And even then, all the time the Babylonians were feasting and not watching the enemy, Cyrus, the clever king of the Persians, was making his men dig ditches, into which he turned all the water of the great river that ran through the city; and that very night all his army came in, walking up the dry bed of the stream. No one saw them till they were in the city; and that very night Belshazzar was slain. QUESTIONS. 1. Who was king of Babylon? 2. Who made war on Belshazzar? 3. What was all he cared for? 4. What feast did he make? 5. What were brought out? 6. What frightened him? 7. What was the hand doing? 8. What could no one understand? 9. Who spoke up? 10. Who was sent for? 11. What did Daniel say it meant? 12. What happened that night? 13. How did the Persians get in? 14. Who was king of the Persians? 15. Why did Belshazzar come to such a sad end? [Illustration: CHART OF THE COUNTRY ROUND BABYLON, WITH LIMITS OF THE ANCIENT CITY. (According to Oppert).] Thirty-eighth Sunday. _THE RETURN FROM BABYLON._ FIRST READING. "The Lord is in His holy Temple: let all the earth keep silence before Him."--_Hab. 2:20._ [Illustration] THE Jews had gone back to their old city of Jerusalem, but they found it looking very sad and ruinous. The walls were broken down, and the pleasant houses were heaps of ruins, and grass and brambles had come up in the courts, and there were heaps of stone blackened with the fire and smoke that had burnt down the city. The first thing they did was to clear the place where God's holy Temple used to stand, and to build it up again. But they were not rich and powerful like King Solomon, who built the first Temple; they had no gold and silver, and the new Temple they built was very small and poor compared with the old one. There were old men among them who remembered the first Temple as it used to be, and they wept aloud as they saw how different the new one was; but there were young men who were very glad to have a Temple at all, and they shouted for joy; so there was a mixed sound of weeping for sorrow and of crying out with joy. Then God sent His Prophet Haggai to tell the old men not to be afraid, for the glory of this latter House should be greater than that of the former. The way this should be was that our Blessed Lord Himself would come to the new Temple, as a little Babe at first and afterwards as a grown Man; and when He was there, the honor and glory of the Temple would be greater than ever it was before. Now there is no one Temple: but God's Houses are Churches, and we have them everywhere to pray to Him in, and meet Him there though we cannot see Him. Let us take care to worship Him there very humbly and reverently. [Illustration: RETURN OF THE JEWS FROM CAPTIVITY.--Ezra 1:5.] QUESTIONS.