answer an important end; because, had it been recollected, he would have probably detailed the outlines to these practised magicians, who would have finished the affair by pacifying him with some plausible interpretation. Many suppose that Nebuchadnezzar's forgetfulness was only a pretext to try them. This is questionable, and certainly not intimated in the narrative.

It may be difficult, at this distance of time, to distinguish with perfect accuracy, the different orders of the pretenders to divination and learning here mentioned. The magicians and astrologers were those who were skilled in natural philosophy, and who addicted themselves to the casting of nativities. Some have thought also, with sufficient probability, that they were employed in the interpretation of hieroglyphics. The magi in Egypt, Persia, and other oriental nations, were similar in endowments and profession. These were the "wise men" who came to inquire after the birth of our Lord. The sorcerers were those who devoted themselves to necromancy, pretending, in the use of diabolical arts, to hold an intercourse with departed spirits. The term Chaldeans appears to be general and comprehensive. It is supposed that all these classes formed, under this common designation, a college of literary men, who, in addition to their science, professed to have com

munications with superior beings, and, by means of incantations, to command their assistance; and, as they considered dreams to proceed from the agency of those beings, it must have been in their power, according to their own avowals, to recall a dream as well as to give the interpretation. These magicians were maintained at the public expense, and the threat implies, that the buildings appropriated to their use should be demolished, and their collegiate institution annihilated.

"There is none other," say.they, "that can show it before the king, except the gods ;" and they had previously insisted," there is not a man upon the earth that can show the king's matter." The allusion is probably to demons or departed spirits, who were considered as a kind of messengers between their reputed deities of the highest order and mankind.

Nebuchadnezzar declared, that if they did not reveal his dream, they should be "cut in pieces." This terrible proceeding seems to have been frequent in ancient times. Agag was hewed in pieces by Samuel; and the Ammonites suffered in a similar manner, by the direction of David,-2 Sam. xii. 31. Our Saviour alludes to this punishment when he speaks of the wicked servant being "cut in sunder,"-Luke xii. 46; and in the epistle to the Hebrews, illustrious martyrs to the truth are said to have been "stoned, and sawn asunder."

Among the Romans, when any person was found guilty of conspiring against the government, or the ruler, he was capitally punished, and his house demolished or appropriated to some other use. Instances of the same nature are traceable among the Greeks, as related by Herodotus and Pausanias.

When we reflect upon the arbitrary power with which this celebrated king was invested, and with which it was so common to entrust the monarchs of antiquity, it becomes us to cherish devout gratitude to God for the mild spirit of our constitution; and the useful restraints it imposes on the exercise of the highest functions of government. The enlightened age in which we live, the sound policy by which public measures are generally regulated, through being exposed to public inquiry and animadversion, and above all, the been so signally manifested to us as a nation, and to whose goodness we have every scriptural reason to appeal,-all inspire cheerful anticipations respecting futurity.

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It does not appear that Daniel and his companions were required to accompany the other reputed magicians to the king; for what reasons we cannot ascertain, and need not conjecture. The statement of the 13th verse, however, is adapted at once to rouse our sympathy and apprehension,-" And the decree

went forth that the wise men should be slain; and they sought Daniel and his fellows to be slain." But however imminent the dangers in which God may suffer his faithful servants to be involved, his eye never ceases to watch over them. Sometimes, indeed, he permits them to perish by the hands of his enemies, or to be affected by the revolutions of society; but these events form a part of that mysterious agency by which the plans of an infinite government are accomplished. If these prospective and comprehensive designs do not require such a sacrifice, his people may rely on his special protection, his gracious presence, and his delivering mercy; and if they do, they may anticipate the consolations of his love in death, and a happy transmission to eternal rest.

This part of the narrative suggests a few remarks on the subject of ANGER-of which Solomon has remarked, with apparent severity, but justice-" anger resteth in the bosom of fools." Periander, of Corinth, one of the seven sages of Greece, formed so just a conception of the evils attendant upon the indulgence of this passion, that he left the following maxim as a bequest to posterity; "be master of thine anger." But, while even heathens were able to discern and lament its dire effects; Christianity has laid the axe at

the root of the tree, by requiring the extirpation of those principles which prompt to its unholy ebullitions.

We are reminded by this history, that—

1. Anger is undignifying. There are few of the vices in which a person appears in a more degraded character. If, in a paroxysm of anger, a man could borrow other eyes and look at himself, he would be filled with confusion and conscious shame.

2. It is unreasonable. In this state of excitement, the most convincing arguments, and the most well-founded remonstrances are alike disregarded. Truth loses all its force; reason abandons her throne; and the roused lion acquires not only the appropriate epithet, but the debased nature of the brute. Nebuchadnezzar furnished, on the occasion in question, a most unhappy specimen of this odious temper.

3. It is destructive of that just and useful influence to which we should aspire, and for which every one is naturally capacitated by his position in society. "A drunken man," remarks an excellent author, " in the height of his intoxication, is looked upon as so far from being fit to receive or impart instruction, that he is considered as no longer master of his own conduct. He seems to act without consciousness, and to rush into mischief without apprehension of danger. As such, he is either