Did you ever know a man like that? The most of us, I fear, are the other way. We grasp and covet, and knock the hearts and the life out of ourselves trying to keep it in. "He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life for My sake shall keep it unto life eternal." There is some lad here—my heart goes out to you in your own small way, my brother, you are tempted as Daniel was tempted. Time and its prospects are here; eternity and its awards are here. Down there, in your warehouse, the temptation is this, to let eternity, God, conscientiousness, faithfulness, a bold stand, go to the one side, and, in order to secure your situation, in order to keep yourself in "a good crib," or to get a better one, to become a little less conscientious, and to become less Christian and more of "a business man,' as the phrase is; to say: “Well, you know, we are here, and business is business, and it is in this world every man for himself. I do not see that I am called upon to resist in this strenuous fashion." God strengthen you to-day, my brother. No man who ever professed in London, or anywhere else, the simple, solemn, purifying faith of the God of heaven, but was tempted precisely in his measure as Daniel was in that awful crisis. I have named the temptation already to sell eternity for time, and to fasten my attention on earthly considerations: myself, my wife, my salary, my family; and how these will be affected by my faithfulness to God and conscience. And it seems hard, does it not? that I should stand here and say, "You are not to think of yourself. Let the wife of your bosom, and the children of your love, be as though they were dead and buried out of your sight when you come to a crisis like this. Look to God and eternity, and let these decide." should be like cutting off your right hand, let it go. should be like plucking out your right eye, let it go. better to enter into life maimed: without the hand, without feet, without the eye-it is better to enter into life a

If it

If it

It is

bankrupt rather than a merchant prince, if it is because I have yielded myself to the God of heaven; it is better to enter into life bare, empty, than, having two eyes and two hands and two feet, and having obtained the reputation of a successful merchant, to be cast into hell because I denied God to gain my temporal success, and therefore He also has denied me.

That is all there. It was a crisis, and heaven or hell turned upon Daniel's conduct in that hour. Policy would have ruined him. Compromise would have ruined him in this rugged and awful crisis of the soul. He might have kept his religion to himself. He might have said, "I will go through the outward form, but God knows my heart. I will keep my heart as sacred to the God of Israel as ever." No, that cannot be done; and the awful whisper in your heart and mine, my brother and sister, is that it can be done, and we will do it. serve God and mammon." But we will try. although heaven with thundering emphasis says, Ye cannot. Daniel could not, and Daniel was about as long-headed as any of us. Daniel could not, I do not think that you can. You are not clever enough, if he could not; and it never occurred to him as being worth the trying.

"Ye cannot

We will try,

"He gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime." How much we have to thank God for, especially in the hours of trial, in the times of bitterness, when the world seems to be against us, and when the pathway of faith that leads to God seems to be rocky and thorny, and makes our feet to bleed. Even then, yea, never more than then, let us abound in thanksgiving. "My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations, knowing that the trial of your faith, though it be tried with fire, shall be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ."

Hold on. Hold fast that which thou hast, that no man take thy crown." If you are a believer in Jesus Christ,

remember that already a crown is upon your head. Man, play your part well. Do not demean the position that you occupy. Stand up for God and for the right, and do not flinch a hair's-breadth. Remember Him who has said, "I am with you to deliver you. There shall not a hair of your head perish"-and some of us have got a lot of them to keep. "There shall not a hair of your head perish. In your patience possess ye your souls." Put up your hand to your head, young brother, and lay hold of a whole handful of certificates of Jehovah's faithfulness and truth.

And so it was with Daniel. I can imagine somebody saying, "Well now, brethren, suppose, now-suppose the lions had killed him." What then? He still would have won. That is what then. He still had won. Do you not see there is absolutely no defeat? They never fail who die in a great cause." Via crucis via lucis; the way of the cross is the way of light. If you are whole-hearted towards God, there is no defeat. Down is up and black is bright. "All things work together for good to them that love God, and are the called according to His purpose." There is John the Baptist. Because he was faithful to God and faithful to conscience, his head rolled off the block into the basket; and, with all our Bible teaching, we are so worldly that we are inclined to say, "Oh, what a disaster!" Disaster? What do we mean? Where is the disaster? If Daniel had gone straight to heaven, and if John the Baptist went into a country where, in order to see things in their true light, you do not need your head, what is the loss? What harm has come to him? Do not raise the objection, "Suppose the lions had killed him.” It would have been just the carrying out of God's programme all the same. I think it was Henry Ward Beecher who put it, You kill a good man, and you think that you have thereby wreaked your spite upon him, and you have won. To kill a good man is very much the same as if one would try to spite a ship by launching it. The ship, although

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built on the land, was meant for the ocean, and the good man's soul was meant for heaven, and blessed is the stroke that gives each to its true element." Again, I say, there is no reverse, there is no possible disaster in any true sense, to the man who, like Daniel, has just one thing to do-to kneel down upon his knees in the high and awful crisis of his history to give thanks to God.

May the spirit of Daniel be breathed into us, especially in these loose, and slack, and compromising times. May we be enabled, by clear and simple faith, to see things in the light of eternity. May we set the Lord always before us; and when we are tempted to spiritual wickedness, or any kind of departure from the living God, may we be able to say, with another, in the awful hour of his temptation, when any attempt at compromise or shilly-shallying would have been his ruin, "How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?" Fear God, and have no other fear. Some of us have to learn that yet. O my brother, I close with Christ's solemn words. You are afraid of man. You are afraid of lifting up a clear and solemn testimony for Jesus Christ. "I will forewarn you whom you shall fear." Fear not those round about you in your companionship, who live with you, who will sneer at you, who will scoff at you, but "fear Him who hath power to cast soul and body into hell, yea"-if fear is to enter into your calculations— "fear Him."

May God strengthen us, by His word and His Spirit, to play the man!

Henderson & Spalding, General Printers, Marylebone Lane, London, W.

ABOUT THE "GREAT WOMAN."

A Sermon

PREACHED AT REGENT SQUARE CHURCH,

BY THE

REV. JOHN MCNEILL.

2 Kings iv.

You remember when I began one evening, the subject of this Shunammite woman, I tried to use a recurring key-note or refrain in exposition of this woman's character and history. The Bible calls her "a great woman," and instead of turning back to the Hebrew dictionary to find out some special and peculiar meaning of the adjective which, perhaps, it does not bear in our ordinary English, we rather thought we should go down through the narrative to find the woman's greatness illustrated in the story which is subtended, under that designation. Elisha passed to We saw that surely

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Shunem, where was a great woman.” part of her greatness lay in the fact that she was swift to see and swift to act upon an opportunity when it came her way. She did not know this Elisha, this wayfaring man, who passed by her, but, being a woman of great instincts, Vo II.-No. 16.