eds and luxurious delights of sense bring no ease to troubled
consciences. Daniel is more at rest, though his 'soul is among lions,'
than Darius in his palace. Peter sleeps soundly, though the coming
morning is to be his last. Better to be the victim than the doer of
injustice!

The verdict of nightly thoughts on daily acts is usually true, and if
our deeds do not bear thinking of 'on our beds,' the sooner we cancel
them by penitence and reversed conduct, the better. But weak men are
often prone to swift and shallow regrets, which do not influence their
future any more than a stone thrown into the sea makes a permanent gap.
Why should Darius have waited for morning, if his penitence had moved
him to a firm resolution to undo the evil done? He had better have
sprung from his bed, and gone with his guards to open the den in the
dark. Feeble lamentations are out of place when it is still time to act.

The hurried rush to the den in the morning twilight, and the 'lamentable
voice,' so unlike royal impassiveness, indicate the agitation of an
impulsive nature, accustomed to let the feeling of the moment sway it
unchecked. Absolute power tends to make that type of man. The question
thrown into the den seems to imply that its interior was not seen. If
so, the half-belief in Daniel's survival is remarkable. It indicates, as
before, the impression of steadfast devoutness made by the old man's
life, and also a belief that his God was possibly a true and potent
divinity.

Such a belief was quite natural, but it does not mean that Darius was
prepared to accept Daniel's God as his god. His religion was probably
elastic and hospitable enough to admit that other nations might have
other gods. But his thoughts about this 'living God' are a strange
medley. He is not sure whether He is stronger than the royal lions, and
he does not seem to feel that if a god delivers, his own act in
surrendering a favoured servant of such a god looks very black. A
half-belief blinds men to the opposition between their ways and God's,
and to the certain issue of their going in one direction and God in
another. If Daniel be delivered, what will become of Darius? But, like
most men, he is illogical, and that question does not seem to have
occurred to him. Surely this man may sit for a portrait of a weak,
passionate nature, in the feebleness of his resistance to evil, the half
hopes that wrong would be kept from turning out so badly as it promised,
the chi