Page 110 - The Prophet-statesman a Drama of Daniel

in those days to court the favor of the people for the new king.

However, the memory of the House of Nebuchadnezzar was not to be too easily

effaced. Every time Queen Rhea, aging, but still distinguished-looking, went forth in
her coach drawn by four beautiful bays, she was wildly acclaimed by all the people.
Through the two-year reign of Avil-Marduk she had been treated with the greatest
consideration and deference and had continued to occupy her apartment in the palace,

but at the accession of Neriglissar, she had withdrawn and taken up her residence with
her son-in-law and daughter, Nabunaid and the Princess Hanniel.

By now their young son, the Prince Bilsharuzzar or Belshazzar, was eleven years

of age and had already shown marked tendencies. Frail of body and retarded in
physical growth and development, he had a brilliant mind and was a precocious
student. Nabunaid, himself, indifferent in matters of religion and worship, had placed
the young prince under the tutelage of a scholar of the old school, a devotee of the

Chaldean mysteries and an ardent and inveterate Bel-worshipper.

Inculcated with these, the young prince with a naturally arrogant disposition and
wise in his own conceits, assumed a contemptuous attitude toward the admonitions of

his grandmother, Rhea, who attempted to instruct him in the ways and words of
Jehovah. His pride, self-will and resistance to the things of Jehovah were a source of
great grief to Rhea, and the older he grew the more pronounced was his opposition.

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