efuses to render active obedience
to an unrighteous law, and unresistingly accepts the appointed penalty,
he is not properly regarded as a law-breaker.

If earthly authorities command what is clearly contrary to God's law, a
Christian is absolved from obedience, and cannot be loyal unless he is a
rebel. That is how our forefathers read constitutional obligations. That
is how the noble men on the other side of the Atlantic, fifty years ago,
read their constitutional obligations in reference to that devilish
institution of slavery. And in the last resort--God forbid that we
should need to act on the principle--Christian men are set free from
allegiance when the authority over them commands what is contrary to the
will and the law of God.

But all that does not touch us. But I will tell you what does touch us.
Obedience to God needs always to be sustained--in some cases more
markedly, in some cases less so--but always in some measure, by
disobedience to the maxims and habits of most men round about us. If
they say 'Do this,' and Jesus Christ says 'Don't,' then they may talk as
much as they like, but we are bound to turn a deaf ear to their
exhortations and threats.

'He is a slave that dare not be
In the right with two or three,'

as that peaceful Quaker poet of America sings.

And for us, in our little lives, the motto, 'This did not I, because of
the fear of the Lord,' is absolutely essential to all noble Christian
conduct. Unless you are prepared to be in the minority, and now and
then to be called 'narrow,' 'fanatic,' and to be laughed at by men
because you will not do what they do, but abstain and resist, then there
is little chance of your ever making much of your Christian profession.

These people calculated upon Daniel, and they had a right to calculate
upon him. Could the world calculate upon us, that we would rather go to
the lions' den than conform to what God and our consciences told us to
be a sin? If not, we have not yet learned what it means to be a
disciple. The commandment comes to us absolutely, as it came to the
servants in the first miracle, 'Whatsoever He saith unto you'--that, and
that only--'whatsoever He saith unto you, do it.'

FAITH STOPPING THE MOUTHS OF LIONS

'Then the king commanded, and they brought Daniel, and cast him
into the den of lions. Now the king spake and said unto Daniel, Thy
God whom thou servest continually, He will deliver thee. 17. And a