324. Politics and Religion

Politics and Religion

Dan_6:16 : ’93Then the king commanded, and they brought Daniel, and cast him into the den of lions.’94

Darius was king of Babylon, and the young man Daniel was so much a favorite with him that he made him Prime Minister, or Secretary of State. But no man could gain such a high position without exciting the envy and jealousy of the people. There were demagogues in Babylon who were so appreciative of their own abilities that they were affronted at the elevation of this young man. Old Babylon was afraid of young Babylon. The taller the cedar the more apt it is to be riven of the lightning. These demagogues asked the king to make a decree that anybody that made a petition to any one except the king during a period of thirty days should be put to death. King Darius, not suspecting any foul play, makes that decree. The demagogues have accomplished all they want, because they know that no one can keep Daniel from sending petitions before God for thirty days.

So far from being afraid, Daniel goes on with his supplications three times a day, and is found on his housetop making prayer. He is caught in the act. He is condemned to be devoured by the lions. Rough executioners of the law seize him and hasten him to the cavern. I hear the growl of the wild beasts, and I see them pawing the dust, and as they put their mouths to the ground the solid earth quakes with their bellowing. I see their eyes roll, and I almost hear the fiery eyeballs snap in the darkness. These monsters approach Daniel. They have an appetite keen with hunger. With one stroke of their paw or one snatch of their teeth, they may leave him dead at the bottom of the cavern. But what a strange welcome Daniel receives from these hungry monsters. They fawn around him, they lick his hand, they bury his feet in their long mane. That night he has calm sleep with his head pillowed on the warm necks of the tamed lions.

But not so well does Darius, the king, sleep. He has an attack of terrific insomnia. He loves Daniel, and hates this stratagem by which he has been condemned. All night long the king walks the floor. He cannot sleep. At the least sound he starts, and his flesh creeps with horror. He is impatient for the dawning of the morning. At the first streak of the daylight Darius hastens forth to see the fate of Daniel. The heavy palace doors open and clang shut long before the people of the city waken. Darius goes to the den of the lions; he looks in. All is silent. His heart stops. He feels that the very worst has happened; but gathering all his strength, he shouts through the rifts of the rock, ’93O Daniel! is thy God whom thou servest continually able to deliver thee?’94 There comes rolling up from the deep darkness a voice which says: ’93O king! live forever. My God has sent his angel to shut the lions’92 mouths that they have not hurt me.’94 Then Daniel is brought out from the den. The demagogues are hurled into it, and no sooner have they struck the bottom of the den than their flesh was rent, and their bones cracked, and their blood spurted through the rifts of the rock, and as the lions make the rocks tremble with their roar, they announce to all ages that while God will defend his people, the way of the ungodly shall perish.

Learn first from this subject that the greatest crime that you can commit in the eyes of many is the crime of success. What had Daniel done that he should be flung to the lions? He got to be Prime Minister. They could not forgive him for that, and behold in that a touch of unsanctified human nature as seen in all ages of the world. So long as you are pinched in poverty, so long as you are running the gauntlet between landlord and tax-gatherer, so long as you find it hard work to educate your children, there are people who will say: ’93Poor man, I am sorry for him; he ought to succeed, poor man.’94 But after a while the tide turns in your favor. That was a profitable investment you made. You bought just at the right time. Fortune becomes good humored and smiles upon you. Now you are in some department successful, and your success chills some one. Those men who used to sympathize with you stand along the street, and they scowl at you from under the rim of their hats. You have more money or more influence than they have, and you ought to be scowled at from under the rim of their hats. You catch a word or two as you pass by them. ’93Stuck up,’94 says one; ’93Got it dishonestly,’94 says another; ’93Will burst soon,’94 says a third. Every stone in your new house is laid on their hearts. Your horses’92 hoofs went over their nerves. Every item of your success has been to them an item of discomfiture and despair. Just as soon as in any respect you rise above your fellows, if you are more virtuous, if you are more wise, if you are more influential, you cast a shadow on the prospect of others. The road to honor and success is within reach of the enemy’92s guns. Jealousy says: ’93Stay down, or I’92ll knock you down.’94 ’93I do not like you,’94 says the snowflake to the snowbird. ’93Why don’92t you like me?’94 said the snowbird. ’93Oh,’94 said the snowflake, ’93you are going up and I am coming down.’94 Young merchants, young lawyers, young doctors, young mechanics, young artists, young farmers, at certain times there are those to sympathize with you, but now that you are becoming a master of your particular occupation or profession, how is it now, young lawyers, young doctors, young artists, young farmers’97how is it now? The greatest crime that you can commit is the crime of success.

Again, my subject impresses me with the value of decision of character in any department. Daniel knew that if he continued his adherence to the religion of the Lord he would be hurled to the lions, but having set his compass well, he sailed right on. For the lack of that element of decision of character, so eminent in Daniel, many men are ruined for this world, and ruined for the world to come. A great many at forty years of age are not settled in any respect, because they have not been able to make up their minds. Perhaps they will go West; perhaps they will go East; perhaps they will not; perhaps they will go North; perhaps they may go South; perhaps they will not; perhaps they may make that investment in real estate or in railroads; perhaps they will not. They are like a steamer that should go out of New York harbor, starting for Glasgow, and the next day should change for Havre de Grace, and the next for Charleston, and the next for Boston, and the next for Liverpool. These men on the sea of life everlastingly tacking ship and making no headway. Or they are like a man who starts to build a house in the Corinthian style and changes it to Doric, and then completes it in the Ionic, the curse of all styles of architecture. Young man, start right and keep on. Have decision of character. Character is like the goldfinch of Tonquin; it is magnificent while standing firm, but loses all its beauty in flight. How much decision of character in order that these young men may be Christians! Their old associates make sarcastic flings at them. They go on excursions, and they do not invite them. They prophesy that he will give out. They wonder if he is not getting wings. As he passes, they grimace, and wink, and chuckle, and say, ’93There goes a saint.’94 O, young man! have decision of character. You can afford in this matter of religion to be laughed at. What do you care for the scoffs of these men, who are affronted because you will not go to hell with them? When the grave cracks open under their feet, and grim messengers push them into it, and eternity comes down hard upon their spirit, and conscience stings, and hopeless ruin lifts them up to hurl them down, will they laugh then?

I learn also from my subject that men may take religion into their worldly business. This is a most appropriate thought at this season of the year, when business is brightening, and so many men are starting out in new enterprises. Daniel had enough work to do to occupy six men. All the affairs of state were in his hands: questions of finance, questions of war, of peace; all international questions were for his settlement or adjustment. He must have had a correspondence vast beyond all computation. There was not a man in all the earth who had more to do than Daniel, the Secretary of State, and yet we find him three times a day bowing before God in prayer. There are men in our day who have not a hundredth part of Daniel’92s engagements, who say they are too busy to be religious. They have an idea somehow that religion will spoil their worldly occupation, that it will trip the accountant’92s pen, or dull the carpenter’92s saw, or confuse the lawyer’92s brief, or disarrange the merchant’92s store shelf. They think religion is impertinent. They would like to have it very well seated beside them in church on the Sabbath, to find the place in the Psalm book, or to nudge them awake when they get sleepy under the didactic discourse; or they would like to leave it in the pew on Sabbath evening, as they go out, closing the door, saying, ’93Good-night, religion; I’92ll be back next Sunday!’94 But to have religion go right along by them all through life, to have religion looking over their shoulder when they are making a bargain, to have religion take up a bag of dishonest gold and shake it, and say, ’93Where did you get that?’94 They think that is an impertinent religion. They would like to have a religion to help them when they are sick, and when the shadow of death comes over them, they would like to have religion as a sort of night-key with which to open the door of heaven; but religion under other circumstances they take to be impertinence.

Now, my friends, religion never robbed a man of a dollar. Other things being equal, a mason will build a better wall, a cabinet-maker will make a better chair, a plumbler will make a better pipe, a lawyer will make a better plea, a merchant will sell a better bill of goods. I say, other things being equal. Of course when religion gives a man a new heart, it does not propose to give him a new head, or to intellectualize him, or to change a man’92s condition when his ordinary state is an overthrow of the philosophical theory that a total vacuum is impossible; but the more letters you have to write, the more burdens you have to carry, the more miles you have to travel, the more burdens you have to lift, the more engagements you have to meet, the more disputes you have to settle, the more opportunity you have of being a Christian. If you have a thousand irons in the fire, you have a thousand more opportunities of serving God than if you only had one iron in the fire. Who so busy as Christ? And yet who a millionth part as holy? The busiest men the best men. All the persons converted in Scripture busy at the time of their being converted. Matthew attending to his custom-house duties; the Prodigal Son feeding swine; Lydia selling purple; Simon Peter hauling in the net from the sea; Saul spurring his horse toward Damascus, going down on his law business. Busy! busy! Daniel with all the affairs of state weighing down upon his soul, and yet three times a day worshiping the God of heaven.

Again, I learn from this subject that a man may take religion into his politics. Daniel had all the affairs of state on hand, yet a servant of God. He could not have kept his elevated position unless he had been a thorough politician; and yet all the thrusts of officials and all the danger of disgrace did not make him yield one iota of his high-toned religious principle. He stood before that age, he stands before all ages, a specimen of a godly politician. So there have been in our day and in the days of our fathers men as eminent in the service of God as they have been eminent in the service of the state. Such was Benjamin F. Butler, Attorney-General of New York in the time of your fathers. Such was John McLean, of the Supreme Court of the United States. Such was George Briggs, of Massachusetts. Such was Theodore Frelinghuysen, of New Jersey’97men faithful to the state at the same time faithful to God. It is absurd to expect that men who have been immersed in political wickedness for thirty or forty years shall come to reformation; and our hope is in the young men who are coming up, that they have patriotic principle and Christian principle side by side when they come to the ballot-box and cast their first vote, and that they swear allegiance to the government of heaven as well as the government of the United States. We would have Bunker Hill mean less to them than Calvary, and Lexington mean less to them than Bethlehem. But because there are bad men around the ballot-box is no reason why Christian men should retreat from the arena. The last time you ought to give up your child or forsake your child is when it is surrounded by a company of Choctaws; and the last time to surrender the ballot-box is when it is surrounded by impurity and dishonesty and all sorts of wickedness.

Daniel stood on a most unpopular platform. He stood firmly, though the demagogues of the day hissed at him and tried to overthrow him. We must carry our religion into our politics. But there are a great many men who are in favor of taking religion into national politics who do not see the importance of taking it into city politics; as though a man were intelligent about the welfare of his neighborhood, and had no concern about his own home.

My subject also impresses me with the fact that lions cannot hurt a good man. No man ever got into worse company than Daniel got into when he was thrown into the den. What a rare morsel that fair young man would have been for the hungry monsters! If they had plunged at him, he could not have climbed into a niche beyond the reach of their paw or the snatch of their tooth. They came pleased all around about him, as hunters’92 hounds at the well-known whistle come bounding to his feet. You need not go to Numidia to get many lions. You all have had them after you’97the lion of financial distress, the lion of sickness, the lion of persecution. You saw that lion of financial panic putting his mouth down to the earth, and he roared until all the banks and all the insurance companies quaked. With his nostril he scattered the ashes on the domestic hearth. You have had trial after trial, misfortune after misfortune, lion after lion; and yet they have never hurt you if you put your trust in God, and they never will hurt you. They did not hurt Daniel, and they cannot hurt you. The Persians used to think that spring rain falling into sea-shells would turn into pearls; and I have to tell you that the tears of sorrow turn into precious gems when they drop into God’92s bottle. You need be afraid of nothing, putting your trust in God. Even death, that monster lion whose den is the world’92s sepulchre, and who puts his paw down amid thousands of millions of the dead, cannot affright you. When in olden times a man was to get the honors of knighthood, he was compelled to go fully armed the night before, among the tombs of the dead, carrying a sort of spear, and then when the day broke he would come forth, and, amid the sound of cornet and great parade, he would get the honors of knighthood. And so it will be with the Christian in the night before heaven, as fully armed with spear and helmet of salvation, he will wait and watch through the darkness until the morning dawns, and then he will take the honors of heaven amid that great throng with snowy robes, streaming over seas of sapphire.

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage