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The difficulty of his position was great: to breathe malaria and not be affected by it. He was in the whirl of worldliness and still he must not be made dizzy thereby. His one resource for safety was his daily consideration of the commands of God. Those commands charged men to be upright, to be clean, to do duty faithfully, even though it was duty to a heathen master, and to make life serviceable to the welfare of others. Again and again all through the years of his exile it was necessary for his soul's welfare that he should ponder these commands of God and not let the atmosphere that surrounded him lower and destroy his ideals.
On that day when the unalterable decree was issued Daniel was in imminent and unescapable peril. Jealous officers already rejoiced in his anticipated death. The danger of weakening threatened his heart. He remembered that Abraham once in Egypt surrendered his principles and thereby saved his life; that the Gibeonites once falsified and so preserved themselves alive. He might have reasoned, "Why should not I, in this special matter, yield, and give up recognition of Jehovah until the storm of persecution is past?" He could easily say, "Perhaps I am making too much of this whole subject; what difference will there be if I, away off here in Babylon, hundreds of miles from home, call this a case of expediency, and temporarily relinquish my ideals?" The temptation was a fearful one. Many a man has gone down before it. Cranmer did, Pilate did; but not Daniel. He kept his eyes on God's commands--those commands that told him to do the right and scorn the consequences, those commands that told him that faithfulness to principle, though it ended in martyrdom, was essential to place in God's hero list. He remembered Joseph, who would not sin against God in doing evil. He remembered God, that bade him bear his testimony, sealing it if necessary with his life's blood. So remembering he kept the faith and proved invincible.
Many a man, like Daniel, exposed to a peculiar temptation, has been made brave as he has remembered the standards set for him by another. He has thought of the wife perhaps, who charged him to meet his duties as a man of God, though godliness should involve them both in disgrace, and thus thinking he has stood firm before evil. Or as a youth, away from home, in a school or factory, with deteriorating influences all about him, and his feet well-nigh gone from the ways of uprightness, he has turned his heart toward that mother who would rather have him die than be false, and the remembrance of her has roused his self-assertion and made him master of the environment.
But what an hour of need that was when he was tracked to his upper room! Every power in the great Medo-Persian Empire was arrayed against him. No friend, no helper, was at hand. He stood alone before his fearful crisis. Brave and determined as his spirit might be, he was still a man--a man of flesh and blood. He needed strength: needed, as Christ afterward in Gethsemane needed, supporting and encouraging sympathy. He turned his soul toward the promises of God's protection and help. He let those promises flood his heart. Those promises made his will like adamant.
We do well when we front our hearts to God's promises. Every earnest soul, trying to make this world better, meets severe discouragements. Then let the soul open itself to God's assurance that the ends of the earth are given to Christ and that good shall indeed come off victorious. Every weak soul struggling to subdue its sin comes to hours of weariness. Then let the soul open itself to God's assurance that He giveth power to the faint and to them that have no might He increaseth strength. Every sorrowing soul, sighing for the loved and the lost, has days of loneliness. Then let the soul open itself to God's assurance that life and immortality are brought to light in Jesus Christ. Only as the needy world of humanity opens its heart to God's promises can it walk in light and possess the peace that passeth understanding.
It is a blessed, very blessed, way to live, this way of keeping our hearts open to the best. We all can so live. We can have a secret chamber--a very closet of the soul--into which we can go, whether we are with the multitude or are alone; and if through the broadly opened windows of that closet we look out toward the best--distant as that best may seem--back from the best will come the light that never fails and the strength that never breaks.
WINNING THE BEST VICTORIES.
WINNING THE BEST VICTORIES.
Success in life is determined by the victories we win. Only he who triumphs over obstacles is a successful man.
There are as many kinds of victory as there are kinds of obstacles. Some kinds of obstacles call upon us for the use of our secondary powers, and some for the use of our primary powers. When the obstacles bring into play the very best powers of our natures, and those powers conquer the obstacles, then we win our best victories.
David is a most interesting illustration of the winning of victories. The Bible evidently considers him one of its greatest heroes. While it gives eleven chapters to Jacob and fourteen chapters to Abraham, it gives sixty-one chapters to David. It thus asks us to pay great heed to the story and lessons of David's life.
Almost our first introduction to David represents him in a fight. He is a mere shepherd lad, out in the wilderness, perhaps miles from another human being, when a lion springs forth and seizes a lamb from the flock he is guarding. It was a fearsome hour for a boy. He might have deserted the flock and fled, preserving himself. But not so. He faced the lion. He even attacked the lion. He wrested the lamb from its mouth, and he slew the lion. Again, when, under similar circumstances, a beast of another kind, a bear, laid hold of a lamb, David stood up to the danger, and with such weapons of club and knife as he had, fought the bear to its death.
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