the thrill that must have gone through him, as he saw that this
computation would place the defiling of the temple--that sign of God's
having forsaken his people--in the middle of the last week of years. It
was then only about three years to the destined end of the weary period
that Jeremiah had included in the term of Israel's humbling, after which
would come Jehovah's help. Fired with this thought, he set himself to
inspire his people with fresh hope and courage.

Around a traditional Daniel, famed for his wisdom and piety, and possibly
upon an earlier document containing some tales of this sage and saint, he
wove a story which should interpret Jeremiah's prophecy and Jehovah's
purpose. With charming grace he tells the tale of Daniel's constancy and
trust under the sorest trials, and of the divine deliverance that always
came to him. Into his mouth he placed predictions of what had already come
to pass in history, that thus his reputation as a prophet might be
established. Then he caused him to present a striking series of symbolical
visions, the clue to which was furnished for the writer's contemporaries
by certain clear allusions. These visions foretold deliverance as about to
come at the approaching end of the four hundred and ninety years of
Jeremiah. Other visions sketched the ushering in of the Messiah-Kingdom,
in glowing pictures of lofty religious tone.

In that dark night over Israel this book was as the morning star. It was
truly, as Dean Stanley called it, "the Gospel of the age." Its story
spread, and with it spread renewed patience and hope. It doubtless fed the
forces of that glorious revolt that shortly thereafter burst forth under
the heroic Maccabees. Thus it kept alive the vital spark in the nation,
through a crucial hour, that else might have gone out before it had given
birth to Christianity. Noble as the book of Daniel is in many ways,
especially as the real father of "the philosophy of history," it has a
still deeper interest to us Christians for its timely service to the
sinking nation through which came at last our Blessed Master.

The Acts of the Apostles, when studied in the light of the tendencies
known to have been working in the apostolic church, becomes of similar
importance in New Testament history to Deuteronomy in Old Testament
history.

The primitive Church was, as we well know, agitated by contending
factions. Two leading parties dominated all minor schools of thought; the
Jewish