ey forget the Holy City. Ruined, desolate as it lay,
Jerusalem was still to them the place most loved in all the world.

And yet, even in far-off heathen Babylon the Lord called men to add to
His Book.

The Book of Daniel has troubled many people greatly. It was not
history at all, some critics said, but a mere collection of myths and
legends. But year by year, as fresh discoveries are made, we see ever
more clearly that it would have been better to trust the old Bible
words after all.

'There never was a ruler over Babylon named Belshazzar' so these people
said; 'the last Babylonian king was Nabonides.' A few years ago,
however, Belshazzar's name was found on an old cuneiform tablet.
Nabonides had been crowned king, but he seldom took any part in the
affairs of the empire. All that he left to his eldest son, Belshazzar,
who seems to have acted as king in his father's stead.

Almost daily further discoveries are being made, all proving the
accuracy of Daniel's writings. What is probably the floor of the very
dining-hall in which the hand-writing appeared has recently been
uncovered.

Cyrus,[1] of whom Ezra speaks in the first chapter of his book, was a
very different king from Nebuchadnezzar.

Nebuchadnezzar loved to pull down and destroy nations; but the great
wish of Cyrus was to build up and restore. The cuneiform writings of
the old Babylonian and Assyrian kings consist mostly of long lists of
the nations they led away into slavery and the towns they burnt with
fire; but the inscriptions made by Cyrus, the Persian king, speak of
the people he sent back to their homes. 'All their people I collected,
and restored their habitations.'[2] And among these people, as the
Bible tells us, were the Jews of Jerusalem.

Many and great were the difficulties before them; but led, during the
reign of Artaxerxes, by Ezra and Nehemiah, they faced their troubles
bravely, until at last the wall of Jerusalem was rebuilt, and the city
restored to something of its old beauty.

What a time of joy and triumph! Hardly could the Jews believe that
they were in their own dear city once again. Psalm cxxvi. describes
this wonderful day.

'_When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them
that dream. Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue
with singing: then said they among the heathen, The Lord hath done
great things for them._' (Verses 1, 2.)

'We have sinned against the Lord, we have