His own truth alight in our minds, if we realise the danger of the
position, and seek to cling to Him.

V. So we have the last scene in the youths' appearance before
Nebuchadnezzar. A three years' curriculum was considered necessary to
turn a Jewish boy into a Chaldean expert, fit to be a traitor to his
nation, an apostate from his God, and a tool of the tyrant. So far as
knowledge of the priestly and astronomical science went, the four
Hebrews came out at the top of the lists. The great king himself, with
that personal interference in all departments which makes a despot's
life so burdensome, put them through their paces, and was satisfied. His
object had been to get instruments with which he could work on the
Captivity, and, no doubt, also to secure servants who had no links with
anybody in Babylon. Foreigners, 'kinless loons,' are favourites with
despots, for plain reasons. But Nebuchadnezzar could not fathom the
hearts of the lads. An incarnation of unbridled will would find it
difficult to understand a life guided by conscience, and religious
scruples would have sounded as an unknown tongue to him. But yet, as he
and they stood face to face, who was stronger, the conqueror or the
youths who feared God, and none besides? They were in their right place
at the head of the examination lists. They had not said, 'We do not
believe in all this rubbish, and we are not going to trouble ourselves
to master it,' but they had set themselves determinedly to work, and
been all the more persevering because of their objection to the diet. If
a young man has to be singular by reason of his religion, let him be
singularly diligent in his work, and seek to be first, not merely for
his own glory, but for the sake of the religion which he professes.

'Plain living and high thinking' ought to go together. England and
America have many names carved high on their annals, and written deep on