Vers. 28--83.-The king's mad'MSs. I. INSANITY 18 SOMETIMES THE DIBEOT RESULT AND NATURAL PENALTY OF WRONG CONDUCT. .Although the physician may rightly detect here the symptoms of brain-disease, the religions teacher may go further, and see in this br.i.in-disease the fruits of moral faults. InsaniLy ofteu shows itself as much in moral as in intellectual aberration-especially in its earlier stages. In ma.ny cases it can be traced back to the indulgence of animal iuslincts, passions, and self-will, to the neglect of hi 6her restraining infiueuces. 1. Irregular self-will tends to insanity. Nebuchadnezzar was a tyrant whose merest caprice became a law for bis vast empire. If such a man has no moral principles to guide him, the iuordinate indulgeucc of his wild will must be so contrary to the natural course of life that his mind will be in danger of losing its balance. Lunacy is often only the full develop- ment of the vice that throws off all restraints. He who would keep his mind in perfect sanity should learn to yield his will to a higher will. 2. Inordinate self-conceit tends to insanity. The king's madness came upon him when he was elated with vanity (ver. 30). Insane people Bie commonly inclined to dwell on their grievances or their imagined greatness, and this absurd habit may often be traced back to an over-sensitiveness or an undue elation with regard to their own worthiness. It is never healthy to think much a.bout ourselves. Mental soundness is best secured by self-forgetting activity and concern for the interests of the large world around us. 1'he habit of introspection and the indulg:ence in a too subjective religious experience a.re causes of religions insanity. They who incline in this direction should remember our Lord's caution (Matt. x. 39). !I. WHEN BRUTAL PA6Sl0KS HAVE BEEN THE BULiliG POWERS IN LIFE, THE HUMILliTION OF THE DB.U'l'E MAY BE A REASONABLE BETBIDUTION. Nebuchadnezzar Lad shown himself to be governed by passions which can only be described as brutal, and vet he had been honoured with little less than Divine worship. Here was the great.est inconsistency between desert and experience. Frequently this inconsistency is preserved all through a man's life, because judgment is deferred. But whenever judament is given, it must be expected that, while the man of spiritual character will be ~xalted to a state of fitting honour, the mau of brutal passif)n will be put down to one of brutal degradation; for it is just that there should b3 harmony between the outer and the inner life. Perhaps this is implied in St. Paul's teaching about "the spiritual body" (1 Cor. xv. 44), which may Le just the most exact expression and closest-fittina vesture of the soul The principle of justice which underlies the fantastic Ori~ntal doctriue of the transmigration of souls may thus be exemplified in tt,e various rank.a and orders of bodily life in tl1e future world. He who would cle.iD.J t,, rank as superior to the brute creation must justify his claim by a cor- re;pondiug elevati,,u of conduct. ell, IV, 1-37,] 'rlIE TIOOK OF DANIEL.
III. '1'11Enm IS A SPIRITUAL INSANITY IN WHICH MEN REN'OUNCE TAE PnIVII,P:Gf.B AND DUTIES OF THEIR IIIOHER NATURE, AND LIVE AB IF TlIEY HAD NOTHISG ADrlVI': TUE ANIMAL IN TIIEM. The degradation of Nebuchadnezzar finds its Bpiritua\ counterpart in the voluntary behaviour of multitudes. They have human soulB, yet they live ll8 though they should perish like mere animals. They are made in th,, image of God, yet they act after the manner of brutes. They have spiritual faculties which they blind and deaden with animal passions. If we were not so familiar with such people, and did not all of us, more or less, share their faults, it would be difficult not to regard them as the worst of madmen. While we shudder at the calamity of Nebuchadnezzar, should we not be far more appalled at the awful depravity of so large a part of the human world which calmly accepts a fate in all moral respects its equivalent P