I. We will consider THE DREAMER. The dreamer of the text was an Eastern monarch. There he is in secure possession of his throne. Famed as a skilful soldier and victor, he is the mightiest monarch on the face of the earth. Babylon, the seat of his empire, the place of his throne, is among the most imposing and great of the ancient cities of the world. This is the home of this royal dreamer. See him in the midst of it. Seated on his throne, around him stand his chief men of state, his eunuchs, priests, princes, and captains, all in their many-coloured and glittering garbs. He is troubled. What has gone wrong? Has some part of his kingdom broken out into rebellion? Has the death-plague seized upon his friends and chief councillors? Nay, he has had a dream, a simple dream. The world owes a great deal to its dreamers. Some have blessed the world by the great victories which they won. What a great and noble company the dreamers make. John Bunyan dreamed the "Pilgrim's Progress," a book which, next to the Bible, which it illustrates, has had a larger circulation than any other book in the world. That was a grand dream, and the world owes much to it. Columbus was a dreamer. He had visions of another and a great land across an unexplored and unknown ocean. Sir Christopher Wren was a dreamer. He had a vision of St. Paul's, and it grew up in the city of London.

II. THE DREAM. The dreamer was a mighty monarch. The dream was worthy of the dreamer.. However great the dreamer, the dream was not less so. He Went to rest that night with his mind full of great and important thoughts. He thought of what wars had been, and wondered what wars would be. He knew himself secure on his throne then. But did he think that soon he would be gone? He wondered "what should come to pass hereafter." It was a great dream. No idolater ever had a greater dream, and but few men any so great. He went out far beyond himself. The present did not satisfy him. He wanted to pull back the curtain and see what was beyond. Have we not all had dreams like this? Think you that this king was the only man who ever felt dissatisfied with the present? Have not we all tried to look beyond? I have had a vision of God; it may have been a dream, but I have thought about Him. I have looked around me in the world, and have seen traces of Him. The great mountains and the mighty ocean, which I have seen in the majesty of its fury, have said something to me of the greatness of God. I seem to have had visions of love, and mercy, and pity, but I can't quite find out myself, I want some one to interpret. I can't myself quite solve it all. "Canst thou by searching find out God?" asks one in ancient days who also had dreams about God. Then I have had dreams of the soul and its destiny. I have dreamed of "what shall come to pass hereafter." Then I have had visions and dreams of a future in which justice and righteousness shall prevail, in which the glaring iniquities and wrongs of this present life shall all be set right. But have we not had dreams of another sort? Sometimes we have felt with sorrow and shame our own weakness and badness. We have become conscious that we were out of harmony with things around us. There is a something within us which speaks to us. Call it conscience or anything else — there it is. I have dreamed of forgiveness, how to get it, and where. Who can tell me? Who can interpret for me all these dreams of mine? Is there any Daniel whom I can call into court who shall reveal to me all these secrets?

III. THE INTERPRETATION of this dream. Daniel was able to tell the king his dream, and also to expound it. And what an exposition it was! Kingdom succeeds kingdom, monarch follows monarch. The Babylonian head of gold, the Persian breast of silver, the Grecian thighs of brass, and the Roman legs of iron, all come and go as Daniel expounds the dream.. There are two things we must note in this interpretation.

1. The Christ kingdom symbolised by the stone cut from the mountain without hands.

2. The second thing I wish to note is that this Christ prefigured by the mountain stone is the interpreter of all my dreams of God, the soul, and a future state. In His school I get my answer. I have been to other schools and could not learn. Nebuchadnezzar summoned all his wise monk They were accustomed to interpret dreams, but they were perplexed now. When I come to Christ He interprets my dream. Be not only reveals God to me, but He tells me of His love and kindness. God is love. God is a Father. God cares for me. Jesus Christ tells me how I can be at peace with God through Himself. He tells me about things which are to come to pass. Jesus Christ is God's answer to all my questions, and visions, and dreams.

(C. Leach, D.D.)

1. The dream reveals the nature of his ambitions. It shows that his mind was busy with projects of conquest, and the cares of government, and the hopes of secure power. How natural that these engrossing thoughts of his waking hours should pursue him in sleep and give complexion to the visions of the night.

2. But the dream was sent by Divine agency. It was not only natural, but also supernatural. This is not the first nor only time that God has vouchsafed to make his revelations to heathen minds. Balaam is a notable instance of prophetic gifts bestowed upon unworthy persons. All extraordinary channels of Divine communications were no doubt selected for a purpose; and while the light of revelation shines steadily upon his own chosen people, yet he vouchsafes occasional flashes upon other minds to illuminate some truth which may be best illuminated in that way.

3. The dream is forgotten. Strangely given, it was strangely recalled. The honour shall be God's and God's alone. God will show by an infallible sign that it is His revelation, and will not suffer the Chaldean sages to tinker with its interpretation. Nothing remained but the disturbing sense of having seen strange things, and an abiding conviction that these things were closely related to his destiny. To whom shall he turn in his perplexity?

II. THE DEMAND. We may well imagine the surprise and alarm of the sooth-sayers and magicians when they become acquainted with the nature of the king's demand. Had they been quite sure that the king had indeed forgotten his dream they might have very easily invented one to satisfy him; but I suppose they were apprehensive lest this was only a snare cunningly placed by this intelligent monarch to expose their duplicity. It seemed to them the safer plan, then, not to hazard so dangerous an expedient, but to declare their inability to do more than interpret the dream when told. The king, however, reiterates his demand.

1. The Chaldeans maintain that this demand is unjust in that it was without precedent. There is a true and a false law of precedent. It is undoubtedly true that whoever demands or enacts a new thing, a thing counter to existing usages, must have strong and unquestionable reasons for such a course. There are always presumptions against novelties and innovations, and one who appeals to custom has an undeniably strong ground to rest upon. On the other hand, the law of precedent can create nothing more than presumption. It still leaves the reason of the thing to be inquired into. It is probable the imperious temper of this monarch would not be baulked by an appeal to customary usages.

2. They further maintain the injustice of this demand on the ground that it is beyond human power to comply with it. They say: "There is none other that can show it before the king, except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh." Some have supposed this declaration that the dwelling of the gods "is not with flesh" to be indicative of scepticism. It was the cardinal belief of the Babylonians that the gods were very near to men. Their temples, and sacrifices, and priestly rites proceeded upon that belief. These Chaldeans, then, are supposed, under the influence of their great peril, to betray here their utter disbelief in these hollow mockeries. And the lesson is drawn from it: "Alas, that this unbelief should so often, in Christian as well as in Pagan times, have found a nest for itself so near the altar!" But I would rather believe that these Chaldeans, whose studies brought them in contact with the mighty works of God, had more exalted conceptions of the deity than those which prevailed among the masses.

3. In this view the demand was not so unreasonable as the Chaldeans would make it appear. They had wilfully imposed upon both king and people, laying claim to mysterious arts by which they could read secret things; and had no doubt taken care that this faith in their powers should be implicit and well-nigh unlimited. They could scarcely complain, then, when they are taken at their word. Skilled in plausibility and ambiguity, they no doubt relied on these powers to cover up a failure when one occurred, and to impose successfully upon the credulity of the king.

4. It is a great gain to the cause of truth when impositions are detected. So, then, Nebuchadnezzar deserves praise for pressing this matter to a decisive issue. The cause of religion no doubt suffers a shock when priestly pretensions are thrown in the crucible and tested, but it rises from such shocks to greater stability, and usefulness, and power.

III. THE DECREE. Whatever may be said of his demand, certainly the decree of the king is indefensible. These wise men had done nothing worthy of death. Moreover, there were many among the Chaldeans who laid no claim to magic powers, but who contented themselves with the sciences, as patient and laborious students, and it was not only manifest injustice, but strange impolicy to include them in this sweeping condemnation. Yet more, why should Daniel and his friends, who had but just passed their novitiate and who had not been consulted at all, share their fate? But rage is blind and knows no discrimination. There are not wanting some, as an illustration of this spirit, who would obliterate Christianity because of unworthy Christians; and no one can estimate what man has suffered from this stupid lack of the power of rational discrimination.

IV. CONCLUSION. What a striking picture is here presented us of Nebuchadnezzar and his wise men trying, by human devices, to arrive at the mind of God! How we yearn for man when we behold his boundless aspirations confronted by his impotent nothingness! But it was well that human skill should first exhaust its resources in endeavouring to know the mind of God. It was a proper prelude to God's revelation, this confession of impotence: "There is none other that can show it before the king, except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh." It is a law of God's providence that He will not intervene until man has discovered his own absolute inability, and felt his imperative need.

(The Southern Pulpit.)

1. The first is knowledge of human nature. Let me ask you to put yourselves for the moment in the position of those who had this somewhat unreasonable demand made upon them. Their answer to his demand was very simple and fair. "We are perfectly ready," they said, "to interpret your dream, but our ministrations extend thus far; tell us the dream and we will tell the meaning." But the king, whose vision was elevated, perhaps, by the dream which he had experienced, began to see that he was surrounded by those who were in a large measure but charlatans; and prompted by this, he perhaps insists all the more pertinaciously on the condition. "You profess to be able to interpret my dreams. How do I know that your interpretations are true? Tell me what the dream was, and I can verify your accuracy. In other words, vindicate your pretensions in a sphere where I can test them, and then I will be able to give you my faith in the sphere where I cannot test them. I cannot verify your interpretations, but I can verify your statement of what passed through my mind. You profess to explain my life to me, and all the destiny that awaits it; if it be in your power to do this, show, first, that you understand me, and then I will believe that you can unfold my destiny." And that, in itself, when you come to study it, is no unfair condition. It may be unreasonable in the circumstances in which it was used, but there is a vein of reason, and there is a vein of fairness in it; for when you reflect upon it there is no power in a man to teach and to speak concerning the future, unless he has a certain knowledge of the present. The man who can read deepest into the circumstances and the situation of the present is the man who is far the more likely to be able to forecast the future. You would not entrust your case to the doctor who had no knowledge of your symptoms. You would believe that the man, and the man only, who could read into your symptoms, would be able to track the probable development of the disease. It is the same in nature. The naturalist cannot predict a harvest except he understands the nature of the seed, and it is just in proportion as he is possessed of the power of insight that he is possessed of the power of foresight. That is taught us in the pages of history. As long as men thought, as it were, to out-manoeuvre Nature, and to read her secrets by ignoring her face, they simply courted defeat. These were the astrologers, the charlatans of science; but the moment they took up the other attitude, and began to scan closely the features of nature, and sought earnestly to understand the meaning of her thoughts, they began to discover her laws, and discovering them they had the power by which they could predict what would be the evolution of those laws. And if that be true in the law and order of nature, has it its counterpart in the moral order also? Place ourselves for a moment in the position of the king. Daniel comes and unfolds to him the vision. That splendid vision, that noble and colossal figure, represented what had passed through the king's mind, not that night only, but every night. It had been the dream of his life, the splendour and the magnificence of his position; the glorious headship which he held over the empire which he thought his own, from the high 'vantage ground of which he looked down in proud contempt upon human kind. His thoughts were read. The man's heart is read; his vision, and all the subtle play of his thoughts is unfolded to him. "The man that can toll me these secrets of my heart is the man into whose hand I will place my destiny and bid him point the way along the track of my life. He can understand what is the outcome of this career of mine who thus understands me." And wherever men have been in the position of prophets of their age, their strength and power has depended upon their capacity to read the minds and the play of thought of the men of their age. If they are not familiar with this life they cannot have any power to deal with the life that lies beyond. The men who stood in their day foremost had an intimate knowledge of human nature. Take, for example, what, after all, is an illustration in the same direction. This Book of God has found its dominion over the minds and the lives of men because it has always displayed itself as a book well read in the deeps of human nature. "I say," said one, rising from the perusal of it, "the person who wrote that Book knew me." "I believe," said one, who was cut off only too early in his splendid and promising career, "I believe it to be God's Book because it is man's Book;" that is to say, it has such a power to fit into the needs of human kind that it vindicates its divine strength because of the very humanity of its methods. And this is what we may call the divine key to the method which God Himself has adopted in the life and pattern of Jesus Christ. He comes into our midst to be the Divine Teacher. He understands men. "Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig-tree I saw thee — I knew the devout aspirations of thy life," and that breaks down the thought. "This teacher understands me. Rabbi, Thou art the Son of God; Thou art the Judge of Israel." Sometimes we feel ourselves a little disheartened. The cynic turns aside and says, "It is true your Christianity is played out, your religion effete." I say it is an unwise thing for a man to echo these doleful plaints. May it not be the case that we have lost touch with humanity, that we have failed to understand human nature as it is before us in the century in which we live; that we have allowed, so to speak, our Christian teaching to grow fossilised, and the fossilised thing has lost its life and the hands and feet of its movement, and it cannot grasp upon the heart of humanity again?

2. But let us look at this second condition — the knowledge of a Divine order. What was the interpretation of the dream? Here stood this colossal figure, glittering with its varied metals. By-and-by, "without hands," came the stone which smote upon it, and then, as in a moment, all the magnificence dropped into pieces, and these huge masses of metal, which had been the admiration of the world a moment ago, are lifted as things light, as "the char upon the summer threshing-floor," and swept away, and the little stone begins to grow, and to take the place of this great image, and to fill the world itself. Of course, you may say the figure represented the empires which were existing and which were to follow — Persia, Greece, Rome, or, if you will have it so, the Egyptian or the Syrian kingdoms; but whatever the historical interpretation, the ethical interpretation is for you and me. That splendid dream, and that magnificent figure which appeared in the king's dream, is the dream of man in all ages; it is the dream of self-realisation. He who dreams is king. He sees that grand figure bearing human form, dominating the plain; and this is the ambition of men in all ages; but as he beholds he sees it in its glory and in its weakness. He sees it in its splendour — there is the effort of man to realise himself. It was so with all those who endeavoured to establish any solid, single monarchy. From the days of Nebuchadnezzar or Nimrod, if you will, to the days of Napoleon, this has been the same dream, "I will take my idea, and I will impress it upon the world, and I will mould that earth and all the creatures that are in it to my will, and I shall dominate all." That is the ambition; what I want you to notice is, that it is the effort of a man to realise self in some form or other. That is an instinct which does not simply breathe into the hearts of' great conquerors, or great founders of monarchies; there is not a human being created with a soul or an intelligence that had not had the dream that he will realise himself. The artist who seeks to cast his ideas on the canvas so as to speak his thoughts in richness and detail to his follow men — he is seeking to realise himself — his own idea painted there. Even in the home life you can see it. This joy of home life has largely its play and its beauty because it is the very thing in which we see that in our children we live again — we realise ourselves in them. This instinct of self-realisation is at the root of man's best ambitions as well as his worst, and as it is at the root of them you can understand why it is, but the life and the form of that which was given him from God; for God Himself, if we may in reverence say it, has made His world but the picture of the same principle in Himself. The world is God realising Himself in material beauty; the page of history is God realising Himself in moral order, and this Christian revelation is God realising Himself in spiritual splendour to humanity; and I am not surprised if this, the very impulse of God, be self-realisation that He may manifest His greatness and His love, that therefore we, drawing our life from His hand, should be filled with a like instinct. But while this colossal figure in the vision is shown in its splendour, it is also shown in its weakness. This little stone, without hands, should demolish the whole; man's best and noblest dreams, man's most brilliant ambitions, are destined to be overthrown. And why? This stone represents precisely that unseen, that handless power which has not its origin in the conceptions of man, but in the nature of things; it is just the picture of what you see in nature. Man builds his noble shrines, he rears his sumptuous palaces, he spreads abroad the magnificent tokens of his power; but law, re-written deep down in the heart of nature, lays its hand upon all these creations of man's genius, and overturns all that man creates. In the precincts of moral order the law will overturn also; under this condition, all that is up built disregarding God's eternal law must perish. It is not merely because man made it that it must die, but it is that man made it in violation of eternal law. Three laws were violated in its erection — the law of time and growth, the law of righteousness, the law of solidarity. The law of time, because this is that which is built up, made — it does not grow in contradistinction to the stone "without hands." That grows, this is made. That which is made, as it were, is merely built and at variance with the law of growth. The things which are alive grow, and in those things in which there is any moral life there is the capacity of growing. All the best things of this world grow, but the impatience of man hastens them onward. God will make a kingdom, but men with their impatience say, "We will make it in our own time," and therefore at all costs — at the cost of blood, at the cost of righteousness, the kingdoms are made. These empires have perished. Why? Because they violated eternal laws of God; and as surely as the power of natural law can overthrow every shrine of human erection, so surely must every kingdom, every monarch, every race, every nationality, every church die and perish, if it tries to construct itself out of God's due time and out of God's due order. And as it thus violated the law of growth, by the very impatience of its construction, you know that it violated the law of rectitude. Men often imagine that they can do the right thing, but that they can do it in any way they please. There are two sentinels that stand at the outgoing of the temple of God; the one is the sentinel of a right way and the other of a right thing, and you are not permitted to build where God builds for all eternity, unless you be directed by the right thing and also by the right way. The weakness of life, as we often see it, is that men are passionately devoted to some great and noble enterprise, but they undermine the very foundations of their own edifice, because, while they seek the right thing they miss the right way, and that is the secret of many a failure. It sinned also against the law of solidarity. If you look at the construction of this image, you will find that it is merely a piling together: there is no homogeneity about it, it is heterogeneous; I am of gold, and I will be the head of all; I am of silver, and I will be the strength of all; I am of brass and I will be power of fertility to all, and my iron heel shall be planted upon all. Christ has made all men to be of one blood upon the face of the earth, and the kingdom which He establishes shall be built up not with materials which shall represent the dignity, the glory, or the pre-eminence of one nation or one people over another, but that wider and better glory, which is the organisation of humanity unto a loving, living whole. "Then, if that be the doom, as it were, of this dream of humanity," we begin to say, "is it not, then, a sad close to it all?" If the instinct to realise self, that is, to leave some impress of our own upon the world ere we die, be a great and a God-given impulse, and if what we see is the constant overthrow of all our schemes, are we, then, to settle down into a miserable pessimism and say, "It is vain ever to expect the realisation of human dreams?" Nay, not so. This little stone "without hands" takes the place of this overthrown image; it grows; it is the empire of heart, the kingdom which cannot be shaken; and, therefore, there has never passed through human mind a noble and a true dream that God does not see the way to realise. He breaks down our little efforts to realise it that He may substitute His own. Never let us think, then, that we are to be for ever disappointed by incessant and perpetual failures. The world grows old, but with it there grows, also, the everlasting and the ripening purposes of God.

(Bp. Boyd Carpenter.)

     5366   king
     5533   sleep, physical
     5537   sleeplessness
     5933   restlessness

Daniel 2:1-3

     5935   riddles

Daniel 2:1-13

     8709   astrology

Book and Tract Catalogue.
THE PLAN OF REDEMPTION. BY I. C. WELLCOME AND C. GOUD. "The Plan of Redemption is an earnest book, evidently prepared after no little study, and with a conscientious desire to advance the cause of Christ. The Bible is made the basis of argument; it contains many fresh and well considered suggestions. The careful reader will find much that is valuable."--Watchman and Reflector. "This treatise aims to serve up the gospel scheme in a compact form. It states the plan and work well, and usually correctly. …
Dwight L. Moody—That Gospel Sermon on the Blessed Hope

Editor's Preface
Professor Maspero does not need to be introduced to us. His name is well known in England and America as that of one of the chief masters of Egyptian science as well as of ancient Oriental history and archaeology. Alike as a philologist, a historian, and an archaeologist, he occupies a foremost place in the annals of modern knowledge and research. He possesses that quick apprehension and fertility of resource without which the decipherment of ancient texts is impossible, and he also possesses a sympathy …
G. Maspero—History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, V 1

The Scattering of the People
[Illustration: (drop cap A) The Fish-god of Assyria and Babylonia] At last the full punishment for their many sins fell upon God's chosen people. The words of warning written in the fifth book of Moses had told them plainly that if they turned aside and worshipped the wicked idol-gods of Canaan, the Lord would take their country from them and drive them out into strange lands. Yet again and again they had yielded to temptation. And now the day of reckoning had come. Nebuchadnezzar, the great king …
Mildred Duff—The Bible in its Making

That Gospel Sermon on the Blessed Hope
In 2 Timothy, 3:16, Paul declares: "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness;" but there are some people who tell us when we take up prophecy that it is all very well to be believed, but that there is no use in one trying to understand it; these future events are things that the church does not agree about, and it is better to let them alone, and deal only with those prophecies which have already been …
Dwight L. Moody—That Gospel Sermon on the Blessed Hope

Epistle Xliii. To Eulogius and Anastasius, Bishops.
To Eulogius and Anastasius, Bishops. Gregory to Eulogius, Bishop of Alexandria, and Anastasius, Bishop of Antioch. When the excellent preacher says, As long as I am the apostle of the Gentiles I will honour my ministry (Rom. xi. 13); saying again in another place, We became as babes among you (1 Thess. ii. 7), he undoubtedly shews an example to us who come after him, that we should retain humility in our minds, and yet keep in honour the dignity of our order, so that neither should our humility be …
Saint Gregory the Great—the Epistles of Saint Gregory the Great

A Description of Heart-Purity
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Matthew 5:8 The holy God, who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity' calls here for heart-purity, and to such as are adorned with this jewel, he promises a glorious and beatifical vision of himself: they shall see God'. Two things are to be explained the nature of purity; the subject of purity. 1 The nature of purity. Purity is a sacred refined thing. It stands diametrically opposed to whatsoever defiles. We must distinguish the various kinds …
Thomas Watson—The Beatitudes: An Exposition of Matthew 5:1-12

The Wisdom of God
The next attribute is God's wisdom, which is one of the brightest beams of the Godhead. He is wise in heart.' Job 9:9. The heart is the seat of wisdom. Cor in Hebraeo sumitur pro judicio. Pineda. Among the Hebrews, the heart is put for wisdom.' Let men of understanding tell me:' Job 34:44: in the Hebrew, Let men of heart tell me.' God is wise in heart, that is, he is most wise. God only is wise; he solely and wholly possesses all wisdom; therefore he is called, the only wise God.' I Tim 1:17. All …
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

The Wicked Husbandmen.
"Hear another parable: There was a certain householder, which planted a vineyard, and hedged it round about, and digged a winepress in it, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country: and when the time of the fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the husbandmen, that they might receive the fruits of it. And the husbandmen took his servants, and beat one, and killed another, and stoned another. Again, he sent other servants more than the first: and they did unto …
William Arnot—The Parables of Our Lord

The First Great Group of Parables.
(Beside the Sea of Galilee.) Subdivision B. Parable of the Sower. ^A Matt. XIII. 3-23; ^B Mark IV. 3-25; ^C Luke VIII. 5-18. ^a Behold, ^c 5 The sower went forth to sow his seed [Orientals live in cities and towns. Isolated farmhouses are practically unknown. A farmer may therefore live several miles from his field, in which case he literally "goes forth" to it]: ^b 4 And it came to pass, as he sowed, some seed { ^a seeds } fell by the way side, ^c and it was trodden under foot, and the birds of …
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

The Necessity of Regeneration, Argued from the Immutable Constitution of God.
John III. 3. John III. 3. Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. WHILE the ministers of Christ are discoursing of such a subject, as I have before me in the course of these Lectures, and particularly in this branch of them which I am now entering upon, we may surely, with the utmost reason, address our hearers in those words of Moses to Israel, in the conclusion of his dying discourse: Set your hearts unto all …
Philip Doddridge—Practical Discourses on Regeneration

Letters of St. Bernard
I To Malachy. 1141.[924] (Epistle 341.) To the venerable lord and most blessed father, Malachy, by the grace of God archbishop of the Irish, legate of the Apostolic See, Brother Bernard called to be abbot of Clairvaux, [desiring] to find grace with the Lord. 1. Amid the manifold anxieties and cares of my heart,[925] by the multitude of which my soul is sore vexed,[926] the brothers coming from a far country[927] that they may serve the Lord,[928] thy letter, and thy staff, they comfort …
H. J. Lawlor—St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh

Lii. Concerning Hypocrisy, Worldly Anxiety, Watchfulness, and his Approaching Passion.
(Galilee.) ^C Luke XII. 1-59. ^c 1 In the meantime [that is, while these things were occurring in the Pharisee's house], when the many thousands of the multitude were gathered together, insomuch that they trod one upon another [in their eagerness to get near enough to Jesus to see and hear] , he began to say unto his disciples first of all [that is, as the first or most appropriate lesson], Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. [This admonition is the key to the understanding …
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

Annunciation of the Birth of Jesus.
(at Nazareth, b.c. 5.) ^C Luke I. 26-38. ^c 26 Now in the sixth month [this is the passage from which we learn that John was six months older than Jesus] the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth [Luke alone tells us where Mary lived before the birth of Jesus. That Nazareth was an unimportant town is shown by the fact that it is mentioned nowhere in the Old Testament, nor in the Talmud, nor in Josephus, who mentions two hundred four towns and cities of Galilee. The …
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

The First Sayings of Jesus --His Ideas of a Divine Father and of a Pure Religion --First Disciples.
Joseph died before his son had taken any public part. Mary remained, in a manner, the head of the family, and this explains why her son, when it was wished to distinguish him from others of the same name, was most frequently called the "son of Mary."[1] It seems that having, by the death of her husband, been left friendless at Nazareth, she withdrew to Cana,[2] from which she may have come originally. Cana[3] was a little town at from two to two and a half hours' journey from Nazareth, at the foot …
Ernest Renan—The Life of Jesus

The Gospel of the Kingdom.
"This is He whom Seers in old time Chanted of with one accord; Whom the voices of the Prophets Promised in their faithful word." We have seen that, in the providence of God, John the Baptist was sent to proclaim to the world that "The Kingdom of Heaven" was at hand, and to point out the King. And as soon as the Herald had raised the expectation of men by the proclamation of the coming Kingdom, our Lord began His public ministry, the great object of which was the founding of His Kingdom for the salvation …
Edward Burbidge—The Kingdom of Heaven; What is it?

Daniel
Daniel is called a prophet in the New Testament (Matt. xxiv. 15). In the Hebrew Bible, however, the book called by his name appears not among the prophets, but among "the writings," between Esther and Ezra. The Greek version placed it between the major and the minor prophets, and this has determined its position in modern versions. The book is both like and unlike the prophetic books. It is like them in its passionate belief in the overruling Providence of God and in the sure consummation of His …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament