are not really using His grace, go on pretending to be better than you know you are. GOD wants to bless you. He wants to bless others through you, and to give others joy in your good little ways. He loves to hear all your true prayers for His grace—even if you hardly know how to put your words together to ask Him. GOD loves you and always will help you by His Holy Spirit-if you do not prevent His grace doing its great work in And GOD will give you, you. if you ask Him, full grace for the work he has prepared for children to walk into be true little "Sons of Consolation." Thus you shall "go on from strength to strength"-more and more “full of faith."

His promise is everlasting.

"They that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength: they shall mount up with wings as eagles: they

shall run and not be weary, and they shall walk and not faint" (Isaiah xl. 31). "And hereby we know that He abideth in us by the Spirit which He hath given us" (1 John iii. 4).

ΧΙ

Twenty-second Sunday after Trinity.

DANIEL AND THE LIONS' DEN.

"Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house; and his windows being opened in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his GOD, as he did aforetime." DANIEL Vi. 10.

LAST Sunday you heard the story of the three Hebrew youths being thrown into the burning fiery furnace, because they would not worship an idol at the command of a heathen king. Their story is written by GoD's Prophet in the Book which is chiefly an account of his own life. To-day you heard the story of his own great trial. Daniel, because he prayed to GOD as he had always done, was thrown into a den of lions. He was

old and grey-headed now, and he had all his life remained faithful to the GOD of his fathers. He did not know how to meet the danger of the plot which his enemies had laid for him, when Darius signed the decree that no one should pray for thirty days except to the king himself. But he would not do a wickedness and a sin against GOD in order to escape anything. So we have all his story told us-what he did what the king thought-how his enemies fancied they had made certain of his destruction-why they failed— how GOD interfered-and what was the happy end and result of Daniel's being tempted in his faithfulness.

I said just now he was an old man at this time. I suppose that most of you have seen pictures of Daniel in the lions den, and pictures do not always make it clear how old he was. Remember, that he was one of the

four selected Jewish children to be brought up at King Nebuchadnezzar's court, when the tribes of Benjamin and Judah were carried captive to Babylon. If, as is generally supposed, he was twelve years old at that time, Daniel would then be eighty years old; for this, his last terrible temptation among his foreign enemies, took place some time within the last two years of the seventy years' captivity.

The life of Daniel is a great lesson for grown-up men. But in the story of his being cast into the den of lions, there is many a lesson for every child who is old enough to know why he or she says prayers to GOD.

Daniel was a holy man. I mean he was a good man. He was also a great man; and GOD the Holy Ghost through Whom the Holy Bible was written, tells us plainly that he was great because he was good. All the story of Daniel's