ABOUT forty miles from Iconium lies Lystra, in the

wild and dreary plain of Lycaonia. Lycaonia means the Land of Wolves, and we can picture the desolate region by the name. I think that when Paul crossed the marches of that wolf-land he would remember the saying of his Master, 'Behold I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves, be ye therefore wise as serpents and harmless as doves' (Matt. x. 16). To Lystra, then, Paul and Barnabas fled, and there they preached. And at Lystra, by the power of Jesus, Paul healed the cripple. You could tell that the writer (Luke) had been a doctor by the fond minuteness with which he describes the disease. Most writers would just have said that the man was lame. But the physician made a much fuller diagnosis. The man was impotent in both his feet; he had been so from birth; he had never walked. Do you see how all the training we have had can be used in the long run towards glorifying God? Luke never thought of that when he was studying medicine; but the miracle is doubly vivid just because he studied. So every interest we ever had, and every pursuit we were ever zealous over, and every hobby that once fascinated us, no matter how childish or slight it may have been-all these, when we are Christ's, shall prove of service. It is the vessel full of water that becomes wine.

Now

OW there was a legend very well known in Lystra, for the scene of it was that very region-it was the legend of Baucis and Philemon. The Lystran children used to gather around their mothers, and beg for the story of Baucis and Philemon. Baucis and Philemon were two humble cottagers to whom Jupiter and Mercury had come disguised. The gods had knocked in vain at every other door, but these two lowly souls gave them a welcome. It is a sweet story, exquisitely told by Ovid; it was devoutly believed in in the homes of Lystra. Many a mother would call her son Philemon, with the

prayer that Jupiter might come again. Who, then, were these two strangers in the town who had healed the lame man in such a marvellous way? Was not one of them august and kingly, and the other all life and activity and eloquence? It ran like wildfire through the marketplace that here were Jupiter and Mercury returned. Paul did not understand what all the stir was. The excited people fell back on their own dialect. He felt as helpless as a Londoner would feel in the middle of a crowd all speaking Gaelic. But when a solemn procession halted before his lodging, and he saw the oxen with garlands on their heads, it flashed on him in a moment what was happening, and he and Barnabas sprang out to stop the blasphemy. Had it been Jews whom Paul was called to speak to, you would have had plenty of texts from the Old Testament. Had the crowd been an Athenian crowd, there would have been swift appeals to history and art. It shows the infinite tact of the apostle that with these rude folk he argued from the rain (v. 17). It was a sore disappointment to excited Lystra; the current of feeling very swiftly changed. We are not surprised a few days later to find Paul stoned and left for dead.

NOW note, first, the keen eyesight of a saint (v. 9).

Paul saw in a twinkling that the cripple had faith. There was something in the face of this poor sufferer that told the apostle that true faith was there. Our Saviour was always on the outlook for faith, and Paul had caught this secret from the Master. There is nothing like love and fellowship with Christ for revealing the best points in a poor beggar's face. Next note, there is a meaning even in a rain-drop (v. 17), it had often spoken to Paul of the Creator. And, lastly, mark (we cannot learn it too young) that to-day's sacrifice may be to-morrow's stoning. One day, with Jesus, it was 'Hosanna'; a little afterwards, 'Crucify Him, Crucify Him.' And one day, with Paul, it was, 'He is a god'; a little afterwards, 'Stone

him and cast him out.' Now I want no one to become cynical. The world is a kindly and happy and pleasant place. We are amazed, as we struggle on through manhood, at the loyalty and love that ring us round. All that I want my readers to do is to set their affections on things which are above; not to rate very highly human praise; not to be greatly depressed by human censure. Had Paul been desperately anxious to please Lystra, I fancy that that stoning would have killed him.

FORTY-EIGHTH SUNDAY

Morning

DANIEL AND HIS COMPANIONS

Passage to be read: Dan. i. 1.21.

HE childhood of Daniel, like the childhood of a

ΤΗ

greater than Daniel, is not dwelt upon in Scrip

ture. It is when the peaceful monotony of home is exchanged for the sharp conflicts of the world that we first make acquaintance with the prophet. In verse four Daniel is referred to as a child. That is our only hint as to his age. But even that conveys no very definite information, for the word child is broadly used in the Old Testament. We know that when Joseph (whom Daniel so much resembles) was over seventeen years of age, he was still a child (Gen. xlii. 22). Daniel, then, may have been a lad of a like age when the calamity came that was to be his glory. He would thus have been born in the days of good king Josiah, perhaps in the very year of Josiah's reformation. He would grow up breathing the new air, and learning the new reverence for the Word. He would be taught from his earliest days to hate idolatry. He would have Jeremiah as one of his boyish heroes. In such ways Daniel would be prepared for the sore testings of his after years; in the quiet periods of a godly childhood, he was getting ready for the fires of Babylon. In the long and unrecorded days at Nazareth, Jesus was preparing for His ministry. Through quiet communion with nature and with God, His childhood was making ready for the cross.

So Daniel, taught in the reformation doctrines, and fired from his childhood with the new zeal for God, was being strengthened (although he knew it not) for the reproach of Christ that was hidden in the future.

WHEN Daniel, then, was some seventeen years of

age, news reached Jerusalem which profoundly moved the city. The king of Babylon was marching westward, bent on extending his empire by the sword. At Carchemish a great battle was fought with Egypt. The forces of Egypt were utterly defeated. There is a glowing song of triumph in Jeremiah at the downfall of the oppressor Egypt (Jer. xlvi.). Then Nebuchadnezzar marched on Jerusalem. The city was besieged and captured. And when the caravans rolled back to Babylon, heavy with the spoil of the campaign, they carried, at the king of Babylon's command, some of the cleverest and brightest youths of Judah. Among these were Daniel and his three companions. We can picture what breaking hearts they had when they were torn from everything they loved. But I would ask the boys to notice this particularly, that Daniel and his comrades were youths of exceptional gifts; and that if it had not been for the unusual promise they showed, they would never have been chosen for Babylon at all. It is the clever boy who should 'Dare to be a Daniel.' It is the boy who is generally dux, and who carries off the prizes and the medals. We sometimes imagine that if a boy is brilliant, we must not expect him to be very good; but Daniel was both, and what he was, you may be.

BUT Daniel was not doomed to a mean slavery. The king of Babylon had worthier plans for him. He purposed to make Daniel a courtier, in the best sense of that mismanaged word. So for three years Daniel was to be taught, in the schools for which Babylon was