the King of Babylon;" and at that time Babylon was governed by a mighty potentate and most successful warrior, was rising to its meridian of strength and glory, and was likely to flourish for many centuries; yet within seventy years, as the prophet had declared, Babylon was taken and its empire dissolved. This event occurred on that awful night when Belshazzar saw the handwriting on the wall, announcing, in mystic characters, his sudden doom and the destruction of his kingdom. According to the best chronologists, the time which elapsed between the announcement of the prophecy by Jeremiah and its fulfilment by the taking of Babylon and the deliverance of the Jews, was just seventy years: the event thus corresponding with the prediction to the very letter.

2. The nations who should conquer Babylon and overthrow its empire were expressly foretold. Go up, O Elam; besiege, O Media." "The Lord hath raised up the spirit of the kings of the Medes, for his device is against Babylon to destroy it." (Isa. xxi. 2; Jer. li. 11.) Elam was the ancient name of Persia, so that here the two nations mentioned as the joint conquerors of Babylon were foretold to be the Medes and Persians. Now at this time these two nations were insignificant compared with Babylon. Persia, indeed, up to that period had remained in obscurity. Yet these two were to be the chief conquerors of the mightiest city upon earth. As the prediction so was the event. The sacred historian tells us that in the same night in which Belshazzar, the impious and licentious monarch of Babylon, was slain, his kingdom was divided and given to the Medes and Persians." (Dan. v. 25—31.) Xenophon and Herodotus attest the same facts.

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3. Not only the names of the conquering nations were foretold, but the name of one illustrious personage as a conquering monarch was expressly mentioned in the prophecy; we refer to Cyrus the King of Persia. "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 two-leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut." This prophecy was uttered about 150 years before Cyrus was born, and about 174 years before the conquest of Babylon. Now, no one will pretend that the prophet, by any force of human sagacity, could foretell that so insignificant a nation as Persia could rise so high within the short period of 170 years as to become the conquerors of mighty Babylon; and it cannot for a moment be imagined that the prophet could predict the conqueror's name 150 years before he was born. As he could not tell that such a person would ever exist, he could not possibly conceive of him as the

conqueror of the greatest city upon earth. Yet the event occurred exactly as the Lord had spoken by his servant. And here we depend not only upon the testimony of Scripture. All ancient history as with one voice attests the fact that Cyrus the Persian and Darius the Mede were the conquerors of Babylon and overthrew its empire.

4. The same passage which foretels the name of Cyrus speaks also of the loins of kings being loosed before him. (Isa. xlv. 2.) Every reader of the Scriptures will remember how the loins of Belshazzar were loosed, and his knees smote one against another on that awful night when he saw the handwriting on the wall, and which occurred only a few hours before the victorious army of Cyrus the Persian and Darius the Mede rushed into the palace and put him to death by the sword.

5. The prophet foretold that the Babylonians should be afraid to fight with their enemies and should hide themselves within their walls. "The mighty men of Babylon have foreborne to fight, and they remained in their holds; their might hath failed, they became as women." (Jer. li. 30.) In accordance with this prophecy, history informs us that the Babylonians, after the loss of a battle or two, never recovered their courage to face the enemy again in the field, but remained within their walls. Xenophon describes Cyrus as consulting with his officers about the best method of carrying on the siege," since," saith he, “they do not come forth and fight."

6. The prophet foretold that, as one means of Babylon's destruction, the river should be dried up. "I will dry up her sea, and make her springs dry." A drought is upon her waters, and they shall be dried up." "I will dry up thy rivers." (Jer. li. 36; 1. 38. Isa. xliv. 27.) Now, as before observed, the river Euphrates ran right through the famous city of Babylon, and so long as that river continued to exist there was no human probability of that part of it being dried up. Indeed, as that river was two furlongs broad, and at least twelve feet deep, the city was thought to be better fortified by the river than by the walls. Whatever danger there might be of the river being overflowed, there seemed to be no more natural probability of its becoming dry than there does at this hour of the river Thames becoming dry, which flows through the city of London. Yet the prediction was literally fulfilled. When Cyrus found it impossible either to scale the walls, force the gates, or bring the Babylonians to a general battle, he employed his soldiers to cut a canal which drew off the waters from the river at the upper part of the city, and diverted them from their channel into a neighbouring lake. Then the river being fordable, his soldiers rushed into its

channel, and, passing under the walls, took possession of the city.

7. God foretold by his servants that the city of Babylon should be taken by surprise during the time of intemperate festivity. "I have laid a snare for thee, and thou art also taken, O Babylon, and thou wast not aware; thou art found and also caught." "In their heat I will make their feasts, and I will make them drunken, that they may rejoice, and sleep a perpetual sleep, and not awake, saith the Lord. And I will make drunk her princes and her wise men, her captains and her rulers, and her mighty men; and they shall sleep a perpetual sleep, and wake not, saith the King, whose name is the Lord of Hosts." (Jer. 1. 24; li. 39, 57.) Now was the event in accordance with this prediction? Exactly so. Profane historians tell us that the city was taken in the night of an annual festival, while the inhabitants were dancing, drinking and revelling. Herodotus states that the extreme parts of the city were in the hands of the enemy before the inhabitants of the central part knew anything of their danger. Such is the testimony of heathen writers, and what says the sacred historian? He informs us, that "Belshazzar, the king, made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before them;" and while he and his lords and his concubines were at their midnight revellings, the handwriting appeared on the wall, and the same night he was slain, and his kingdom, already numbered and finished, was transferred to the Medes and Persians. (Dan. v. 1—31.)

8. It was foretold that the destruction of Babylon should be complete, like that of Sodom and Gomorrah. (Isa. xiii. 19.) From the time that Babylon was taken by Cyrus it never recovered its former grandeur. The throne was transferred to Shusan, a neighbouring city, and Babylon gradually fell into decay, until it became literally a confused heap of ruin, and the site where it once stood could scarcely be determined. Pliny, speaking of Babylon in his day, says that, "it was reduced to a solitude;" and Pausanias, who flourished in the second century, says, that "of Babylon, the greatest city the sun ever saw, there is nothing now remaining but the walls;" but at the present time, and for many ages past, the walls themselves are destroyed, and scarcely a vestige remains to tell the traveller that so famous a city once existed there. This is the more remarkable, inasmuch as Alexander the Great, having overthrown the Persian empire, formed the purpose of restoring the city to its former glory, and of making it the metropolis of the new empire he had formed. It is certain that he had both the means and the resolution to accomplish this, had Providence permitted; but in that case the prophecy would not

have been fulfilled. The work was indeed begun, ten thousand men were actually employed in repairing the embankments of the Euphrates and restoring the great Temple of Belus; but suddenly death removed Alexander from earth, and thus defeated his purpose. Therefore, Babylon's wound was not healed, and she was left, as God had said, to become a perpetual desolation, like Sodom and Gomorrah.

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9. Some prophecies respecting the state of Babylon in its ruins describe it so variously as to seem at first sight to be inconsistent with each other, but on further examination they furnish additional evidence of the truth and literal exactness of God's predictions. In one place it is foretold that Babylon should become a burnt mountain, a dry land; and, again, that the sea should come upon her and cover her with its waves. 'Behold, I am against thee, O destroying mountain! saith the Lord, which destroyeth all the earth; and I will stretch out mine hand upon thee and roll thee down from the rocks, and I will make thee a burnt mountain." Again: "And Babylon shall become heaps, a dwelling-place for dragons, an astonishment and a hissing without an inhabitant. The sea is come up upon Babylon; she is covered with the multitude of the waves thereof." (Jer. li. 25, 37, 42.) Our frontispiece is a representation of Babylon in its present state; and if the reader cast his eye on it, he will see how correctly these various descriptions apply to her. She is in some parts a mountain formed of the masses ofruined monuments, temples and palaces which are heaped together; in other parts an arid waste; and in others a marsh covered with the waters of the Euphrates. Here her ruins present fragments which have been fused and vitrified by the action of fire until they ring like the hardest pottery; there they form cavities for venomous reptiles; and there the overflowings of the waters, diverted from their natural channel, have formed vast pools and sheets of water which conceal the foundations of the most famous buildings. Such is the utter desolation of a city which was once the most magnificent on earth, and which stood the revolutions of sixteen centuries.

Herein we see the vanity of earthly greatness, the consequence of pride and sin, the certainty of punishment upon the impenitent, and the unchanging truth of God's Holy Word. Though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not go unpunished; and though heaven and earth pass away, God's word shall not pass away. While God has punished Babylon

for her idolatries, her cruelties and her atrocious sins, he has wisely made her desolation a witness of his own truth and a durable witness of his justice.-EDITOR.

OUR YOUTH'S DEPARTMENT.

THE SERPENT THAT SWALLOWED A BLANKET.

MOST of our juvenile readers have heard of the famous Zoological Gardens in London. There are two, one called the Surrey Gardens, and the other situated in Regent's Park. The latter contains by far the greater variety of animals. Here are beasts, birds and reptiles in great numbers, showing forth the wonderful works of God.

In theReptile House, which

is a large building fitted up and supplied with suitable warmth, there are numerous reptiles of various kinds contained in glass cages, so that the creatures can be seen by visitors without the least danger of being attacked by the venomous reptiles. Here

are many large serpents; and some time ago one of the most singular events took place that ever occurred in the history of the serpent tribe. One of them swallowed a blanket measuring five feet by four, and retained the enormous and indigestible meal in his stomach for five weeks. At last, however, the blanket was disgorged, and we have the following account of this transaction recorded in the newspapers.

The blanket or wrapper swallowed by the boa-constrictor at the Zoological Gardens, in the Regent's Park, was disgorged by the reptile in the night of Saturday, the 8th inst, after having been five weeks and one day in the animal's body. The watchman going his rounds that night saw the animal labouring to get rid of the blanket, a part of which protruded from its mouth, and he assisted it in doing so by taking hold of and pulling the blanket gently, for which act of kindness it was thought the boa seemed grateful, inasmuch as it offered no opposition, and did not strive to injure him. On examination, the blanket was found to be much shrunken in size, and it was divested of the greater portion of the loose wool or hairy filaments composing its surface; it was much saturated with moisture, and in many parts covered by a slimy saliva. Originally the blanket measured about five feet by four, but, like all those used in the reptilehouse, it had been folded in half and sewn together. There seems to be no doubt that the following circumstance led to the gorging of the blanket: Every Friday afternoon live rabbits or pigeons are given to the boas, and these are devoured by them or suffered to remain in the cage, according as these reptiles are hungry or otherwise. On the night of the occurrence in question two rabbits had been given to the boa, only one of which was eaten. It is conjectured that