Now in order that His children _here_, might comprehend His infinite power in controlling, or adapting this element to their happiness, He has manifested this power even with mortality on this earth. Our mortal bodies are susceptible of feeling its painful influences, and of being destroyed by it--save when He intervenes, and changes our nature so that it can have no impression upon us, or makes it a congenial element in which we can enjoy happiness. That He can do, and has done this, we have manifest in the miraculous preservation of the three Hebrew children. For their refusal to forsake the Living God, and worship the idol, or golden image set up by King Nebuchadnezzar, the king commanded that the furnace should be heated seven-fold, and they be bound and cast into it. This was done, and while the heat was so intense as to destroy those who bore them to, and plunged them into the fiery furnace, yet when the king looked into it "he saw four men loose and walking in the midst of the flames; praising God, and blessing the name of the Lord, and the fourth was like unto the Son of God." The king called them to come forth, and when the three who were cast in came forth, "not a hair of their heads was singed, nor even the smell of fire passed on their garments." Thus we see the power of God manifest in the adaptation at His own will, of this,--to our mortal bodies--painful and consuming element, to our condition of happiness. And, on the other hand, when this saving power is withheld, how certain is destruction, as manifested by its destroying those who approached near enough to the furnace to cast them in. O, the measure of happiness those children of the Most High enjoyed in the midst of the burning flames! shouting and praising God. And when they came out of the fiery furnace, they still continued their triumphant shout; calling upon everything--animate, and inanimate--throughout the vast Universe, to "bless, praise and magnify the name of the Lord forever." That God can, and does make this element suited to the enjoyment of happiness of His people, we have also seen manifested in the case of Elijah taking his seat, at the command of God, in the "chariot of fire," and with "horses of fire" ascending up into heaven. Thus, "changed," as the apostle expresses it, "in the twinkling of an eye," his mortality ceased, and "clothed upon with immortality," by Divine power, he could ride in triumph with his steeds of fire, sitting in his chariot of _burning flame_.