'Nineveh, Babylon? There _were_ such cities once, perhaps; but as for the kings of whom the Bible speaks--Sennacherib, who came up against Jerusalem, and was driven back through the prayers of God's servants, Isaiah and King Hezekiah (2 Kings xviii. 19); Nebuchadnezzar, who carried Daniel away into Babylon; Ahasuerus, who reigned "_from India even unto Ethiopia_" (Esther)--well, if they ever lived at all, they were certainly not the kind of kings spoken of in the Old Testament. But it all happened so long ago that we cannot expect to understand much about it now.' [Illustration: EGYPTIAN SCRIBES AT WORK. (A) CASES FOR HOLDING WRITING MATERIALS. NOTICE SPARE PEN PLACED BEHIND THE CLERK'S EAR] So the questioners settled the matter in their own minds; but God had the answer to their questions all ready for them. He put into the hearts of some brave men the idea of going out to the desolate plains, '_empty and void, and waste_' (Nahum ii. 10), the plains that had once been the rich empires of Assyria and Babylon, and there to search patiently for some trace of the splendid cities of old. Very wonderful is the story of how these searchers found them. Nineveh had been lying buried under huge mounds of rubbish for more than two thousand years. Now, just at the time when her testimony was needed, the ruined halls of her majestic palaces were once more brought to the light of day. What had been the names of these grim kings of old, whose stern-faced figures were sculptured on the walls? Could any among them be the fierce Assyrian kings mentioned in the Bible? If only the strange wedge-shaped letters that covered every vacant space on the stone slabs could be read, what a message from the past they would reveal. Once again clever men set to work and persevered until the strange letters were deciphered, and the palace-walls gave up their secrets. Here was King Sennacherib; here Tiglath-pileser (2 Kings xv. 29); here Esarhaddon (2 Kings xix. 37). Oh, how wonderful to look at the old-time portraits which had been drawn from the men themselves! 'Well, although the Egyptians and Assyrians prove to have been great nations in the time of Moses, they had no communication with each other except in war time; they spoke different languages, wrote in altogether different styles, and had very different ideas about everything. Nations kept to themselves in those days. What the Bible says of their intercourse must be wrong.' This all the clever people were quite sure about, but once again God showed them their mistake. Twenty-five years ago an Egyptian peasant woman was walking among the ruins of an ancient Egyptian city--a city built before the time of Moses. Bright yellow sand had drifted over the broken columns and painted pavements of what had once been the palace of a great king. But the peasant woman did not care for that. Was there anything hidden in the sand that she could sell? This was all her thought.