descendants of Joab, and Abishai, and Uriah, he had recruited his exhausted armies; and with the spoil of God's own temple, he had consecrated a colossal image to the honour of the abomination of the Assyrians! While thus fulfilling the purposes of Jehovah in every step that he advanced, and guided by him for the battle in every victory he achieved, he was still an infidel, and a blasphemer,-ignorant of the true God,-gratifying only the desire of his own insatiable ambition, glutting his passion for conquest, and his thirst of glory by selfish aggrandizement.

Nor was Nebuchadnezzar the executioner of Jehovah's wrath against the apostate Jews alone; Tyre, the luxurious city whose merchants were as princes in the earth, fell under the edge of his resistless scymitar. And Egypt, with all her wisdom, her arts and science, her armies, and her resources, became the vassal of this gigantic conqueror, and acknowledged his sway from Migdol to the confines of Ethiopia.

In the history of Nebuchadnezzar thus far, we trace the lineaments common to the early Asiatic prinees. Fire and energy in war,-splendour

and luxury in peace,-pride, arrogance, insolence, and cruelty in victory,-and all that is superb, sumptuous, and magnificent in the personal or peculiar royalty of the monarch,-" in the house of his kingdom, and the honour of his majesty."

But all the elements of this character are "of the earth-earthy;" or are they not rather of "the devil-devilish?" Has not Satan, from the first, said unto unregenerate men, "Ye shall be as gods ?" And has not the despot in every age shewn that he wielded power only for the pleasure of destroying others, and of exalting self? Who would have conjectured of such a being that he should have become a child of God? a saint of the Most High? an heir of glory? But we must repeat the question, and with adoring faith do we utter it, "Is any thing too hard for the Lord ?" The concluding history of this monarch sufficiently evinces both the power and mercy of Jehovah, and that he is able at once to abase and to exalt.

The manner in which the wonderful change was produced on the mind of the Assyrian king, is indeed far above and beyond human compre

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hension. "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but thou canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: So is every one that is born of the Spirit." If the heart of a beast was given to this monarch of men, it was only for the purpose of reducing those brutal qualities which rendered him more stupid, gross, savage, and debased, than the wild creatures with whom he herded, when he had lost all the distinguishing features of humanity. those who ask, with sceptic wonder, for the evidences of a divine rennovation in the character of Nebuchadnezzar, peruse the writings of his minister of state, the illustrious Hebrew, to whose prayers perhaps this change was vouchsafed, and see if they can trace, in the last edict of Nebuchadnezzar, any one of the former lineaments of the great king. No; he is no longer the king of kings, who issues a decree to all the provinces of his dominions, mustering them to deeds of vengeance or aggression, or to the performance of rites idolatrous and superstitious, enforced by penal statutes; but it is I, simply-" I Nebuch hadnezzr," sending "peace" to his million sub

jects throughout the wide earth, relating to them the circumstances of a dream which made the conqueror of Asia tremble like a timid girl, and the consequences of which dream drove him from the social haunts of men, and made him herd with the wild beasts of the forest. He no longer seeks his own glory, or magnifies his own power, or commands men to bow down to gods which yet are no gods, but he blesses the Most High-he praises and honours him who liveth for ever and ever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom from generation to generation. To this Almighty being he offers the homage of his whole soul, and the gratitude of his whole heart; and exalts his name in ascriptions of glory, expressed in language unrivalled in sublimity and beauty by any other passage of holy writ. While, in the humility of his sanctified spirit, he concludes with a reference to his own experience perhaps more touching and affecting than all the rest "Those that walk in pride, He is able to abase."

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CHAPTER VI.

"Cicéron a dit que sous le nom de règne de Cyrus, Xenophon a voulu décrire celui de la justice. Chacun a répété, sous le nom de règne de Cyrus, Xenophon a voulu décrire celui de la justice.”—Gibbon.

On the death of the renowned son of Nabopolassar, the second monarch of his celebrated dynasty, he was succeeded by Evil-Merodach, who had administered the affairs of the empire during the seven years in which his royal father was an exile from human society. As soon as he was established in the government, he commanded Jehoiakim, king of Judah, to be released from prison, and promoted him to great honour in his palace. He caused his throne to be placed above