he had been a good king--kind to his people and faithful to his
God. Jeremiah the prophet made a great lamentation for him, for he
knew that one of Josiah's sons would be the last king of Judah, and
that for their sins the people would be driven out of their own land to
be captives in Babylon for seventy years.

CHAPTER XXXI.

THE FOUR CAPTIVE CHILDREN.

Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, came with his armies and besieged
Jerusalem, just as Jeremiah the prophet had foretold. He took the king
and the princes of Judah captive, and carried away their precious
things from the temple and the palaces into his own land, and put them
in the temples of his gods. Before twenty years had passed the whole
nation had been driven into captivity, and their holy house had been
burned, and the ark of the covenant lost or destroyed. As the kingdom
of Israel had also been scattered, the whole land lay desolate, and the
walls of the cities were broken down.

When the King of Babylon first besieged Jerusalem he carried away the
finest of the princely families to serve him. They were the flower of
Jerusalem--young men of noble face and form; well taught in the
learning of the Jews, and skilfull in the sciences of that time. They
were also chosen for their natural ability to learn the language and
the wisdom of the Chaldeans.

Among these were four boys named Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah.
The king gave these boys into the care of his chief officer, who set
teachers over them and treated them very kindly, while the king sent
them each day meat and wine from his own table. The Chaldeans offered
these things to idols, and then ate of them themselves; they also used
some meats for food that were unclean to an Israelite, so that the four
children of Judah determined that they would not touch the king's meat
and drink.

Daniel spoke to the chief officer about it, and though he had learned
to love Daniel very much, he was afraid to have the boys refuse the
king's food.

"I fear my lord the king," he said, "who hath appointed your meat and
your drink, for why should he see your faces sadder than the children
which are of your sort? Then shall ye make me endanger my head to the
king."

But Daniel turned to Melzar, the steward, and begged him to prove them
by giving them only vegetables to eat and water to drink for ten days,
and "Then," said he "let our countenances be looked upon before thee,
and the countenance of th