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BELSHAZZAR'S FEAST.

BELSHAZZAR'S FEAST.

BELSHAZZAR, the son of Evilmerodach and grandson of Nebuchadnezzar the great, was one of the most vicious princes of his time. He ascended the throne of Chaldea in the year of the world 3444. Four years after he gave a great entertainment to a thousand of his courtiers, at which every one drank according to his age. This entertainment terminated with his life, and his reign, therefore, continued but four years. During his impious revelry upon this memorable occasion, Belshazzar, heated with wine, sent for the gold and silver vessels which his grandfather had brought from Jerusalem, where he despoiled the temple and laid sacrilegious hands upon its sacred utensils, used by the Jews in their temple service. These, the Chaldean King deposited in the sanctuary of Baal his God; thus his grandson was guilty of a double impiety in profaning them at a public banquet. When they were brought into the court of the palace where the entertainment was given, Belshazzar, placing them before his wives, his concubines, and his drunken courtiers, commanded that they should drink out of them. This daring desecration of the sacred vessels did not pass without its punishment. In the midst of their abominable festivity, while "they drank wine and praised the gods of gold and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone; in the same hour came forth fingers of a man's hand, and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaster of the wall of the king's palace; and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote*." Belshazzar, confounded at the sight of so unexpected a phenomenon, summoned all the diviners, astrologers and sages of Babylon, but sought in vain an explanation of the mystery. None of them could read the writing. At length Nicotris, the king's grandmother, advised that Daniel should be sent for, who accordingly came and expounded to the trembling king the record of his doom, which was accomplished that very night. Before the close of the revels Cyrus entered the city, by the bed of the river, the waters of which he had diverted from their channel, and thus made a passage for his troops.

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