Assyria, after repeatedly coming down upon Israel with terrific armies and hosts, finally subjugated and destroyed that kingdom.

The Babylonians having invaded Juda first during the reign of Manasses, who was taken prisoner and carried off to Babylon for some years, again appeared after the death of the good king Josias, and made various incursions. Headed by their king, Nabuchodonosor, they laid siege to Jerusalem. God had appointed that Babylon should be the scourge for the crimes of Juda, and He suffered the Babylonish king to prevail against the Jews and their king, who was named Joachim, and was a very bad man. He and his father had despised equally the threats and promises of God had persecuted His prophets, and cut to bits with contempt the parchment on which the judgments were written which were pronounced against them by the prophet Jeremias.

King Nabuchodonosor having taken Jerusalem, seized upon the treasures of the temple, all the golden vessels and ornaments which King Solomon had wrought and placed in the House of God, and carried them off to Babylon, where he took as captives the king and all his family, with all the chief nobles of the kingdom, and finally, all those who were above the rank of the labourers on the soil. Nor did the heathen king stop here; for returning to Babylon, he left orders with his general to destroy the temple, and throw down the very walls of Jerusalem. We may imagine the grief and dismay of the Jews, some of whom still retained the worship of God, and with most of whom the temple was a most sacred object, and one dear too to their national pride, when they saw the desecration and destruction of that city and temple which they had held so dear, and which had been bound up with all they held most sacred on earth. The prophet Jeremias has

written a whole book, which is called "The Lamentations," and which contains nothing else but the most pathetic complaints and passionate lamentations over the wickedness of his countrymen, and over the sad state of God's holy city, Jerusalem, now filled with iniquities; and the awful judgments of God upon His people, together with the cruel desolation and destruction of that city and temple, so lately "the city of perfect beauty, the joy of all the earth." It was in the beginning of these sorrows, and before the King of Babylon had fully carried out his work of destruction, that Daniel, who was a young man of the blood royal, was carried away captive to Babylon, with the other princes and nobles of whom we have spoken; and with him were three other young men named Ananias, Misael, and Azarias. And these young men being of a noble appearance, and very clever and skilful, accomplished, as we may say, in sciences and other respects, were selected by the king as suitable inmates for his palace, which they would grace, he thought, by their learning and beauty. He therefore desired that they might be taught the Chaldean language and science, and directed that they might be supplied with his own wine, and with food from the palace for three years, in order that they might appear still more comely at the end of that time, and fitted to become his courtiers. But Daniel and his three companions were men of great piety, and had kept God's laws from their youth. They therefore shrank with horror from eating of the meats from the table of the heathen king, which were most of them meats forbidden to Jews by their religion, or had been offered to idols. Daniel therefore entreated Malasar, one of the chief officers of King Nabuchodonosor's household, not to let them have these sumptuous meats from the palace. Malasar liked Daniel,

but told him that he feared the king's anger if his commands were not obeyed. Daniel then implored him to try, only for ten days, giving them pulse or vegetables only with a little water; and "as thou shalt see, so deal with thy servants," said he. Then Malasar tried this rule, as Daniel had petitioned of him; and at the end of the ten days "their faces appeared fairer and fatter than all the children that eat of the king's meat." God miraculously ordained that His servants should preserve their fair appearance upon this poor food, as a reward for their resolute adherence to Him and to His laws. And at the end of the three years Daniel, Ananias, Misael, and Azarias were brought before the king, who found them far surpassing all the wise men of his kingdom in wisdom and understanding. But Daniel's piety and holiness were so great, that God endowed him with the gift of prophecy, which he was soon called upon to exercise in the court of this heathen king, as we shall hear.

KING NABUCHODONOSOR'S DREAM. BEFORE going further in the history of Daniel, let us a little consider the character of this child of God, for so indeed we may call all those youthful saints whose burning desire from their youth up has been to love and serve God with all their heart, soul, and strength. Daniel, we have been told, was of noble birth, and consequent riches; he was young, handsome, and accomplished, naturally clever, and in all respects likely to attract those by whom he was surrounded. And although he was indeed a captive and an exile from his own country, yet he was placed in the court of a great king, and surrounded by every temptation that we can imagine.

But Daniel's heart was not moved by the splendour and magnificence with which he was surrounded, great as that was in the court of an Eastern king; his heart and his love and all his desires were in the Court of a far greater King, even the Eternal Lord of heaven and earth; and, as we shall see, all his actions and his thoughts were directed to attaining the favour of his God, and defending His honour and glory in the midst of idolaters. Great are the wonders of God in His saints, but perhaps in none are His wonders so great as in those who, like Joseph and Daniel in early times, and St. Aloysius and St. Elizabeth of Hungary in later days, trample on the world, and tread Satan under foot in his greatest strongholds, those nurseries of pride and luxury, the courts of kings.

The kings of Babylon were great and very powerful monarchs. We know that royal persons are but little accustomed to contradiction, and used to much flattery; but if this be so with kings generally, it was doubly the case with these great Eastern monarchs, whose power was absolute, and on whose single word the lives of their subjects depended. Now King Nabuchodonosor had a dream which filled his mind with terror; but when he awaked in the morning, he could not recall the particulars of his dream, he could only remember that his spirit had been greatly terrified with all he had seen and heard in his dream. So this king sent to all his diviners, his wise men, his magicians, and Chaldeans, who were the astrologers, or people who pretended to divine or make out the hidden things of the future by stars, and told them how he had had a dreadful dream, and how, being troubled in his mind, he knew not what he had seen. Then the Chaldeans answered the king in the Syriac language, and said, "O king, live for ever. Tell to thy servants thy dream, and we will de

clare the interpretation thereof." This answer, however, only stirred up the king's wrath; for he had sent for them in order that by their enchantments they might dive into his spirit, and bring back to his mind all that he had seen in his dream, and which was now hidden from him. And the king answering, said to the Chaldeans, "The thing is gone out of my mind. Unless you tell me the dream and the meaning thereof, you shall be put to death, and your houses shall be confiscated." Although these Chaldeans and others of the king's subjects were used enough to the most absolute and unreasonable commands from the great king of Babylon, yet on this occasion no doubt they thought he was gone quite mad, to desire them to tell him his very thoughts and imaginations. "There is no man upon earth," they answered him, "that can accomplish thy word, O king; neither doth any king, though great and mighty, ask such a thing of any diviner, or wise man, or Chaldean. No one," they added, can be found that can show it before the king, except the gods, whose conversation is not with men.

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No one, indeed, has power to read the human heart except God, Who sometimes, however, gives this power to His saints; and we shall now hear how Daniel proved himself a very saint indeed, to whom the Lord vouchsafed this power, a power which even Joseph had not possessed: as, though God gave him the gift of interpreting dreams, He granted him not that of revealing the secrets of the hearts of others, like Daniel. It would seem as if, as the of the years world rolled on, and the time of the coming of the Christ approached, His saints came nearer to the Divine likeness, and were a yet closer imitation of Him in His knowledge and wisdom and power, receiving yet more and more brilliant rays in their crowns of light from Him who is Light Itself.