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FORTY-NINTH SUNDAY

Morning

NEBUCHADNEZZAR'S DREAM

Passages to be read: Dan. ii. 1-9; 19-23; 46-49.

HE training of Daniel was nearly completed, when an event occurred which altered all his fortunes. One night, and a forgotten dream during that night, were to change everything for the young exile. Nebuchadnezzar dreamed a dream that troubled him. He started up, awake; but the dream was gone. There only remained with him (as it has often been with us) the haunting sense of something vaguely terrible, the oppressive feeling that in some shadowy guise, figures of calamity and doom had stolen upon him. Now we know how, sometimes, when we forget a name, we are worried and irritated till we remember it. That irritation, deepening into anxiety, possessed Nebuchadnezzar over his forgotten dream. He summoned all the ranks of his advisers. It was their study and their passion to interpret dreams. They had schools where little else was taught than that; they had learned treatises dealing with the subject; they had studied the heavens with a noble ardour to discover their bearing upon human destinies. But now they were utterly at fault. They had to tell the dream as well as the meaning of it. They protested that such a task as that had never been laid on any man before. But Nebuchadnezzar would brook no excuses. There was a kingly imperiousness about the man. Either they must tell the dream, and be

rewarded; or confess failure, and be cut to pieces. I think there were more men than Nebuchadnezzar very anxious, as a result of that forgotten dream.

MEANTIME nobody (except God) ever thought of

Daniel. If all the professors in the colleges had failed, were things to be righted by this student from the colonies? Daniel might never have heard of the matter at all, if his head had not been imperilled by that failure. It shows the splendid faith of this young alien that he should have trusted God in such an hour. When all the learning of Babylon had failed, and when moon and stars were powerless to answer, Daniel held fast to a prayer-answering God. Credo quia impossibile—I believe because it is impossible-said one of the stout old Fathers of the Church; and the faith of Daniel flamed into noontide glory when all his masters pronounced the thing impossible. Did Daniel go apart and pray alone? Not so; he sent his brother-exiles to their knees. He had been taught (by the angel of the Covenant) that if two of them should agree, it would be done. Then out of the darkness of the night there gleamed on Daniel the vision that had terrified the king. God breathed upon the mist as Daniel slept, and the mist parted, and the dream was there. A weakling would have been full of wild excitement. He would have roused his comrades, and rushed to the royal bed-chamber. But Daniel had the quiet stability that faith gives; he poured out his heart in gratitude to heaven. The dream was the right one. He had solved the secret. The lad had triumphed where Babylon had failed. And how he was rewarded for his faith, and how his comrades shared in the reward, is told in the closing verses of the chapter.

NOW

OW observe, first, how human wisdom fails when it is most needed. We are not to think lightly of that Chaldean wisdom. There was something noble in its

great persistence. A patient and exact and laborious student, who toils among books or stars with infinite relish, is one of the noblest creatures in the world, whether he be a Hittite or a Highlander. Nebuchadnezzar owed much to these Chaldean sages; and the world owes not a little of her progress to them. But in the hour of greatest need that wisdom failed, and in that hour help came from trust in God. Sooner or later such seasons come to all. We are brought to the helplessness of these Chaldeans. We think that all we have learned will read the riddle, and all we have learned vanishes like a dream. It is in such hours that one strong cry to God does more for a man than all his college learning. Trust will discover the secret that gives life, when all the training of the schools is impotent. Daniel was a most admirable scholar, yet in the crisis he needed more than that.

NEX

EXT note how grateful a God-fearing heart is. The centre and crown of our passages for to-day is the prayer of thanksgiving offered by Daniel. When the vision came, and the secret was revealed, and the flush of triumph fell on this happy student, we find him instantly down at the feet of God, and pouring out his heart in gratitude. There is no better sign of the interior life than a persistent and pervading thankfulness. The greatest saint is not the man who prays most; it is he who is learning to give thanks in everything. It is far easier to pray for what we need than to be really grateful for all that we have got, yet it is only to a grateful heart like Daniel's that visions and voices are going to be vouchsafed. Dare to be a Daniel in this sense. Resolve to say good-bye to fret and murmuring. Instead of counting up the real and fancied grievances, start a new column and count up the mercies. Daniel was an exile, and he did that. Paul was a prisoner in Rome, and did it. We are in good company when we follow them.

LASTLY, observe how God exalts men when they look not for it. Nothing was further from the thought of Joseph than that he should ever be a man of power in Egypt. Yet he clung to purity and trusted God, and God exalted him to royal splendour. And nothing was further from the thought of Daniel than that to-morrow he should be Governor of Babylon; yet we know how the horn of Daniel was exalted. Seekest thou great things for thyself? Seek them not. Do not determine, at all costs, to be somebody. Determine, at all costs, to be God's, and God will clear the steps, even in Babylon. If we are ambitious, I know not what may happen. I find no promise in Scripture about that. But if we be faithful, says One who ought to know, we shall be ruling the ten cities by and by.

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FORTY-NINTH SUNDAY

Evening

PAUL BEFORE HIS JUDGES

Passages to be read: Acts xxiv. 22-27; xxvi. 24-32.

FTER being five days at Cæsarea, Paul was for

Amally indicted by the Jewish party. The case

against him was conducted by Tertullus, who was as unscrupulous as he was eloquent. Felix was no stranger to the matters in debate; he had lived long enough among the Jews to grow conversant with them. He therefore refused to decide the matter off-hand; he would wait till his captain from Jerusalem came down. Now, whether the captain was unwilling to come, or whether he got a broad hint not to hurry, is a question we need not trouble to decide. The fact remains that we have no trace of his visit during Paul's two years of confinement at Cæsarea. What was the apostle doing all

that time? We cannot be certain that he wrote any epistles. Do you think he was fretting? Or worrying over his churches as he paced his prison battlements by the blue sea? We may be absolutely certain he was doing nothing like that-he was growing and ripening in his own inward life. For twenty years he had been fighting for Christ, amid the excitement and stress of a glorious campaign. New views of Christ had been borne upon his heart; new aspects of the Gospel had arrested him. It wanted leisure now to focus everything, and God bestowed that leisure at Cæsarea. Compare the letters that were written after these years, with the letters which we know were written before them. Note the richness and depth and glory of the later ones, their exaltation of the Lord Jesus Christ; their fresh insistence upon spiritual union; their recognition of the possibilities of sainthood; their method of bringing the most majestic doctrines to bear on the common duties of every dayand you will see what these two years did for Paul. I dare say the soldiers thought him very idle. Had you asked them, they would have said he was doing nothing. Yet all Christendom is deeply in God's debt, for making Paul come apart, and rest awhile.

ONLY

NLY one incident has been enshrined for us, out of these two years at Cæsarea. It is the scene with which our passage opens, when Paul was brought before Felix and Drusilla. Drusilla was the youngest daughter of King Herod Agrippa I. She was a beautiful young Jewess of some eighteen years of age. But there were dark shadows lying across her path that would have marred the fairest womanhood. It was not God who had made her Felix's wife. She had a home already when Felix cast his bad eyes on her. And it may be that a guilty conscience, and a torn heart, and a mind that could not forget, urged her to hear the Gospel of this prisoner. Do you observe what Paul was asked to speak