which, interpreted, are THE MERCY OF JEHOVAH, SENT FROM GOD, and HEARKENING TO JEHOVAH, were altered to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, that is, Shadrach, a tender nipple; Meshach, that draws with force; and Abednego, or the servant of Nebo.

When a church becomes Babylonish, love, THAT HIGHEST CHARITY, which was the evidence of Jehovah's mercy, becomes alms-giving a tender but enslaving nipple. Truth, sent from God, becomes strong persuasion; and obedience to Jehovah, whose service is perfect freedom, is transformed into slavery to the ecclesiastial system. Azariah became Abednego. These three principles, charity, faith, and good works, may still be used, and made to support Babylon, and they will look well upon pulse and water, or supported by the letter of the Word, and give eclat to a system from which they are interiorly foreign, and to which they are interiorly opposed.

Daniel is said to have understanding in all visions and dreams, that is, the Divine Wisdom of the Word instructs in all things which throw light on immortality and revelation from heaven. The other three are said to be ten times better than all the magicians and astrologers in the realm of Babylon. For "charity, faith, and good works," however externally regarded, lend force and recommendation to any system into which they are incorporated, far beyond the cunning devices and magical support which it may otherwise receive. These are Divine things, and they speak to human sorrows and to human wants. They commend themselves powerfully to the instincts of the soul, and touch the secret springs of human sympathy with a tenderness far beyond all juggling cleverness. It is the good still left in a fallen church amongst humble pious souls, far better than their doctrines, which prolongs its life, and keeps it lingering on, even when obviously out of harmony with the new age, which the Lord in His Providence has given to the world. Daniel is said, at the end of the chapter, to continue even unto the first year of king Cyrus; that is, the Divine Word continues even to the coming of the Lord afresh to found a new church. Cyrus restored Jerusalem; the Lord restores His church by founding it in a new form, and giving it new prophets. Yet in the old dispensation the Word continues until the very end, and then arises into new glory, for though Nineveh may expire, and Babylon perish, the Word of the Lord abides for ever. Let us pray for the peace of Jerusalem. Let us avoid all contact with Babylon, but walk in the light of that golden city, which is clear as crystal, and glows with the glory of God.

SERMON XLVII.

NEBUCHADNEZZAR'S DREAM.

"Thou, O king, sawest, and behold a great image. This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee; and the form thereof was terrible. This image's head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass, his legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay. Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces. Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshingfloors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them: and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain."-DANIEL ii. 31-35.

THE dream of King Nebuchadnezzar is introduced to us in a very striking manner. It evidently impressed and alarmed him to an extraordinary degree. There are no doubt differences in dreams as in all the other occurrences of life. There are dreams and dreams. There are many people who will dismiss dreams altogether as idle impressions of no significance, mere results of certain states of the stomachs. Yet it cannot be denied that the annals of mankind shew that dreams are sometimes remarkably fulfilled, and considering how large a portion of human life is passed in dreaming, it does not seem altogether rational to suppose that they are absolutely without any meaning or import whatever. How many dreams, too, there are related in the Word containing circumstances in which Divine instructions were given to men involving the weightiest consequences. For instance, the dreams of Joseph, the dreams of Pharaoh, the dreams of Joseph the husband of Mary.

Dreams may be regarded as having a weighty lesson to teach, if we consider them as shewing our capacity for realizing a life quite independent of the body or the outward world; and if we think of them in relation to the truth that we are associated mentally with good spirits or with bad, and conceive that good dreams, like good thoughts, come from our angelic friends, and bad dreams, like evil thoughts, come from evil spirits, unpleasant dreams will then serve to put us on our guard, and intimate that danger is near. Such appears to be the teaching of

In a

the very interesting and striking passage in Job, "For God speaketh once, yea twice, yet man perceiveth it not. dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the bed, then He openeth the ears of men, and sealeth their instruction, that He may draw man from his purpose, and hide pride from man" (xxxiii. 14-17).

Some dreams make an impression upon the person who is their subject that cannot be shaken off. He endeavours to turn his mind from them, and to think of them no more. But quite in vain. And many are the recorded instances of such dreams, having weighty significance, having reference to some crisis in the person's character or condition, which perhaps strengthens his conviction that the Most High ruleth in the kingdoms of men, and thus to conduce to check his self-conceit, and withdraw his soul from pride. Such a dream was this of the mighty king of Babylon. He could not remove the impression that it was a Divine message. He was deeply moved, so much so, that he felt if his hierarchy of priests could not explain it to him, it was their condemnation, their system was false, and they and it should perish. This arbitrary and awful decision spread consternation through Babylon. It was a hard thing which the king required. He insisted, first, that the wise men should tell him the dream which he had himself forgotten, and then he thought he would have a warrant that their interpretation might also be believed. To the forlorn priests of Nebo, the condition of the king was simply an impossibility. They were the blind leaders of the blind; the numerous supporters of a worn-out superstition. They could only say to this extraordinary order like the chiefs of other worn-out superstitions of our own time, Non possumus; we are not able.

But Daniel, who heard of this amazing occurrence, and was concerned for he too, and his friends were to perish like the rest-and being a seer, "with understanding in visions and dreams," he knew that the dream had been given from the spiritual world, and if well-pleasing to the Lord, it could easily be repeated to him. He prayed, and asked his friends to pray, and lay the whole case before the Lord. The secret was revealed to him in a night vision; that is, his spiritual sight was opened, and he beheld the scene which had been presented to the king in a dream, and with such impressiveness that he had no doubt upon the subject, and he broke out into that glowing expression of thankfulness—“ Blessed be the name of God for ever and ever: for wisdom and might are His. I thank and

praise thee, O thou God of my fathers, Who hast given unto me wisdom and might, and hast made known unto me now what we desired of thee; for thou hast now made known unto us the king's matter."

Daniel desired to be led before the king; and having, with great modesty and diffidence disclaimed any peculiar art, skill, or merit in himself, he claimed to be able, by the merciful revelation which the God of heaven had vouchsafed in answer to his prayer, to relate to the king the impressive and marvellous dream which he had perceived in the night, and then forgotten. When he had drawn back to the king's recollection the dream which had made so deep an impression, and then so mysteriously vanished from memory, he would proceed to give the interpretation. All this he did so completely to the conviction and satisfaction of the monarch, that he exclaimed, "Of a truth it is, that your God is a God of gods, and a Lord of kings, and a revealer of secrets, seeing thou couldst reveal this secret." The king made Daniel a great man, and gave him many great gifts, and made him ruler over the whole province of Babylon, and chief of the governors over all the wise men of Babylon.

And now let us observe a little more closely this dream and its interpretation. It was a great image that the king saw, bright, imposing, and terrible to view. The image's head was of fine gold, the breast and arms of silver, the belly and thighs of brass, the legs of iron, the feet partly of iron and partly of miry, clay. Then a stone was cut out of a mountain without hands, and smote the image, broke it to pieces, and dissipated it, and itself became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth.

The king confessed the exactitude of the recalled dream, and his full acceptance in consequence of the interpretation. That interpretation he received in its literal bearing on the political career of his empire. It commenced with himself, the head of gold. He had unrolled, as it were, before him the broad pages of the imperial career of Babylon. There would come the Persian monarchy after his own dynasty had ended, represented by the silver breast and arms; then the Greeks, under Alexander and his successors, would constitute the kingdom of brass; then the Romans, the fourth kingdom, would come and trample down all opposition, and continue in one form or another until the kingdom should be born and grow which would break in pieces all other kingdoms-the kingdom of truth derived from love (the stone out of the mountain), which would grow until it had filled

the whole church, and the whole earth, and it should last for

ever.

But this literal interpretation, as given by the prophet Daniel to Nebuchadnezzar, and referring to the stages of decline through which his empire of Babylon would pass to its end, though most interesting to him, and to those who were concerned in the political changes of that remote time, have only a general, a very general interest for us. The political rise and fall of kingdoms have no very enduring impressions upon character. The movements of the church affect our nature and our everlasting condition more deeply, and hence it will be more profitable for us to make a more interior inquiry into the spirit of this wonderful vision of the king of Babylon.

It is reasonable to conclude that a vision so introduced, with such remarkable circumstances, showed plainly that a Divine hand was engaged in it, and disclosures worthy of infinite wisdom were, by its means, intended to be made. It is interesting to observe, also, that in the oldest known poem out of the Bible, that by Hesiod, who lived two centuries before Daniel, the progress of humanity is described by the succession of metals of precisely the same kind as in this vision: the age of gold, the age of silver, the age of brass-or more properly copper and the age of iron, which he describes as the one in which men were then living. This great image, then, would represent the career of humanity; the march of the world; the succession of ages; all the race represented as one vast form, to the period when truth from Divine Love would restore to the world a state of universal loving-kindness, and none would hurt or destroy in all God's holy mountain (Isa. xi. 9). The golden age of Hesiod, like this head of gold, would represent the age of innocence and love, the same as in the early part of Genesis is meant by man in the garden of Eden. This most ancient church was the babyhood of the world. We know not how long it lasted, probably an immense period. The people were not wise in science, they probably knew as little of mechanics as babies, but they delighted in the wisdom of being good. They were ignorant of worldly ways, and of literary skill, but in the wisdom of being innocent, guileless, pure, and loving, they far surpassed all who have succeeded them.

The earliest records of the old nations-the Hindoo, the Chinese, the Persian-all speak of this age of gold; and gold in Scripture is used as the symbol of the highest love of the soul. All things in the temple were covered with gold. "I counsel