urtured on vegetable diet and water.
But whatever the want of ground in his objection, it was enough that he
made it. Note that he puts it entirely on possible harmful results to
himself, and that silences Daniel, who had no right to ask another to
run his head into the noose, into which he was ready to put his own, if
necessary. Martyrs by proxy, who have such strong convictions that they
think it somebody else's duty to run risk for them, are by no means
unknown.

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 ex