“Long live the Emperor." One glimpse of him filled them with the wildest enthusiasm. When they talked about him their eyes would light up with excitement. No man dared speak disrespectfully of him in the presence of one of them. When he sent them to take a point they threw themselves upon it like an avalanche. To call forth their mightiest efforts he had but to say, "I will be looking at you."

Oh, if our hearts glowed with a similar feeling for Christ, our Great Captain; if enthusiasm for him blazed like fire through the Christian host, his army would be invincible and their victories would thrill the world.

DANIEL IN BABYLON, OR POLITICS AND

RELIGION.

BY REV. JOHN GRAY, D. D.,'

*

Pastor First Presbyterian Church, Kalamazoo.

Text: "Then said these men, we shall not find any occasion against this Daniel, except we find it against him concerning the law of his God." Dan. 6:5.

Daniel in Babylon furnishes one of the most interesting and inspiring pages in all history. Exalted in rank, perhaps of royal birth, he was when fifteen years of age carried into captivity. Thus the cheering prospect of a noble and honored place among his own people. was suddenly changed to one of servitude in a foreign land. His brave young heart, however, was not broken by disappointment. The fires of hope, which burned so brightly upon its altar, were not easily extinguished. Chaldea, with its splendid worships of gods many and lords many, had not removed from him faith in the God of his fathers. He knew that the God of the Hebrews was as nigh to him upon the plains of Shinar as upon the banks of the Jordan, and that a captive in

* John Gray was born at Toronto, Can., Feb. 6, 1844. Took the course in the Collegiate Institute, University College, and Knox Theological Hall, graduating 1870. Was pastor of St. Andrew's Church, Windsor, Can., 1870-1893, and of First Presbyterian Church, Kalamazoo, Mich., since 1893. Received the degree of D. D. from Alma College, 1893.

Babylon was as precious, in his sight, as a prince in Jerusalem.

As he had not been crushed by humiliation he was not disturbed by sudden exaltation. The banqueting chamber of the King of Babylon could not destroy within him the well grounded principles of his early Hebrew home. Interwoven into the very warp and woof of life, they gave him courage to refuse even from the royal board meat and drink, which had been consecrated to the praise of heathen deities. Nor was he prompted by weak prejudice, as the advanced phases of religious liberalism would account it. He was animated by an intelligent conviction of truth and duty. Not pledged to the spirit of the age, he did not accept, unchallenged, the popular teaching, "When you live in Babylon you must observe the manners, customs and religion of her people." Moreover, the most scrupulous devotion to the God of the Hebrews did not unfit him for the services of the Chaldean court. An advanced secularism would have us believe that a regard for the world beyond makes us too tolerant of the evils that belong to this.

The atheistic, infidel doctrine has found a too ready acceptance, on the part of many, that politics and religion must dwell apart, and that we must not be overcareful in morals if we are to be intimately associated with public affairs. Could we, anywhere, obtain a more complete denial of such an assumption? Here is a man, with all the vast and varied interests of the most extended empire in the world resting upon him, and maintaining, at the same time, unswerving devotion to his personal convictions. When unrighteous plotters,

anxious to substitute their meaner service for his high discharge of royal decree, sought to dishonor him before the king, they were not "able to find any occasion