Daniel Adown the Centuries.
By John Monroe Buckley
THE influence of the book of Daniel upon the early Christian church was greater, perhaps, than that of any of the prophets. It has been said, and I think with truth, that it would be hard to conceive the possibility of the book of Revelation without the book of Daniel. Observe the reference made by our Lord in Matthew 24:15: "When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place (whoso readeth, let him understand)," which introduces the appalling description of the destruction of Jerusalem, and of the end of the world, repeated by Mark, it is not wonderful that the book should have made so profound an impression upon the thought of the Christian church. The references also to Daniel in the book of Ezekiel are of the most striking character. In the fourteenth chapter, when the idolators in Israel are rebuked, the prophet, speaking in the name of God, says: "Though Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, . . . they shall but deliver their own souls." This is twice repeated; namely, in the eighteenth and twentieth verses, while a fourth reference in the twenty-eighth chapter of Ezekiel is even more striking, when the prophet describes Tyrus, and pronounces the judgments of God upon that type for all time of proud commercial prosperity: "Because thine heart is lifted up, and thou hast said, I am a god, I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas; yet thou art a man, and not God, though thou set thine heart as the heart of God." This passage, awful in severity, and penetrating in its satire, culminates as follows: "Behold, thou art wiser than Daniel; there is no secret that they can hide from thee." The character of Daniel has also been impressed upon literature. Twice in Shakespeare does "the man of God" appear, in the "Merchant of Venice:" "A Daniel came to judgment; yea, a Daniel, . . . a second Daniel, a Daniel, Jew! Now, infidel, I have you on the hip." And the infidel responds, "I thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word." The tales of the Apocrypha are also quite in harmony with the character of Daniel as set forth in the book of Daniel, especially the vindication of Susanna. A famous sentence of Gibbon (History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire) illustrates the remarkable influence of the imagery employed by Daniel, exerted upon a mind which could be reached only through the appropriateness of the symbols employed,—which appropriateness in the mouth of the prophet so many centuries before furnishes to us a strong incidental confirmation of his claims to divine inspiration: "The armies of the republic, sometimes vanquished in battle, always victorious in war, advanced with rapid steps to the Euphrates, the Danube, the Rhine, and the ocean; and the images of gold, of silver, or brass, that might serve to represent the nations and their kings, were successively broken by the iron monarchy of Rome." Some years since, the writer, spending a summer Sabbath with a friend at his country place, was asked by the children and some of their little friends to preach them a sermon on Sabbath evening. He consented to do so on condition that they would meet and agree upon a text. After long meditation, and taxing their little minds, they announced that they had agreed, and asked for a sermon on "Daniel in the lions' den." To the theologian, the historian, the critic, and to children, "this Daniel" will ever remain one of the most striking and absorbing figures in the panorama of the age.—J. M. Buckley, D. D.