the breath of the prayer of faith; as though God could not smite while Moses pleaded? Yes, brethren, there is a kind of derived omnipotence in "the effectual fervent prayer" of faith, when the soul dares with confidence to say, "I will not let

thee go, except thou bless me." Need we remind you again, that it was not merely the ten righteous that might be found in the cities of the plain, which gained for them such long-suffering, but it was the prayer of the patriarch, who drew near to God, and importuned him as a man importunes his friend? And had not Abraham stopped at ten, who shall say that, if he had asked that the four righteous persons, or the three, Lot and his two daughters, it might not have sufficed, and that God would not have granted his prayer? Find me an instance of the prayer of faith, and, above all, the prayer of united faith, that failed of winning its reply. God hath pledged himself to answer, and therefore the answer is inevitable.

Poetry.

HYMN*.

BY THE REV. GEORGE PETTITT.

SING we to God in joyful strains
Our hymn of jubilee,

And tell to earth that Jesus reigns,

Who sets the captive free.

Proclaim his love, whose blood hath bought,
Whose pow'r releas'd, the slave;
Who with the hosts of darkness fought,
And triumph'd o'er the grave.

Sing we, who once in heathen night
And Satan's thraldom lay;

Nor freedom knew, nor hope, nor might,
Till dawn'd our gospel day.

Now, call'd to light and liberty,
The Lord's behest fulfil,
And shout the song of jubilee

To lands in darkness still.

The Lord, whose banner we unfurì'd,
Our feeble work doth bless;
And thousands, through th' awakening world,
His conquering pow'r confess.

From land to land the tidings tell
Till all mankind are free,
Till every voice in triumpli

The song of jubilee.

O Thou, to whom all power is given,
Soon be thy victory won:
Return and reign, till, as in heav'n,
On earth thy will be done.

* From "Church Missionary Society Jubilee Tracts."

London: Published for the Proprietors, by EDWARDS and HUGHES, 12, Ave-Maria Lane, St. Paul's; and to be procured, by order, of all Booksellers in Town and Country.

PRINTED BY JOSEPH ROGERSON,
24, NORFOLK-STREET, STRAND, LONDON.

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