পাতা:দানিএল মুনির চরিত্র.djvu/৩২৩

318 The angel told Daniel, in conclusion, that when he ‘had written these prophecies, he must seal up the book, and preserve it carefully, because it would be a long time before most of the predictions would be fulfilled. (Dan. xii. 4.) Books, then, were not printed and bound in leather, as they now are. The arts of printing and binding books, and of making such as we now use, were not known till many centuries afterwards. Books, at that time, were written with a pen upon long pieces of cloth, or parehment, oron paper made of the reed papyrus, which grew upon the banks of the river Nile in Egypt. These were rolled up tight, and often sealed with wax upon the outer edge, so that the book could not be unrolled without breaking the seal. The command of the angel, that the book should be sealed up, signified that the prophecies were obscure, and could not be understood until many of them - ‘were fulfilled. When the angel said that “manywould run to and fro, and knowledge. would be increased,” (xii. 4), it was implied, that in the latter days of the world, many persons would study the pro