This boy was made of other metal.  So, apparently he gives up the prince of the eunuchs, and turns to another of the friends whom he had made in his short captivity—­the person in whose more immediate charge he and his three friends were.  He is named Melzar in the Authorised Version; but the Revised Version more accurately takes that to be a name of office, and translates it as ‘steward.’  He did the catering for them, and was sufficiently friendly to listen to Daniel’s reasonable proposal to try the vegetable diet for ’ten days’—­probably meaning an indefinite period, sufficiently long to test results, which a literal ten days would perhaps scarcely be.  So the good-natured steward let the lads have their way, much wondering in his soul, no doubt, why they should take as much trouble to avoid good living as most youths would have taken to get it.

III.  The success of the experiment comes next.  We do not need to suppose a miracle as either wrought or suggested by the narrative.  The issue might have taught the steward a wholesome lesson in dietetics, which he and a great many of us much need.  ’A man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth,’ and his bodily life consisteth not in the abundance and variety of the things that he eateth.  The teaching of this lesson is, not that vegetarianism or total abstinence is obligatory, for diet is here regarded only as part of idolatrous worship; but certainly a secondary conclusion, fairly drawn from the story, is that vigorous health is best kept up on very simple fare.  Many dinner-tables, over which God’s blessing is formally asked, are spread in such a fashion as it is hard to suppose deserves His blessing.  The simpler the fare, the fewer the wants:  the fewer the wants, the greater the riches; the freer the life, the more leisure for higher pursuits, and the more sound the bodily health.

But the rosy faces and vigorous health of Daniel and his friends may illustrate, by a picturesque example, a large truth—­that God suffers no man to be a loser by faithfulness, and more than makes up all that is surrendered for His sake.  The blessing of God on small means makes them fountains of truer joy than large ones unblessed.  No man hath left anything for Christ’s sake but he receives a hundred-fold in this life, if not in the actual blessings surrendered, at all events in the peace and joy of heart of which they were supposed to be bearers.  God fills places emptied by Himself, and those emptied by us for His sake.

IV.  The conscientious abstinence of Daniel had limits.  The learning of the ‘Chaldeans’ was largely ritualistic, and magic, incantations, divination, and mythology constituted a most important part of it.  Did not the conscience, which could not swallow idolatrous food, resent being forced to assimilate idolatrous learning?  No; for all that learning could be acquired by a faithful monotheist, and could be used against the system which gave it