Persia from the Earliest Period to the Arab

80 HISTORY OF PERSIA.
scheme on their part to bring Daniel and his friends
into disfavour with the king, who, they thought, perhaps
not without some reason, had been unduly hasty in
the promotion he had given to one of his slaves. The
trial soon came in the form of a " 1
burning fiery furnace ,"
from which, it may be, that Daniel's exalted rank alone
preserved him; the course of events being just as might
have been expected, from the greatest of Oriental
despots, convinced against his will, and, therefore,
longing to silence, as he hoped for ever, the man
who, by superhuman means, had thwarted his purpose.
He would have been less than Nebuchadnezzar had
he acted otherwise ; and his so acting is, as far as
it goes,
an evidence of the truth of the whole
narrative. Indeed, his nrst and prompt acknowledgment
of the power that had chastened him, is in perfect
unity with his character. The God of the whole
world was still in his eyes but the " God of Shadrach,
Meshach, and Abed-nego"; thus, in His favour, the decree
goes forth, that whoever shall speak amiss of Him
"shall be cut in pieces and their houses shall be made a
dunghill, because there is no other God that can de-
liver after this sort 2 ." The royal heathen could not
as yet discern the whole truth ; and it needed further
manifestations of the Divine power, to enforce his
assent to the fact, that the Bel and Nebo in whom
he had trusted, were but gods made by human hands.
The account of Nebuchadnezzar's next trial is told
in his own words.
"
I, Nebuchadnezzar," says he,
"was at rest in mine house, and flourishing in my
palace 3 ." And thus, in the height of his majesty,
1 Dan. iii. iz.
* Dan. iii. 29.
3 Dan. iv. 4.