skill, he showed up the deception of the priests of Bel, destroyed his image, and also killed a dragon which was worshipped as a god. Daniel was a valiant servant of God, and quite ready to suffer death on account of his faith.
Application. If God punished the desecration of the sacred vessels of the Old Law so severely, how much more heavily will he punish any want of reverence towards the sacraments and holy things of the New Law! Have you ever made a sacrilegious confession? Resolve to pay more reverence to God’s holy Sacraments than you have hitherto done, and make a better preparation before receiving them.
Chapter LXXIX.
DANIEL IN THE LIONS’ DEN.
[Dan. 6 and 14.]
THE people of Babylon worshipped also a great dragon[1]. One day the king said to Daniel: “Behold, thou canst not say now that this is not a living god; adore him, therefore.” Daniel replied: “Give me leave, O king, and I will kill this dragon without sword or club.” The king replied: “I give thee leave.” Then Daniel took pitch, fat and hair, and boiling them together, he made lumps and put them into the dragon’s mouth.
The monster, swallowing the lumps, very soon burst asunder, and Daniel said to the king: “Behold him whom you worshipped!” The Babylonians hearing this, assembled in crowds, and said that the king had become a Jew, had destroyed Bel, killed the dragon, and put the priests to death. They came, therefore, to the king, threatening and saying: “Deliver Daniel to us, or else we will destroy thee and thy house.”
Although the king loved Daniel, he was forced[2] through the violence of the people to give him up to their fury. Immediately they[3] cast him into a den of lions[4]. There were seven lions in
- ↑ Dragon. A great serpent.
- ↑ Forced. In order to avert the outbreak of a revolution.
- ↑ They. There are two apparently different occasions on which Daniel was cast into the lions’ den. One is recorded in chapter VI and the other in chapter XIV. In the latter the people cast him into the den, in the former the king. Nevertheless both may refer to the same incident.
- ↑ A den of lions. Which was underground and walled in.
