As we have seen, the Psalms were written by different writers, and one of the later Psalms, the 137th, gives us a vivid picture of those sad days: '_By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion._' (Verse 1.) Babylon was famous for its great rivers; and the poor captives watched the flowing water, and the great wind-swept beds of reeds and giant rushes. '_We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof._' (Verse 2.) [Illustration: 'LED AWAY CAPTIVE.'--ASSYRIAN PICTURE OF THE INHABITANTS FROM A CONQUERED CITY BEING LED AWAY INTO SLAVERY] But their Babylonian masters had heard of the sweet psalms of the Lord's people. 'Sing to us,' they said; 'sing us a merry song. _Sing us one of the songs of Zion._' (Verse 3.) 'Sing to these cruel heathen who have wasted our country, and carried us away into slavery! Sing one of the holy songs of Israel, the songs which King David wrote, that they may laugh and mock at us! _How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?_' (Verse 4.) No, they could not sing; their hearts were breaking with grief. Never, never could they forget the Holy City. Ruined, desolate as it lay, Jerusalem was still to them the place most loved in all the world. And yet, even in far-off heathen Babylon the Lord called men to add to His Book. The Book of Daniel has troubled many people greatly. It was not history at all, some critics said, but a mere collection of myths and legends. But year by year, as fresh discoveries are made, we see ever more clearly that it would have been better to trust the old Bible words after all. 'There never was a ruler over Babylon named Belshazzar' so these people said; 'the last Babylonian king was Nabonides.' A few years ago, however, Belshazzar's name was found on an old cuneiform tablet. Nabonides had been crowned king, but he seldom took any part in the affairs of the empire. All that he left to his eldest son, Belshazzar, who seems to have acted as king in his father's stead. Almost daily further discoveries are being made, all proving the accuracy of Daniel's writings. What is probably the floor of the very dining-hall in which the hand-writing appeared has recently been uncovered. Cyrus,[1] of whom Ezra speaks in the first chapter of his book, was a very different king from Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar loved to pull down and destroy nations; but the great wish of Cyrus was to build up and restore. The cuneiform writings of the old Babylonian and Assyrian kings consist mostly of long lists of the nations they led away into slavery and the towns they burnt with fire; but the inscriptions made by Cyrus, the Persian king, speak of the people he sent back to their homes. 'All their people I collected, and restored their habitations.'[2] And among these people, as the Bible tells us, were the Jews of Jerusalem.