5. After this the princes of Babylon, Media and Assyria, divided the empire of Sardanapalus, and maintained three separate governments, but at a subsequent time these governments were united, and the empire of Assyria was a second time established.

6. The lust of dominion was not satisfied in these Assyrian kings, by their ancient possessions, but Salmanezer, Sennacherib, and Esserhaddon, successively, extended the boundaries of the empire from the Persian Gulf and the Tigris, to the borders of the Euxine, in the north, and to Lybia, in Africa, west. Among these conquests it has been mentioned that the kingdoms, Israel and Judah, were at different times included.

7. Of the laws, manners, learning, and science of Assyria, little is known. They had no books, nor any transmitted language. For the want of literature millions of minds vanished from the world, and left no monument of their existence, but the tradition of it, preserved in the writings of more favored nations.

8. Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, completed the conquest of Judea, B. C. 588. By means of the Jewish captives, in Assyria, God was pleased to introduce the knowledge of himself to many idolatrous nations of Asia, though from the modern history of these people, it may be inferred that little of this knowledge has been transmitted to posterity. The proclamation of Nebuchadnezzar, in the fourth chapter of Daniel, will serve to display the manner in which the religion of the true God was diffused over his dominions.

9. "Nebuchadnezzar the king, unto all people nations, and languages, that dwell in all the earth;

peace be multiplied unto you. I thought it good to shew the signs and wonders that the high God hath wrought towards me. How great are his signs! and how mighty are his wonders! his kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and his dominion is from generation to generation.

I Nebuchadnezzar praise, and extol, and honour the King of Heaven, all whose works are truth, and his ways judgment; and those that walk in pride he is able to abase."

10. It is somewhat remarkable that a despotic prince, absolute ruler of his people, who had before commanded the Jewish captives, under pain of death, to acknowledge idols, should use no compulsory means to make his own subjects receive the doctrine of the one Supreme God. But this was a mark of the reason that had returned to him, of that wisdom from above, that had instructed him. Jesus Christ six hundred years after Nebuchadnezzar, came to Pagans as well as Jews, but he never said to heathens, burn your temples and refrain from your worship. He only set before them the great truths of his own life, death and resurrection. Nebuchadnezzar showed his people what the Lord had done for him. Christ also declared the same gracious being to be the benefactor of men, and left to their reason and conscience, a service which is perfect freedom, which human laws should not appoint nor prevent, under penalties of liberty and life, and which every one upon his own responsibility, renders or refuses to his Maker.

8

Belshazzar, the last king of Babylon, was one of the successors of Nebuchadnezzar. The occasion of the feast which was followed by his death, is thus described in the fifth chapter of Daniel:

1. Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand.

2. Belshazzar, while he tasted the wine, commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem; that the king and his princes, his wives and his concubines might drink therein.

3. Then they brought the golden 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.

4. They drank wine, and praised the gods of

gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone.

5. 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.

6. Then the king's countenance was changed, and his thoughts troubled him, so that the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one against another.

7. The king cried aloud to bring in the astrologers, the Chaldeans, and the soothsayers. And the king spake and said to the wise men of Babylon, Whosoever shall read this writing, and shew me the interpretation thereof, shall be clothed with scarlet, and have a chain of gold about his neck, and shall be the third ruler in the kingdom.

8. Then came in all the king's wise men: but they could not read the writing, nor make known to the king the interpretation thereof.

9. Then was king Belshazzar greatly troubled, and his countenance was changed in him, and his lords were astonied.

10. Now the queen, by reason of the words of the king and his lords, came into the banquethouse; and the queen spake and said, O king, live for ever: let not thy thoughts trouble thee, nor let thy countenance be changed:

11. There is a man in thy kingdom, in whom is the spirit of the holy gods; and in the days of thy father, light, and understanding, and wisdom, like the wisdom of the gods, was found in him; whom the king Nebuchadnezzar thy father, the king, say, thy father, made master of the magicians, as trologers, Chaldeans, and soothsayers:

12. Forasmuch as an excellent spirit, and knowledge, and understanding, interpreting of dreams, and shewing of hard sentences, and dissolving of doubts, were found in the same Daniel, whom the king named Belteshazzar: now let Daniel be called, and he will shew the interpretation.

13. Then was Daniel brought in before the king. And the king spake and said unto Daniel, Art thou that Daniel, which art of the children of the captivity of Judah, whom the king my father brought out of Jewry?

14. I have even heard of thee, that the spirit of the gods is in thee, and that light, and understanding, and excellent wisdom, is found in thee.

15. And now the wise men, the astrologers, have been brought in before me, that they should read this writing, and make known unto me the interpretation thereof: but they could not shew the interpretation of the thing:

16. And I have heard of thee, that thou canst make interpretations, and dissolve doubts: now if thou canst read the writing, and make known to me the interpretation thereof, thou shalt be clothed with scarlet, and have a chain of gold about thy neck, and shalt be the third ruler in the kingdom.

17. Then Daniel answered and said, before the king, Let thy gifts be to thyself, and give thy rewards to another; yet I will read the writing unto the king, and make known to him the interpretation.

18. O thou king, the most high God gave Nebuchadnezzar thy father a kingdom, and majesty, and glory and honour:

19. And for the majesty that he gave him, all