পাতা:দানিএল মুনির চরিত্র.djvu/২৫৩

248 others, so that he was next to the king in authority. But there were many Median noblemen who wished to attain this high station themselves. The honours bestowed upon Daniel filled them therefore with envy and jealousy. Daniel was a stranger; he belonged to the captive Hebrew race, whom they despised ; moreover he had been many years employed by the kings of Babylon, who had been their enemies; and probably the excellence of his character, too, was an incessalit reproof of their wickedness. They were eraged to see him in possession of honours of which they themselves were ambitious, and to which they conceived they had the best claim; so from day to day they watched him with jealous eyes, hoping to find some fault in him, which they might report to the king, ånd šo effect his ruin. Though Daniel had lived so many years in Babylon, and wealth and honours had been heaped upon him in abundance, he did not forget Jerusalem, where he had spent the happy days of his youth. He did not forgès his countrymen who were in captivity, and were earnestly longing to