The Canton times. (Canton, Miss.) 1893-1906, 1900-11-16


Lydia selling purple; Simon Peter
hauling in the net from the sea; Saul
squirting 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 day worshiping the
God of Heaven.
Again l learn from this subject
that a man may take religion into his
politics. Daniel had all the affairs OF
state on hand, yet servant of God.
He could not have kept his elevated
position unless he had been thor
ough 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, specimen
of a cody 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 en-
inent 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 Nc
Lean, of the supreme court of the
United States. Such was George
Briggs, of Massachusetts,. Such was
Theodore Frelinghuysen, of New Jer-
sey-men faithful to the state, at the
same time faithful to God. 1t is alb
surd to expect that men who have
been immersed in political wickedness
for 80 or 40 years shall come to refor-
nation, 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
to the government of the United
States. We would have Bunker Hill
mean less to them than Cavalry, and
Lexington mean less than Bethlehem,
but because there are bad meu
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 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 wick
edness.
Daniel stood on most unpopular
platform. He stood firmly, though
the demagogues Of the day Kissed at
him and tried to overthrow him. We
must carry our religion into our poll
itics. But there are a great many
men who are in favor of taking re-
ligion into national politics who do
not see the Importance of taking ii
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 when
he was thrown into the den. What
a rare morsel that fair young man
would have been for the hungry mon
sters! If they had plunged at him
he could not have climbed into niche
beyond the reach of their paw or the
snatch of their tooth. They came,
pleased, all around him, as hunters
hounds at the well-known whistle
come bounding to his feet. You need
not go to Numidia to get many lions.
You all have them after you-the lion
of financial distress, the lion of sick
ness, the lion of persecution. You
saw that lion of financial panic put
ting 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 seashells
would turn into pearls, and l have to
tell you that the tears of sorrow turn
into precious gems when they drop
into Gods bottle. You need be afraid
of nothing, putting your trust in God.
Even death, that monster lion whose
den is the worlds sepulcher, and who
puts his paw down amid thousands OF
millions of the dead, cannot alright
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