Persia from the Earliest Period to the Arab

CHAPTER III.
Daniel Darius the Mede.
BUT any account of Persia would be more than
incomplete which should pass
over the remarkable
story of Daniel the Jew, who is more, perhaps, than
any one else connected with the prophecies of profane
history and of a coming Messiah. I shall, therefore,
state here, but, of necessity, briefly, what is known of
Daniel, taking the narrative in the Bible as literally
true ; nor shall I discuss the question, how, if some of
his prophecies are accepted as fulfilled, the obvious
meaning of others can be explained away either as
the writing of a contemporary, but of an outsider,
or as stories craftily made up after the events they
refer to. The charm, indeed, of the book of Daniel
is that it admits of no compromise, but must be true
"
as a whole or false as a whole. The dream is certain,
and the interpretation thereof sure," is, to my mind-, a
statement as definite and as satisfactory, as our Lord's
assertion that His own words are true.
The first we hear of Daniel is his statement 1
that (on Nebuchadnezzar's first expedition against
1 Dan. i. 4.