utmost despair, bore witness by his anguish to the wisdom of Solon. Cyrus, curious to know what was meant by this exclamation, sent to inquire, and hearing the whole story related, was so affected with a sense of the instability of all human happiness, and felt so tender a compassion for Croesus, that he commanded him to be taken down from the funeral pile, just at the moment the flames were kindled; and not only spared his life, but suffered him to retain both the title and authority of king, under the restriction of not having power to make war. From thenceforth he desired him, either from policy or friendship," to accompany him in all his expeditions, and thus secured at once his counsel and allegiance.

The siege of Sardis happened in the first year of the fifty-eighth Olympiad, which was the eighth year of the reign of Belshazzar,* and five hundred and forty-eight years before Christ.

It was in the first and third year of this monarch's reign, that Daniel had the visions of the four monarchies ; and of the kingdom of Messiah revealed to him; as also of the ram, and the he-goat-as may be seen at length in the seventh and eighth chapters of the book of that prophet. wils a bag banne 22

"Behold, here cometh a chariot of men, with a couple of horsemen. And he answered and said, Babylon is fallen, is fallen; and all the graven images of her gods he hath broken unto the ground." Isaiah xxi.

AFTER the various conquests which he had achieved, Cyrus remained in Asia Minor till he had subjugated to his authority all the nations inhabiting that country, from the Ægean Sea, even to the great river-the river Euphrates. From thence he proceeded into Syria and Arabia, which also became subject to his sway; and gradually advancing towards Babylon, the only city of the east which still resisted his almost universal dominion, he prepared to invest it.

The siege of such a city as Babylon, however,

was no easy task, even for the genius of Cyrus. And had not the God of armies, even the Lord of Hosts himself, been on his side, the attempt must have been equally chimerical and impracticable. But the divine fiat had gone forth against the cruel and idolatrous city; and the last act of sacrilege, on the part of her impious and infatuated monarch, was all that was wanting to fill up the measure of her crimes, and to exhaust the longsuffering of Jehovah: "Make bright the arrows, gather the shields, for the Lord hath raised up the spirit of the king of the Medes; for his device is against Babylon, to destroy it; because it is the vengeance of the Lord, the vengeance of his temple."

The walls of the city were of such prodigious height, as to have appeared even to Cyrus inaccessible, and her strongholds impregnable. The city was provisioned for twenty years; and contained within itself sufficient pasture ground to sustain both flocks and herds for many years more. Thus, to take Babylon, either by assault or storm, was out of the question; Cyrus therefore endeavoured to impress on the besieged the

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idea that he would attempt to reduce it by fa mine. Accordingly, he drew a line of circumvallation quite round the city, with a large and deep ditch; and dividing his army into twelve bodies, assigned to each its month in rotation for guarding the trenches. The Babylonians confiding with entire security, in their towers, ramparts, magazines, and stores, insulted Cyrus from the walls, and ridiculed his herculean labours as futile and absurd. This they did in the very spirit and character of Babylon, whose intolerable pride led her to believe she was that which she wished to be, invincible and unrivalled: "I am, she said in her heart, and there is none else beside me. I shall be a lady for ever, I shall not sit as a widow, neither shall I know the loss of children." what saith the Lord? "These two things shall come upon thee in a moment, in one day; the loss of children and widowhood: they shall come upon thee in their perfection, for the multitude of thy sorceries, and for the great abundance of thy enchantments.-Stand now with thine enchantments, and with the multitude of thy sorceries,let now the astrologers, the star-gazers, the

Yet

monthly prognosticators, stand up and save thee from these things." No: the divine decree is gone forth, and cannot be cancelled or recalled; the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldee's excellency is doomed to lie low in the dust: Bel shall be carried into captivity, and Nebo shall be a burden to the " weary beast."

Cyrus who had, two hundred years* before, been designated to the double labour of executing the purposes of God's vengeance against Babylon, and his purposes of mercy towards Judah, was now ready to accomplish the work. The Lord held him by the right hand, and prepared the way before him, to open before him the two-leaved gates, to make the crooked places straight,-to 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 the hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know, that I the Lord, which call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel: For Jacob my servant's sake, and

Isaiah, who predicted her fall, had named Cyrus as the deliverer of Judah two hundred years before. Bossuet.