had seen, but what was much more, he commanded them to tell him all that he had seen, for, to use his own words, "The thing is gone from me," said he.

It was in vain that the Chaldeans (who acted as spokesmen, for they long bore the name, even in the time of the Romans, of being the cleverest persons at this kind of work; and the word Chaldean is used in Greek and Latin writers for an astrologer) twice answered the king, and told him that he wanted them to do what was impossible. "There is not a man upon the earth," said they, "that can shew the king's matter: therefore there is no king, lord, nor ruler, that asked such things at any magician, astrologer, or Chaldean. And it is a rare thing that the king requireth; and there is none other that can shew it before the king, except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh."

This answer seems to have made the king dreadfully furious and angry, and he seems to have at once ordered his threat, of having them cut in pieces, and their houses destroyed, to be carried out. The decree went forth, we are told,

that the wise men of Babylon should be put to death, including Daniel and his three companions, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.

It is thought by some writers that Nebuchadnezzar did not forget his dream; but, when he wanted the wise men to tell the dream as well as the meaning of it, he wished to prove that they really had the power of knowing everything by the help of magic, and of their false gods, as they pretended; for if they were truly able by these helps to explain dreams, it was very plain that the same powers, which they claimed to have, would make it just as easy to know the dream itself, as its meaning.

He also sought to prevent them attempting to deceive him, or give him some false interpretation, for the purpose of keeping up their characters for skill and wisdom. It is very likely that they had told him what was not

* This was not an unusual way of dealing with the magi, or wise men, in Eastern countries. Herodotus, the Greek historian, has recorded in his great work that Astyages, king of Media, crucified the magi, or wise men, the interpreters of dreams, who had advised him to send his grandson Cyrus away.-(Herodotus' "Clio," cxxviii.)

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true about other things, and that he was determined to make sure, this time, of having a certain proof of their power of finding out secrets. "For ye have prepared lying and corrupt words to speak before me," said he to them; "tell me the dream, and I shall know that ye can tell me the interpretation thereof." These words would seem to show that he had very little faith in the wise men.

When the king told them that "the thing had gone from him," he spoke no more than the truth, although his words may bear a double meaning. For he did not say, the dream, but the thing, is gone, which was the case, as the image was no longer to be seen by him. Besides, if he had so completely forgotten the dream, how could he be sure that it was what Daniel told him so many hours afterwards.

It may be that these opinions of ours are quite wrong, and that he did forget the dream, and instantly recollected it when it was told him.

"The demand of the king was no doubt an extraordinary and extravagant one," observes

an able author.

"He required of his wise

men, not only that they should interpret to him a dream wherewith his spirit had been troubled, but that they should bring back to his recollection the dream itself which he had forgotten; but in the providence of God all this was employed to place the prophetic character of Daniel beyond any doubt or dispute, by a sort of proof, which the king of Babylon would own to be enough to show, that the God of Daniel was a God of gods, and that Daniel was His favoured servant."

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HEN Daniel answered with counsel and wisdom to Arioch the captain of the king's guard, which was gone forth to slay the wise men of Babylon:

"He answered and said to

Arioch the king's captain, Why

is the decree so hasty from the king? Then Arioch made the thing known to Daniel.

"Then Daniel went in, and desired of the king that he would give him time, and that he would shew the king the interpretation.

"Then Daniel went to his house, and made