and years.

But alas! the mightiness of this city was only equalled by the wickedness of its inhabitants and the haughtiness of its rulers, whose cruelty to the Israelites for seventy years, was exceeding great. Idolatry, impiety, oppression, and crimes of every description were committed by them. God did certainly bear with their manners for a number of

years,

but his justice, though slow was sure. When he saw that they would not repent and reform, he made a terrible example of them to future generations ; for notwithstanding the magnitude of their walls, and the invincibility of their fortifications, they were demolished by the command of God, so that a trace of them was scarcely left.

In due time, when God would wait no longer for their repentance and reformation, when the cup of their iniquity was full, he commanded Cyrus, after the noted conquest of the Lydians, to besiege Babylon. Surely Cyrus must have been stimulated and encouraged

in this great enterprise, by God himself, for in addition to the amazing strength of the city, it appears that it was stored with twenty years provisions; however, it is certain, Cyrus was not discouraged in his design, though the Babylonians insulted and laughed at his romantic attempts, (as they supposed) from the tops of their walls. When God wills the destruction of a people for their wickedness, he can soon find secondary means to accomplish his designs, which would never enter into the heart of man to conceive. This was exemplified in the present case. The particular time is mentioned in Scripture, when destruction was brought upon Babylon, as follows: Belshazzer, the king, made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before them. Then they brought the vessels that were taken out of the temple of the house of God, which was at Jerusalem; and the king and his princes, his wives and his concubines, drank in them. They drank

16

.

wine in them, and praised the gods of gold and silver, of brass, of iron, of wood and of stone.

While this superstitious king was spending the night in debauchery, there came forth fingers of a man's hand, and wrote over against the candlestick on the plaister of the wall of the king's palace ; and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote. Then the king's countenance changed, and his thoughts troubled him, so that the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one against the other. Then he cried aloud to bring in the astrologers, the Chaldeans and the soothsayers; but they could not read the writing; until Daniel was sent for, who interpreted the writing ; which in some measure, eased the king's troubled mind; perhaps he thought the awful threatening would not be executed for a considerable time, or he disbelieved the prophet altogether, or placed such reliance in the strength of Babylon for safety, that he banished the awful warning

a

from his mind, and put off the consideration of serious matters till a more convenient season; he feared also to disturb the general joy of the present festival: however, it is certain, after Daniel and the astrologers were gone, the company sat down again to drink and be merry, and continued so till Cyrus interrupted them with the glittering drawn-swords of his soldiers, in the following maner: Cyrus, some time before the above festival was celebrated, being informed that the Babylonians always passed the night on such occasions, in drunkenness and debauchery, commanded his soldiers to draw a line of circumvallation round the city, with a very deep ditch; by this manœuvre, he made the Babylonians believe, that his intention was to reduce the city by famine; by which means, they were lulled into a fatal security. On the night of the above festival, Cyrus made his troops open the great receptacles or ditches, on each side of the

town ; by this means, the waters of the river ran into them, and the channel of the Euphrates was quickly emptied, and a passage made for Cyrus and his soldiers, who immediately marched to the gates of the city which were open,

for the persons who had charge of the gates, in the excess of their drunkenness, had forgotten to shut them the preceding evening. When the guards saw the approach of their enemies, they strove to defend themselves, but were killed on the spot; the palace gates were of course opened to know the cause of the noise, when the Persian troops rushed in with drawn swords, and put the impious Belshazzer and his sacrilegious company instantly to death. From this signal night Babylon began to totter to its fall. Thus it passed from the Assyrians to the Persians, and after that to the Macedonians, who severally assisted in its destruction ;. åt last it was turned into a park, in which the kings of Persia hunted, even while Jo.