SECULAR CONTEST BETWEEN CONSCIENCE AND POWER. 125 



I. 



It may, therefore, seem at first sight a little strange that I 

 can take, as the first of my seven scenes, in which conscience and 

 power are opposed, an incident which is recorded in the Book of 

 Daniel ; but we must remember that this occurred after the Jewish 

 people had, according to the prophet Jeremiah, been rejected on 

 account of their sins by the Divine Governor of the world in 

 favour of the great Gentile monarch Nebuchadnezzar. 



I make no apology for treating the Book of Daniel as authentic 

 history, in spite of the so-called Higher Critics. I am glad to be 

 able to refer to two papers lately read from this desk by men 

 specially competent to deal with the subject and endorsed in this 

 room by other true experts. These papers have shown us, first, 

 that there is nothing in the language of the Book inconsistent 

 with its having been actually written by Daniel, and, secondly, 

 that its references to contemporary history are borne out by the 

 most recent archaeological research. 



I might perhaps be allowed to refer to Dr. Pusey's point that the 

 order " Medes and Persians," m which these two great amal- 

 gamated nations are mentioned in Daniel vi. 8, 12, 15 and viii. 20, 

 in contrast with the order " Persians and Medes " in the later 

 written Book of Esther (Chapter i. 3, 18, 19), proves that Daniel 

 must have been composed while the amalgamation was yet recent 

 and the Persians' power had not become plainly predominant. It 

 is inconceivable if the writer lived after the downfall of that empire, 

 as the higher critics allege, he could have put the two names in an 

 order which had passed out of use in the early days of the monarchy 

 and made most of the people which had long ago lost its separate 

 entity in the Persian nation. 



The relation of miracles in the Book cannot form a difficulty 

 for those who believe in the bodily resurrection of our Lord Jesus 

 Christ, and we have His testimony to the fact that Daniel was 

 the writer of the Book. 



The incident I bring before you concerns those three Hebrew 

 youths who refused to bow before the image erected by 

 Nebuchadnezzar in the Plain of Dura, and if we consider their 

 situation, I think we shall see that there is not to be found in 

 all history a finer example of suffering for conscience sake. 



Although of the seed royal of Judah, they had, in accordance 

 with Isaiah's prophecy to their forefather Hezekiah, been made 

 eunuchs in the court of the king of Babylon, whose power over 

 them was absolute. They had witnessed the subjugation of their 

 riative conntry, and their own enslavement had been sealed in a 



