king had been bold enough to assert himself, he could have walked
through the cobweb. But this is one of the miseries of yielding to evil
counsels, that one step taken calls for another. 'In for a penny, in for
a pound.' Therefore let us all take heed of small compliances, and be
sure that we can never say about any doubtful course, 'Thus far will I
go, and no farther.' Darius was his servants' servant when once he had
put his name to the arrogant decree. He did not know the incidence of
his act, and we do not know that of ours; therefore let us take heed of
the quality of actions and motives, since we are wholly incapable of
estimating the sweep of their consequences.

Darius's conduct to Daniel was like Herod's to John the Baptist and
Pilate's to Jesus. In all the cases the judges were convinced of the
victim's innocence, and would have saved him; but fear of others biassed
justice, and from selfish motives, they let fierce hatred have its way.
Such judges are murderers. From all come the old lessons, never too
threadbare to be dinned into the ears, especially of the young, that to
be weak is, in a world so full of temptation, the same as to be wicked,
and that he who has a sidelong eye to his supposed interest, will never
see the path of duty plainly.

What a feeble excuse to his own conscience was Darius's parting word to
Daniel! 'Thy God, whom thou servest continually, He will deliver thee!'
And was flinging him to the lions the right way to treat a man who
served God continually? Or, what right had Darius to expect that any god
would interfere to stop the consequences of his act, which he thus
himself condemned? We are often tempted to think, as he did, that a
divine intervention will come in between our evil deeds and their
natural results. We should be wiser if we did not do the things that,
by our own confession, need God to avert their issues.

But that weak parting word witnessed to the impression made by the
lifelong consistency of Daniel. He must be a good man who gets such a
testimony from those who are harming him. The busy minister of state had
done his political work so as to extort that tribute from one who had no
sympathy with his religion. Do we do ours in that fashion? How many of
our statesmen 'serve God continually' and obviously in their public
life?

What a contrast between the night passed in the lions' den and the
palace! 'Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage,' and
soft b