DANIEL IN THE LIONS' DEN.

DARIUS had so great an esteem for Daniel, that he made him the principal minister of his empire. This excited the jealousy of his subjects, who sought to render the favourite odious to his master. Daniel's administration of affairs, however, was so just, that they could find no room for censure; they therefore laid a plot against his life. Knowing him to be a strict observer of the religious forms of his nation, they prevailed upon the king unguardedly to issue a decree that whoever, for the space of thirty days, should make a petition, either to God or man, except only to Darius himself, should be cast into the lions' den-probably a vault where these animals were kept for the king's pleasure. Darius, looking upon this as a proof of their affection to his person, unhesitatingly complied with their wishes. Daniel was not ignorant of what had taken place, but, although he knew there was a design against his life, he, nevertheless, did not omit to perform his customary devotions. As this was done openly, his enemies had no difficulty in detecting him committing a breach of the royal ordinance, which they immediately reported to the king. Darius, who now perceived, too late, that he had been betrayed into a rash proclamation, endeavoured to evade enforcing it against his favourite minister: but his courtiers reminding him that, according to their laws, a decree once passed was irreversible, he had no alternative but to deliver Daniel up to them, when they immediately cast him among the lions. Having done this, they rolled a large stone over the mouth of the den, and had it sealed both with their own and the royal signet. Meanwhile the king, having passed a night of sleepless anxiety, repaired next morning to the den, where he cried with a lamentable voice, and asked Daniel if he were alive. "Then said Daniel unto the king, O king, live for ever. My God hath sent his angel, and hath shut the lions' mouths, that they have not hurt me: forasmuch as before him innocency was found in me; and also before thee, O king, have I done no hurt *."