conqueror, and he shall enter into the streets before the inhabitants are aware. One post shall run to meet another, to tell the King of Babylon that his city is taken at each end; that the passages are stopped, that the reeds are burned with fire, and that the men of war are affrighted. Anguish shall take hold of the monarch, and he and all his host shall utterly perish. Jehovah hath decreed wrath against Babylon, till it be wholly desolate; every one that goeth by shall be astonished at her plagues. “It shall never be inhabited, from generation to generation: neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there; neither shall the shepherds make their fold there. But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there. And the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant palaces." She shall be cast up as heaps; she shall be destroyed utterly; nothing of her shall be left.

These awful predictions, with many details, apparently little likely to be fulfilled upon the flourishing metropolis of the world, the Divine messenger reads aloud; and, having finished, he binds a ponderous stone to the roll, and heaves it far into the bosom of the Euphrates. The surging waters close over it, and, as it sinks, the prophet lifts up his right hand to heaven, saying,--" Thus shall that great city Babylon sink, to rise no more!"

BELSHAZZAR'S FEAST.

59

DANIEL V.

YEARS passed on, and the words which Seraiah had uttered were remembered-if remembered at all-by the Babylonians, only as the ravings of an angry enthusiast. The captives, too, had waited for their accomplishment, till they were weary of expecting, and most of them had now forgotten them. But not one jot or one tittle of God's word, whether of promise or threatening, can ever fail; and there were a few aged men in Babylon, who still treasured up the words of solemn import, and expected, with an earnest faith, their entire fulfilment. They remembered, also, the promised limitation of the captivity to seventy years, which period had now elapsed since Nebuchadnezzar's first capture of Jerusalem.

The sound of revelry and mirth is in the royal palace, for there, in the magnificent hall where formerly Nebuchadnezzar received the message from heaven, Belshazzar the king has made a feast to a thousand of his lords. It is night; but hundreds of lamps, fed with perfumed oil, and suspended by chains of gold, illuminate the glittering scene, and almost put out the radiance of the stars, that sparkle in the purple sky above the heads of the revellers. Heaps of fragrant wood are burning on tripods of bronze, and mingle their rich odours with that of the sweet lotus-lily, that is set in porcelain vases, or hung in negligent wreaths around in the greatest profusion. The charms of music are not wanting; the tabret and viol, the pipe and the harp, unite with many voices of men and women,-now in martial

strains extolling the valour of the king, now sinking to softer melody, melting the soul to love. For on the embroidered couches recline many of the beauties of the Babylonian court, gracing with the charm of loveliness, if not of modesty, the festive scene. The incense, the music, and the wine, are doing their work; the mirth is boisterous; the loud blasphemy or obscenity provokes the louder laugh, and the king is the merriest reveller of all. The grim countenances of the demon-gods around seem to glare with a fiendish expression, and the shadowy forms of his royal ancestors frown down in silence from their lofty panels.

A sudden thought strikes the monarch's mind; and, amidst the drunken approbation of his guests,

J.W.ORR Sc

Ancient Cups.

he commands to be brought the sacred vessels of gold and silver, which had been plundered from the

THE WRITING ON THE WALL.

61

temple of Jehovah at Jerusalem. Hitherto they had been preserved untouched; for Nebuchadnezzar, who had taken them away, had abstained from profaning them. The vessels are brought, and filled with sparkling wine; and while the unhallowed lips of the king, his princes, and his ladies, inhale the draught, the song of praise goes up from a thousand voices, to the helpless idols of gold, and silver, and stone.

But what has suddenly arrested the monarch's loud laugh, and thrown an ashy paleness over his lately flushed cheek? See, how his frame trembles, as he clutches at the table for support; how his white lips quiver, and how his eyes are starting from their sockets, as they stare upon the wall beside him! The uproar of the board is hushed, and every face is turned to the spot; and there, upon the alabaster wall, in the full glare of the great central lamp, is seen a cloudy hand. Slowly those ghostly fingers move along, and trace upon the polished slab, in the sight of the paralysed throng, mysterious characters; every letter distinctly visible, and flashing with coruscations of ghastly light.

The king cries aloud for his astrologers and soothsayers, offering the highest honours and rewards to him who shall decipher and interpret the mysterious writing. But the astrologers and soothsayers can only gaze in mute dismay; for all their wisdom is vain and worthless here. The confusion and terror have reached the apartments of the venerable widow of Nebuchadnezzar, who, though she would not give the sanction of her countenance to the indecent revelries of her grandson, approaches, in the hour of his anguish, to administer counsel and consolation. She remembers the

heavenly wisdom of the Hebrew Daniel, when in his youth he interpreted the vision of the king, that had baffled all the skill of Babylon; and she expresses her confident assurance that he will be able both to read and to interpret the mysterious writing.

And now, by the royal mandate, Daniel appears; not as when we first saw him in this hall, in the bloom of flowery youth, but bearing the burden of fourscore years. He listens to the king's demand, declines the proffered honours, but declares his ability to read the inscription. But first he faithfully rebukes the pride, ingratitude, idolatry and blasphemy, which, refusing to profit by lessons of mercy, have provoked the righteous vengeance of the living God. The conscience-stricken monarch trembles under the word; he can offer no extenuation of his crimes, thus set in order before him; but the joints of his loins are loosed, and his knees smite one against another, as he gazes on the cloudy fingers, slowly writing what he feels to be his own awful doom. At length the hand has vanished, but the writing remains; and the Prophet reads the words,

MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN.

And this is the interpretation:

"MENE, God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it.

“TEKEL,―Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.

"PERES,*-Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians.”

*The words literally signify "Number, number, weight, and divisions." PERES and UPHARSIN are essentially the same word,