Article September 1, 1917 Issue

The Lions

HELEN C. HALDANE

Many have gained help from a study of Daniel's life, and especially his experience when cast into the lions' den. All such stories in the Bible are very useful to Christian Scientists in working out their individual problems.

One lesson gained in this instance is from the way Daniel showed what the seeming error was that had to be destroyed. It was not the lions in the den : they had nothing to do with Daniel, and his realization of this doubtless overcame his fear, so that to his consciousness they were harmless. On page 514 of Science and Health we find the definition of lion as an idea of divine Mind. It reads as follows: "Moral courage is 'the lion of the tribe of Juda,' the king of the mental realm. Free and fearless it roams in the forest. Undisturbed it lies in the open field, or rests in 'green pastures, . . . beside the still waters.'" Daniel's work was to know that the counterfeit lions of mortal belief were envy, jealousy, malice, and criticism, the belief of place and power,—manifested as ravenous beasts,—and that all the false accusations of mortal mind, even under the laws of the Medes and Persians, could not harm God's idea, expressing purity, innocency, and justice.

Daniel started his work by giving thanks to God, his King. He neither feared nor gave power to any law but the divine, or to any government but that of justice and Truth. He recognized that his position did not depend on human personality, but upon divine Principle. By this understanding of Truth, and this consciousness of the ever-presence and protecting power of infinite Love, the mouths of evil were shut, and the malicious thought had no power but to uncover and destroy itself.

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