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Then I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God, come and help us zealously in the pious, the useful, the christian undertaking of training up the children of the poor in christian principles; and if they shall grow up better members of society, as fellow-members you shall share the gain. In their peace ye shall have peace, when the prospects for the future, which ye shall have opened to them, shall have made them content and satisfied with the present. And if they shall gather fruit unto life eternal by means of your care, so shall ve; for "there is that scattereth and yet increaseth;" and "he that watereth shall be watered also himself." *

* Prov. xi. 24, 25.

505

SERMON XXIII.

THE BENEFITS OF EARLY RELIGIOUS TRAIN

ING.

[Preached at Bilston for a School.]

DANIEL i. 8.

"But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king's meat, nor with the wine that he drank; therefore he requested of the prince of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself."

In the whole compass of Scripture history, we shall scarcely read of a more remarkable man than Daniel. So eminent was he even in very early life, for his wisdom, and faith, and piety, that the infallible Spirit of God has seen fit to record it in a very singular manner; and in his own lifetime, and even before he attained to middle age, to put him upon a level with the most eminent saints of God who had finished

their course in glory. When Ezekiel would describe the insolent presumption and self-conceit of the king of Tyrus, he expresses it by accusing him of pretending to be wiser than Daniel; and when God would show how impossible it was that any intercession should prevail with him to bestow grace upon a people who had filled up the measure of their sins, he declares, that though Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in that land, their prayers for it should not be answered; thus ranking Daniel, when perhaps he was scarcely thirty years old, with two of the very holiest men who had ever lived upon earth, and whose praise had been in the mouth of his church for ages.

It may be useful to look to the outset in life of this extraordinary man, as recorded in the text, and in the history connected with it. The great wisdom and unimpeachable integrity which he manifested afterwards in conducting the affairs of a mighty empire, and how he held fast his integrity, and persevered in his duty to God in defiance of the den of lions, is known to all of you, and need not therefore be now told at large. But if we notice the beginning of his course, we shall see at once what was the foundation of so much excellence and usefulness, and shall learn consequently how we ought to begin ourselves.

* Ezek. xxviii. 3.

+ Ezek. xiv. 14, 20.

and how it befits us to fore-arm any who may be under our charge, before they are constrained to go forth amidst the trials of an ensnaring world. The consideration of the case, in short, will enable me to illustrate, by way of exemplification, that second text which I quoted to you in the opening of my last discourse, in which the Almighty delivers his testimony so explicitly respecting the necessity and utility of religious education: "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." *

When Jehoiakim, king of Judah, was defeated and taken prisoner by Nebuchadnezzar, that monarch carried away certain of the Jews to Babylon; and, among the rest, some young persons of the seed-royal and of other noble families of Judah. Perhaps he had observed the acuteness and ready understanding of some of these youths; but be this as it may, he thought that he might make them serviceable in his realm, and he resolved to spare no pains in doing so. He gave orders, therefore, to the chief of the eunuchs, whose name was Ashpenaz, to look out those among them who seemed most promising, and who had received the best education hitherto, and to educate them for three years more in the learning and tongue of the Chaldeans.

*Prov. xxii. 6.

"And

the king appointed them," it is said further, "a daily provision of the king's meat and of the wine which he drank so nourishing them three years, that at the end thereof they might stand before the king." Among those who were selected, there were four young persons of the tribe of Judah—namely, Daniel, Hananiah, Mishäel, and Azariah. They are several times called children, but in Scripture this expression seems to be used with latitude, and Daniel and his companions may have been at this time seventeen or eighteen years old. Their education had clearly been taken good care of already by their parents, especially by the effectual inculcation of sound general principles. But now the king put them under the guardianship of a chief officer of his own, to be fitted by such particular course of study as might seem most suitable to the end proposed, for employments of state. This officer, when he undertook the charge, was pleased, in the first place, to change their names. The circumstance is worth noticing, because there seems to have been a design in it. Daniel signifies God my judge; Hananiah, the grace of the Lord; and all their names, as was very usual with the Jews, are compounded with some or other of the Hebrew words which stand for God. But the chief of the eunuchs, as if to make them forget their relation to the Lord, and to intimate

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