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good use of them, but allowing them instead to turn away his heart from God; for his heart was lifted up, and his mind hardened in pride, so that he fancied himself greater than God himself. This was an awful state of mind, and God was graciously pleased to warn him of the danger he was in by a very remarkable dream, which the prophet Daniel explained to him. We will read the dream in the Bible; you will find it in the fourth chapter of the book of Daniel.

E. And what was the meaning of it, mamma?

M. Daniel told him that it was a message from heaven to him to inform him that his pride was very hateful in the sight of the Almighty, and that God meant to humble it to the very dust, and to bring him down from his high station; lower, far, than any human being had ever been brought before, even to a level with the beasts of the field. For the reason which had been given him, and of which he had made so bad a use, was to be taken away from him, and his heart was to be changed from man's, and a beast's heart was to be given to him, and he was no longer to be treated like a human being, but to be turned out to live with the beasts in the grass of the earth, amongst them to remain until he had learned that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will.

E. O mamma, what a terrible dream! I hope he listened to it, and grew a better man.

M. It would have been well for him, my love, if he had allowed this awful message to sink deep into his heart: if he had listened to the prophet Daniel, who, when he gave him this dreadful but true expla

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splendour to the improvements which Nebuchadnezzar had made in it. I will give you a short account of this glorious city before we go on any further, that you may better understand many things which you will by and by find said of it in the Bible and other books. And what will you think of this wonderful place, when I tell you, first of all, that it was fifteen miles across each way, being built in the form of an exact square, and that it then covered a space of ground more than ten times as much as London occupies, which is one of the greatest cities, you know, which now exists in the whole world.

Notwithstanding, however, its great extent, Babylon had walls around about its four sides, and these walls were of most prodigious size, being eighty-seven feet thick, and three hundred and fifty high; or you will understand me better, perhaps, if I tell you that they were one hundred and sixteen yards in height, and twenty-nine in breadth or thickness. Of the breadth you may at once form some idea, when I tell you that there was room upon the walls for six chariots to go one beside another, which some of the widest streets in London, you know, would not admit of. In these walls, on each of the four sides of the city, were twenty-five gates, that is, one hundred in all, made of bright and solid brass.

E. How beautiful they must have looked, mamma?

M. Beautiful, indeed, Edward; and between every two of these gates were three towers ten feet higher than the walls; besides four more at each corner of the city, as far as there were any need of them. The streets of Babylon were beautifully regular, the houses high and richly adorned, and built about fine lar

spaces of ground, which gave plenty of room for ornamenting them with fields and gardens. Through the middle of the city ran a branch of the river Euphrates with a magnificent bridge across; at each end of which there was a royal palace of great extent : near one of these palaces stood the idol temple of Belus, in the middle of which was a tower of amazing height, supposed to be that same tower which was built by Nimrod and was called the tower of Babel. The other palace on the other side of the river, which was built by Nebuchadnezzar himself, was remarkable for its size and magnificence, and is still more talked of by old writers for its hanging gardens.

E. Do you mean gardens full of trees with beautiful hanging boughs ?

M. No, my love; by hanging gardens are here meant gardens which Nebuchadnezzar had raised up in the air to please his queen, who was a Medean princess, and fond of hills and woods ; so that when she was brought to Babylon, she was disappointed at finding that it was built on a very flat and marshy plain.

E. But how did Nebuchadnezzar manage to hang his gardens in the air?

M. The work, my love, served only for a vain show, but it was a very wonderful one, and cost a vast deal of skill and labour. For the gardens were carried up high in the air like so many terraces, rising one above another, until the highest was as high as the walls of the city. These terraces were supported underneath by arches built upon other arches one above another; the earth being carried up and laid upon a flooring, which was placed over

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