The revelry deepens. The wine cup circulates, and increasing intoxication works its usual dementing effects. Till at length the besotted monarch calls for the sacred vessels of Jehovah's temple and drinks from them, to throw greater obloquy upon the sacred name in comparison with the idols of Babylon. Then appears the shadowy hand, and the mysterious writing on the wall. "Mene, Mene, Tekel Upharsin," gleam out before the eyes of the trembling king. And hardly has Daniel declared their fateful import, ere there is a cry of terror from without, and the rush of armed men; the door bursts open, Belshazzar is slain, and the kingdom passes into the hands of the Persian.

And who was it that could thus in a single hour make himself master of the stronghold that had seemed impregnable? The answer is to mention a name whose fame has eclipsed every other in that quarter of the world, the mighty conqueror of the East, the traditional hero of the Orient, Cyrus the Great.

His history is full of the marvellous. The son of the Persian monarch, he was brought up at the court of Astyges, the Median king, who held Persia in vassalage, and claimed Cyrus as a hostage. His youth was full of promise. He seems to have been one of nature's noblemen. He was generous, pure, upright, quick to learn, diligent in self-training, and always the first in all manly exercises, exhibiting a wisdom and a gravity beyond his years. Such is the voice of tradition. And such is the testimony of the Greek historian Xenophon, who has made him the subject of his fascinating historical novel, the Cyropedia, in which he presents Cyrus as a model of manly virtue.

It is not strange that such a youth should have felt the degra dation of his vassalage, that he should have dreamed of freeing

himself and his country, that he should have looked with contempt on the luxurious effeminancy of Astyges' court, and that, above all, he should have burned to vindicate the comparatively pure monotheism of his fathers against the degrading superstitions and idolatries of the Medians.

With consummate skill he laid his plans. By night with a few faithful companions he fled, and gathering an army in the realm of his father Cambyses, he conducted a long and bloody war for liberty, and won at last. Astyges was overthrown. Media became the vassal; and Persia the suzerain.

And now commenced an era of conquest such as the world had never yet seen. Master of a vast empire, Medo-Persia, Cyrus, with the true spirit of the conqueror, viewed all that he had done only as a preparation for what remained to be done.

Far to northwest, yet near enough to be a rival, rose the great empire of Lydia, ruled by the renowned Croesus, whose fabulous wealth has become a by-word for the world. Swiftly he gath ered his forces. Promptly he marched. And fighting his way against all opposition he was soon under the walls of Sardis, the capital, and in two weeks it fell, and he added an empire to his dominions.

Then turning the course of his armies to the southwest, he pushed his conquests down through that great peninsula which has received the name of Asia Minor. Caria fell. Then the Dorians and Myndians submitted. Cnidus and Halicarnassus made but a little resistance. Caunia and Lycia were forced to yield, and the whole of Lesser Asia was at the feet of the conqueror.

And now returning by the way of Pasargado, the Persian

capital, he turned his arms to the northeast, and the mighty kingdom of Bactria was won after a bloody struggle.

High up upon the plains of Central Asia, where now are the districts of Kashgar and Yarkand, dwelt the Sacæ, a nation of fierce and hardy warriors. These, after many romantic adventures, were also subdued.

Then followed in steady succession the conquest of Hyrcania, of Parthia, of Sogdiana, of Chorasania, of Aria, of Drangiana, of Arachosia, of Sattagydia, of Gondoria; — each one of which was a kingdom in itself; and by their subjugation the borders of his empire were pushed northward to Cabul and the Jaxartes river, and eastward to Tartary and the valley of the Indus.

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Twenty years of hot campaigning, of continuous victory, of marches, and sieges, and battles innumerable, had now rolled away; and his work was not done. Daniel had seen him yet bolized by a bear having in his mouth three ribs, denoting a triple conquest. Asia Minor might stand for one. Central Asia would be the second. It remained in prophecy that Southwestern Asia or the Babylonian empire should be the third.

And though now nearly sixty years of age the war-worn hero gathered up his forces for the last great struggle that was to decide the Lordship of Asia.

The campaign is not excelled, in elements of the marvellous, by any that history records; and it exhibits in a most striking manner all the qualities of this great commander, his energy, his fortitude, his power to organize and inspire an army, his fertility of resource, his far-reaching sagacity.

How could those massive walls of Babylon be surmounted? How could those double, or "two leaved" gates be passed? In

what way was he to conquer an enemy that seemed to be wholly beyond the reach of his arms?

To ordinary sagacity the task seemed hopeless. But his genius discerned a way. A plot was conceived so deep and sagacious that his enemy was thrown completely off the scent.

When half-way from Ecbatana (the Median capital) to Babylon, he paused in his march on the banks of the Gyndes, in which one of the sacred horses had been drowned, and declared that he would punish the river for its insolence; and accordingly set his whole army at work through the summer and autumn digging three hundred and sixty ditches in which to draw off the water.

This act, which seemed so utterly foolish, was really the most consummate wisdom. His object was plainly threefold. First, he thus satisfied himself of the possibility of draining the bed of a great river, and mastered all the details.

Secondly, he inured his troops to the necessary toil, and got them thoroughly instructed in the methods.

Finally, and emphatically, he created a precedent which would allay the suspicions of the Babylonians when he should do the like to the Euphrates, which ran through the city; since it would seem like a mere repetition of the same eccentric folly exhibited at the Gyndes.

All fell out as he had planned. When spring came he advanced to the capital, and immediately began the old work of ditching. When all was ready and the night arrived when he knew that the unsuspicious city would be absorbed in the orgies of an idolatrous festival, he opened his sluices, turned aside the waters of the Euphrates, and along the dry bed marched his eager troops silently beneath the great wall into the city, and Babylon with all its vast empire was his.

Asia was now at his feet. He was master of an empire larger than the whole of Europe excepting Russia, extending from the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean and the Euxine seas, and from the mountains of Central Asia on the north to the Arabian Gulf and Egypt on the south, and even Egypt was afterwards annexed. Nowhere, in the then known world, was there any power to be compared with his, or able to dispute his title to the headship of the nations.

The divine purpose was fulfilled as declared many years before by the mouth of Isaiah in these words:

THUS SAITH THE LORD TO HIS ANOINTED, TO CYRUS WHOSE RIGHT HAND I HAVE HOLDEN, TO SUBDUE NATIONS BEFORE HIM; AND I WILL LOOSE THE LOINS OF KINGS TO OPEN BEFORE HIM THE TWOLEAVED GATES: I WILL GO BEFORE THEE, AND MAKE THE CROOKED PLACES STRAIGHT; I WILL BREAK IN PIECES THE GATES OF BRASS, AND CUT IN SUNDER THE BARS OF IRON; AND I WILL GIVE THEE THE

TREASURES OF DARKNESS AND HIDDEN RICHES OF SECRET PLACES

THAT THOU MAYST KNOW THAT I, THE LORD, WHICH CALL THEE BY THY NAME, AM THE GOD OF ISRAEL. FOR JACOB MY SERVANT'S SAKE, AND ISRAEL MINE ELECT, I HAVE SURNAMED THEE THOUGH THOU HAST NOT KNOWN ME. I AM THE LORD, AND THERE IS NONE ELSE, THERE IS NO GOD BESIDE ME: I GIRDED THEE, THOUGH THOU

HAST NOT KNOWN ME.

It was God's purpose that Babylon should fall, and that Cyrus' decree should immediately go forth to rebuild the temple at Jerusalem. And thus it fell out.

The second part of Nebuchadnezzar's vision was fulfilled. Medo-Persia had dethroned Babylonia. The Silver empire had. succeeded to that of Gold.