No. II.

FAITH-DANIEL.

"WHAT is Faith ?” said a minister to a poor old Scotch woman, who had the term very often in her mouth. She replied, "I canna but think, sir, it's just taking God at his word." This was a beautiful definition, and a practical and a happy view of the subject. Men perplex their minds and embarrass their actions, by labouring after mysterious, unfathomable meanings, where a child, in the simplicity of its honest credulity, would arrive at once to a more perfect understanding of the matter in hand. True, God's ways are indeed mysterious, his thoughts unfathomable; but the revelation of his saving truth is like the sun of an unclouded sky. The philosopher may strain his eyes through a telescope, and gain, comparatively, some more minute information by his toil; but the poor penitent who lifts

his brow to receive the pure, bright ray, enjoys every whit as much of the orb, and probably employs it better, as he uses its light to pursue his humble but important avocations. A population of astronomers would be likely to let our fields lie fallow rather too long.

The scriptural view, as I conceive it to be, of faith, has been vigorously and poetically expressed by some one in this stanza

"Victorious faith the promise sees,

And looks to God alone;

Laughs at impossibilities,

And says, it shall be done."

"How I love those royal words, 'I WILL,' and 'YOU SHALL,'" said dear old John Newton. We should all love them, and build upon them, and glory in our believing work, if we studied more attentively the examples given us in the Bible, of holy men reducing to practice the truths which they taught. Paul has enumerated a noble company; but there is one among those whom time would have failed him to tell of, the splendour of whose course is surpassed by none; and the whole of whose character and conduct may be summed up in

that short but expressive phrase, "taking God at his word."

This was Daniel. He found himself, yet in very early life, a captive prince among the fierce, proud conquerors of Judea; selected, with some of his brethren, for great personal beauty and mental endowments, that they might grace the king's presence-chamber, and committed to one of the chief officers for three years' especial cherishing and training in all the arts and accomplishments of that luxurious court: their daily portion was assigned from the king's own viands. But these delicacies were ceremonially unclean to the Jews, and Daniel would not defile himself. Now it was a nice question how far he might be bound to obey one who was his sovereign by conquest, and therefore by divine permission; and, moreover, how far the demolition of the temple, the captivity of the priesthood, the loss of the ark, and pollution of the sacred vessels, might be held as a virtual dissolution of the Jewish polity. Here, not only might a committee of inquiry have sat from day to day, but many curious treatises might have been written upon the subject. Daniel, how

ever, chose the short cut; he took God at his word, and remembering that "man doth not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God doth man live," he had the singular boldness to pledge himself to the unbelieving chief, that he and his brethren would grow fat, literally fat, and well-liking in flesh, upon that word. It does not appear that at the time he had received any special revelation: he was simply an honest believer in the plain meaning of those plain words in which God had taught his fathers. He therefore laughed at impossibilities, and because God had asserted it, his heart unhesitatingly responded, his lips unfalteringly proclaimed, "It shall be done." And done it was.

Next came the dream of that noble tyrant Nebuchadnezzar: the Chaldean soothsayers failed of interpreting it, and the decree went forth which would probably have included Daniel and his fellows in the slaughter of the wise men. What should he do, on the startling intelligence reaching him? He first took God at his word, and made a promise on the strength of the Lord's promises: then he went

to his brethren, and asked in mutual prayer for that which he was already sure of. Some would call this putting the cart before the horse, but it was not so. "I believed, therefore have I spoken." It is pure, genuine faith, that openly says, "I will do this thing;" and then asks the Lord to enable us to do itof course I mean in a matter unquestionably right. It was right to avert a barbarous massacre; and to save themselves, too, by glorifying God in the midst of his enemies. And so it fell out. It is hard to pass over the exquisitely beautiful narrative of how it fell out. Holy Scripture contains nothing more splendid than that second chapter of Daniel.

Again, he stands in view alone in the midst of that wild, impious revel, that crowned Belshazzar's crimes. The vessels of the temple sparkling before him, brimmed with intoxicating drink, grasped in the unclean hands of murderers, courtesans, idolators-everything indicating the reckless ferocity of those in whose power he stood, as a lone dove surrounded by vultures. Deliverance was near; but it would come through the heart's blood of the ruffians before him, and the crackling