Daniel kept the windows of his soul open to the best _religion_. To him Jerusalem stood for the best religion on earth. From the time, as a boy of fourteen, he first went away from home, he had lived among peoples having different faiths. He had known the religion of the Chaldeans, and had seen its phases under Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar. It had much in its favor: its temples were beautiful, its ceremonies ornate, its feasts imposing. It had much however that was not in its favor: its heartlessness, its impurity, and its deceit. He had known, too, the fire-worshiping religion of the Persians. Many of its features appealed to him. The sun then as always was an object of admiration. As it rises above the horizon, moving with a stately progress that no cloud can check, no force of nature can retard, and no hand of man can withstand, it is the personification of majesty. As it causes the birds to sing, the beasts of the field to bestir themselves, and mankind to issue forth to labor, it is the emblem of power. As it makes the grass to grow and the flower to bloom, and as it draws skyward the moisture of lake and ocean that, like a great benefactor, it may send accumulated showers to refresh the parched earth, the sun is a very life-giver. It was no wonder that the Persians of Daniel's day, with their imperfect knowledge, bowed before that sun and worshiped it; nor was it a wonder that they worshiped all fire that has within itself such transforming and beautifying and energizing power. But though Daniel knew this religion, and the many other religions that in his time had their votaries in Babylon, he kept his windows open toward Jerusalem. Other religions might attempt the answer to the soul's inquiries concerning the meaning of life, other religions might have their beauties and their deformities, other religions might help him very materially in his political career, but to him one religion was the highest and the best, and to the influence of that religion he opened his soul. Jerusalem stood for one God--an invisible Creator who formed all things and was Lord over the sun itself as well as over man. This God, an unseen Spirit, was spotless in his character, and would dwell in the heart of man as man's friend and helper. To Daniel there was no such religion anywhere as the religion that taught this incomparable God--a God without a vice, a God who forgives sin, a God who never disdains the weakest soul that comes to him in penitence--and still is "Lord of lords and King of kings," the only wise and only Eternal One. Once a distinguished thinker, addressing students, said: "I have found great benefit in my own experience by emphasizing a very simple principle, one which never fails me when it is applied to questions of the spiritual life: '_It is always best to believe the best._'"