The House in Town

Norton hesitated. "I don't know, sir," he said at length.

"What do you think?"

"I think he could."

"I should like to know why you think so."

"Because the king of Babylon was a strong king, and had plenty of soldiers and everything; and Jehoiakim had only a little kingdom anyhow."

"The Bible says 'there is no king saved by the multitude of an host.' How do you account for the fact that when strong kings and great armies came against Jerusalem at times that she was serving and trusting God, they never could do anything, but were miserably beaten?"

"I did not know it, sir," said Norton flushing a little.

"I thought you probably did not know it," said Mr. Wharncliffe quietly. "You did not know that many a time, when the people of the Jews were following God, one man of them could chase a thousand?"

"No, sir."

"Who remembers such a case?"

Norton pricked up his ears and listened; for the members of the class spoke out and gave instance after instance, till the teacher stopped them for want of time to hear more. The lesson went on. The carrying away of Daniel and his companions was told of, and "the learning and the tongue of the Chaldeans" was explained. Gradually the question came round to Matilda again. Why Daniel and the other three noble young Jews would not eat of the king's meat?

Matilda could not guess.

"You remember that the Jews, as the Lord's people, were required to keep themselves ceremonially clean, as it was called. If they eat certain things or touched certain other things, they were not allowed to go into the temple to worship, until at least that day was ended and they had washed themselves and changed their clothes. Sometimes many more days than one must pass before they could be 'clean' again, in that sense. This was ceremony, but it served to teach and remind them of something that was not ceremony, but deep inward truth. What?"

Mr. Wharncliffe abruptly stopped with the question, and a tall boy at one end of the class answered him.

"People must keep themselves from what is not good."

"The people of God must keep themselves from every thing that is not pure, in word, thought, and deed. And how if they fail sometimes, Joanna, and get soiled by falling into some temptation? what must they do?"

"Get washed."

"What shall they wash in, when it is the heart and conscience that must be made clean?"

"The blood of Christ."

"How will that make us clean?"

There was hesitation in the class; then as Mr. Wharncliffe's eye came to her and rested slightly, Matilda could not help speaking.

"Because it was shed for our sins, and it takes them all away."

"How shall we wash in it then?" the teacher asked, still looking at Matilda.

"If we trust him?" – she began.

"To do what?"

"To forgive, – and to take away our wrong feelings."

"For his blood's sake!" said the teacher. "'They have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.' And as the sacrifices of old time were a sort of picture and token of the pouring out of that blood; so the outward cleanness about which the Jews had to be so particular was a sort of sign and token of the pure heart-cleanness which every one must have who follows the Lord Jesus.

"And so we come back to Daniel. If he eat the food sent from the king's table he would be certain to touch and eat now and then something which would be, for him, ceremonially unclean. More than that. Often the king's meat was prepared from part of an animal which had been sacrificed to an idol; to eat of the sacrifice was part of the worship of the idol; and so Daniel and his fellows might have been thought to share in that worship."

"But it wouldn't have been true," said a boy in the class.

"What would not have been true?"

"He would not have been worshipping the idol. He didn't mean it."

"So you think he might just as well have eaten the idol's meat? not meaning any thing."

"It wouldn't have been service of the idol."

"What would it have been?"

"Why, nothing at all. I don't see as he would have done no harm."

"What harm would it have been, or what harm would it have done, if Daniel had really joined in the worship of Nebuchadnezzar's idol?"

"He would have displeased God," said one.

"I guess God would have punished him," said another.

"He would not have been God's child any longer," said Matilda.

"All true. But is no other harm done when a child of God forgets his Father's commands?"

"He helps others to do wrong," said Matilda softly.

"He makes them think 'tain't no odds about the commands," a girl remarked.

"How's they to know what the commands is?" a second boy asked, "if he don't shew 'em?"

"Very true, Robert," said Mr. Wharncliffe. "I have heard it said, that Christians are the only Bible some folks ever read."

"'Cause they hain't got none?" asked one of the class.

"Perhaps. Or if they have got one, they do not study it. But a true, beautiful life they cannot help reading; and it tells them what they ought to be."

"Daniel gave a good example," said the slim lad at the end of the class.

"That we can all do, if we have a mind, Peter. But in that case we must not seem to do what we ought not to do really. We help the devil that way. Now read the 9th and 10th verses. What was Daniel's friend afraid of?"

"Afraid the king would not like it."

"If Daniel and his friends did not eat like the others. Do our friends sometimes object to our doing right, on the ground that we shall not be like other people if we do?"