I can see them now just embrace each other, and together they jump into the chariot and away they go back to the palace to breakfast.
I want to say something further about Daniel. I want to refer to how an angel came to him, and, as we read in the twelfth chapter of Daniel, told him he was a man greatly beloved. Another angel had come to him with the same message. It is generally thought this last angel was the same one spoken of in Revelations--first chapter and thirteenth verse--as coming to John when banished to the Isle of Patmos. People thought he was sent off there alone, but he was not; the angel of God was with him.
And so with Daniel. Here, in the tenth chapter and fifth verse, he says: “Then I lifted up mine eyes, and behold, a certain man clothed with fine linen, and otherwise arrayed as God’s messenger, who cried: ‘O Daniel, a man greatly beloved, understand the words which I speak unto thee, and stand upright, for unto thee am I now sent.’”
It was Daniel’s need that brought him from the glory land. It was the Son of God right by his side in that strange land. And that was the second time when the word came to him, saying he was greatly beloved. Yes, three times a messenger came from the throne of God to tell him this. I love to speak of that precious verse in the eleventh chapter--the thirty-second verse: “The people that do know their God shall be strong and do exploits.” I also love to speak of the twelfth chapter and second and third verses: “And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt; and they that be wise shall shine as the stars of the firmament, and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever.”
This was the angel’s comfort to Daniel, and a great comfort it was. The fact with all of us is that we like to shine. There is no doubt about that. Every mother likes her child to shine. If her boy shines at school by reaching the head of his class, the proud mother tells all the neighbors, and she has a right to do so. But it is not the great of this world that will shine the brightest. For a few years they may shed bright light, but they go out in darkness, without an inner brightness. Supplying the brightness, they go out in black darkness.
Where are the great men who did not know Daniel’s God? Did they shine long? Why, we know of Nebuchadnezzar and the rest of them scarcely a thing, except as they fill in the story about these humble men of God. We are not told that statesmen shall shine; they may, for a few days or years, but they are soon forgotten. Look at those great ones who passed away in the days of Daniel. How wise in council they were! How mighty and victorious over hundreds of nations! What gods upon earth they were! Yet their names are forgotten--written only in the grave. Philosophers, falsely so-called--do they live? Behold men of science--scientific men they call themselves--going down into the bowels of the earth, digging away at some carcass and trying to make it talk against the voice of God! They shall go down to death, by-and-by, and their names shall rot.
But the man of God shines. Yes, he it is who shall shine as the stars for ever and ever. This Daniel has been gone for 2,500 years, but still increasing millions read of his life and actions. And so it shall be to the end. He will only be better known and better loved; he shall ever shine the brighter as the world grows older. Of a truth, they that be wise and turn many to righteousness shall shine on, like stars, to eternity.