Alas, for poor fallen humanity!
Among the students from the city of Babylon there were two young men,
brothers, whose father, by a sudden freak of fortune, had arrived at the
possession of much wealth. For some years these young men's advantages
had been quite favorable, and withal they had not been negligent in their
studies. They were exceedingly vain of their acquirements, and their
pride and arrogance kept pace with their vanity. The success of others,
to them, was invariably a source of mortification.
They had already heard complimentary reports of the youths of Judah from
no mean sources; and they became their foes, and were determined to see
them humbled. As students, they met but seldom, and the real acquirements
of the Israelitish youths were not known to these envious Chaldeans. With
these two victims of vanity and envy was cast the unhappy lot of another
youth, their cousin. He was of "humbler birth," as the term is used, but
almost infinitely their superior in everything that beautifies and adorns
humanity.
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