20. Four College Boys Who Kept Strong

(Daniel 1)

Four boys, who were great friends, were taken from their homes and carried far away into a great city in a foreign land to live among strangers. One day the King ordered his officers to select from among the Jewish captive boys four of the brightest, and these four boys were chosen and brought into the King’s palace to be educated for three years in the King’s college for royal service. Thinking it a great honor to them, and that it would make them strong, the King ordered that these boys should be given a daily supply of the rich food and wine, such as he and all his military cadets received. But the very first time the silver tray, with all of these dainties, was brought to these four college boys, one of them, whose name was Daniel, said to the officer who took charge of them, “Please let us not have this rich food and wine, but have plainer food.” The officer laughed and said: “I am afraid that if you do not eat this rich food your faces will become thinner than those of the other college students, and then the King will cut off my head!” But Daniel said: “Try us ten days. Give us only vegetables to eat and water to drink. Then look at our faces and the faces of the other boys that eat the King’s rich food and drink his wine, and see.” The officer said he would try them for ten days. He did so, and at the end of that time their faces were fatter and rosier, their bodies plumper, and their minds clearer, stronger, and brighter than all the other boys. At the end of the three college years, the King sat upon a golden throne, and all the students were brought before him, and he saw that these four were stronger than all the rest, and that they knew ten times as much as the magicians and astrologers in all his kingdom. So Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, these four friends who were true to their principle, showed after all that they kept their health and were stronger and better by going without the rich food and the royal wine.