Page 150 - The Prophet-statesman a Drama of Daniel

and leaned his back against the wall to make himself comfortable for the night. Soon
two cub lions moved in his direction, mot stealthily or crouching as though to make an
attack, but in obvious friendliness, and one lay on each side of Daniel as though to

give him warmth and protection in the chilly dungeon. Presently their mother, an old
lioness, crept over and lay in front of the prophet. He gently stroked their backs as
they each turned their heads and licked his hand.

The law of fallen nature in both man and beast is the law of the tooth, the fang and
the claw. Here was the operation of a law of super-nature and a reversion to Eden and
an anticipation of the millennium. The hostility toward man on the part of the animal
creation for having been sold under the rule of a murderer, will be removed in that

future Utopia when man and beast will be reconciled under the benign rule of
Messiah.

Enclosed by the lioness and her cubs, the head of the patriarch was gradually

pillowed on the back of one of the cubs as the four slept soundly in perfect peace and
tranquility.

He was awakened just about dawn by the breath of the lioness in his face. She was

performing a morning ablution for her offspring, licking them all over. She
interspersed the long strokes of her tongue with an affectionate caress of the hand of
this man who had somehow been a welcome companion of their nocturnal hours.

˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙

As Darius drew near to the den, his heart began to pound wildly. The hope

gendered in him by Daniel’s words, the confident affirmation he had himself made
(“Thy God….He will deliver thee”) and the encouragement he had received from the
aged Queen, all began to fade as he drew near the den and considered what a
tremendous miracle would be required to cause fierce, hungry lions with the smell of

human blood in their nostrils to leave a man untouched.

As Darius came to the den, there was complete silence. Not a sound was audible.

He was just about overcome by hopelessness as he knelt by the stone slab that covered
the opening at the top of the den. He put his mouth down to the crack and cried with a
mournful voice. “Daniel, O Daniel, servant of the Living God, is thy God whom thou
servest continually able to deliver thee from the lions?”

After only a moment’s delay, a clear voice rose from the bowels of the earth. Even
under these strange circumstances and in these unusual environments the courtly