hour that you shall hear the sound of the trumpet, and of the flute, and of the harp, of the sackbut, and of the psaltery, and of the symphony, and of all kinds of music, ye fall down and adore the golden statue which King Nabuchodonosor hath set up. But if any man shall not fall down and adore, he shall the same hour be cast into a furnace of burning fire. Upon this, therefore, at the time when all the people heard the sound of the trumpet, the flute, and the harp, of the sackbut, and the psaltery, of the symphony, and of all kind of music, all the nations, tribes, and languages fell down and adored the golden statue which King Nabuchodonosor had set up. And presently at that very time some Chaldeans came, and accused the Jews. And said to King Nabuchodonosor: O king, live for ever: thou, O king, hast made a decree that every man that shall hear the sound of the trumpet, the flute, and the harp, of the sackbut, and the psaltery, of the symphony, and of all kind of music, shall prostrate himself, and adore the golden statue: and that if any man shall not fall down and adore, he should be cast into a furnace of burning fire. Now there are certain Jews whom thou hast set over the works of the province of Babylon, Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago: these men, O king, have slighted thy decree: they worship not thy gods; nor do they adore the golden statue which thou hast set up. Then Nabuchodonosor in fury, and in wrath, commanded that Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago should be brought; who immediately were brought before the king. And Nabuchodonosor the king spoke to them, and said: Is it true, O Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago, that you do not worship my gods, nor adore the golden statue that I have set up? Now therefore if you be ready, at what hour soever you shall hear the sound of the trumpet, flute, harp, sackbut and psaltery, and symphony, and of all kind of music, prostrate yourselves, and adore the statue which I have made: but if you do not adere, you shall be cast the same hour into the furnace of burning fire: and who is the God that shall deliver you out of my hand? Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago answered, and said to King Nabuchodonosor: We have no occasion to answer thee concerning this matter. For behold, our God, whom we worship, is able to save us from the furnace of burning fire, and to deliver us out of thy hands, O king. But if He will not, be it known to thee, O king, that we will not worship thy gods, nor adore the golden statue which thou hast set up.. Then was Nabuchodonosor filled with fury; and the countenance of his face was changed against Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago; and he commanded that the furnace should be heated seven times more than it had been accustomed to be heated. And he commanded the strongest men that were in his army to bind the feet of Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago, and to cast them into the furnace of burning fire. And immediately these men were bound, and were cast into the furnace of burning fire, with their coats, and their caps, and their shoes, and their garments. For the king's commandment was urgent, and the furnace was heated exceedingly. And the flame of the fire slew those men that had cast in Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago. But these three men, that is, Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago, fell down bound in the midst of the furnace of burning fire. And they walked in the midst of the flame, praising God, and blessing the Lord. Then the king was astonished, and rose up in haste, and said to his nobles: Did we not cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? They answered the king, and said: True, O king. He answered, and said: Behold, I see four men loose, and walking in the midst of the fire and there is no hurt in them, and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God. Then Nabuchodonosor came to the door of the burning fiery furnace, and said: Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago, ye servants of the most high God, go ye forth, and come. immediately Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago went out from the midst of the fire. And the nobles, and the magistrates, and the judges, and the great men of the king being gathered together, considered these men, that the fire had no power on their bodies, and that not And a hair of their head had been singed, nor their garments altered, nor the smell of the fire had passed on them. Then Nabuchodonosor breaking forth, said: Blessed be the God of them, to wit, of Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago, who hath sent His angel, and delivered His servants that believed in. Him: and they changed the king's word, and delivered up their bodies, that they might not serve, nor adore any God, except their own God. By me, therefore, this decree is made, that every people, tribe, and tongue, which shall speak blasphemy against the God of Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago, shall be destroyed, and their houses laid waste : for there is no other God that can save in this manner. Then the king promoted Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago in the province of Babylon. CHAP. V. Nabuchodonosor's Punishment and Restoration. AGAIN another dream terrified the Babylonian king, and he called Daniel to interpret its signification. He beheld a tree, flourishing and full of fruit, and a voice from heaven commanded that it should be cut down, and that the stump should be bound with iron and brass, while it was spoken of as if it were a human being; and the voice said, Let his heart be changed from a man's, and let a beast's heart be given him, and let seven times pass over him. This, the prophet told the monarch, was an emblem of his own coming punishment. For his haughtiness and godlessness, he was to be stricken with insanity, and, as it were, changed from a man into a beast; and for seven years he was to live the life of a savage in the fields, eating grass and roots, until he should repent of his sins, when the mercy of God would restore him to his senses and to his throne. For a whole year, however, the threatened chastisement was delayed, but the king's heart was not moved. At the end of twelve months, therefore, the hand of God smote him, and all that Daniel had foretold befell him until he repented, when he was lifted up again to his former state, and he glorified God for all that He had done to him. On his death, Evilmerodach his son succeeded him, and Daniel continued his zeal for the service of the true God amidst the idolaters with whom he lived. Twice, supported by the king's favour, he succeeded in exposing the impostures of the priests of the idols. The chief object of the worship of the Babylonians was an idol called Bel; and the priests pretended that the image itself ate and drank the offerings of flour, sheep, and wine which the people brought to the temple. The flour, sheep, and wine did indeed seem to disappear before the image, but it was by the hands of the priests themselves, who came by night through a secret passage, and carried off the offerings left in the temple. Daniel, having obtained leave of the king, detected the fraud by secretly spreading ashes upon the floor of the temple, so that in the morning the footprints of the priests and their families, who had come as usual to eat and drink, betrayed them, and shewed the way to their hidden entrance. So soon as the trick was discovered, the king put them all to death, and gave permission to Daniel to destroy the idol and its temple. After the image of Bel was destroyed, the superstition of the people led them to pay divine honours to a large serpent or dragon, until Daniel made a mixture of pitch, fat, and hair, and thrust it into the mouth of the serpent, which swallowed them, and afterwards burst asunder with its effect. CHAP. VI. The Handwriting upon the Wall. Daniel in the Lions' Den. Susanna and the Elders. THE last of the Babylonian kings of the family of Nabuchodonosor was Baltassar, his grandson, a prince whose insolent pride brought down the vengeance of God upon his house. He made a magnificent feast for his nobles, and when heated with wine, he sent for the sacred vessels of the temple which had been brought from Jerusalem, and drank wine in them with all his guests. And as they drank and sung praises to their idol-gods, there appeared the hand of a man writing apon the wall opposite to the king. And the king's countenance changed, and in his terror he cried aloud for his diviners and wise men to expound the mystery of the words which appeared written upon the wall; but none could read the writing or interpret it. Then, by the queen's advice, Daniel was brought in; and the prophet told the king that it was his own sentence of death, for his idolatries and licentiousness, that was there before him written with the finger of God. The words were, Mane, Thecel, and Phares; and they signified, numbering, weighing, and division; and their interpretation was, that God had reckoned up the years of Baltassar's kingdom and finished it; that the king was weighed in the balance and found wanting; and that God had divided his kingdom, and given it to the Medes and Persians. That very night Darius, the sovereign of the Medes and Persians, attacked Baltassar in Babylon, and slew him, and made the kingdom his own. The new king shewed favour to Daniel, and appointed him one of the governors of his kingdom, and was about to make him his chief minister. This pros pect was intolerable to the great men of the court, to whom Daniel's piety and blameless life made him doubly hateful. They therefore devised a scheme for forcing the king to put his favourite to death against his will: Confident that no human power could compel Daniel to cease from his daily prayers to his God, they persuaded Darius to issue a senseless and wicked decree, forbidding any man to ask a petition of any one but himself for thirty days, under pain of being cast into a lion's den. Darius, little thinking how this law would affect Daniel, enacted it, and gave it that special sanction which, by a custom of the country, made it impossible even for himself to revoke it. As Daniel's enemies had foreseen, he heeded not the royal order, but three times a-day opened his windows towards Jerusalem, and prayed. In vain the king then sought to save the prophet. from his persecutors; he |