The Kings Cup-Bearer

A free download from http://www.dertz.in


The King's Cup-Bearer

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The King's Cup-Bearer, by Amy
Catherine Walton This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no
cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give
it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License
included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
Title: The King's Cup-Bearer
Author: Amy Catherine Walton
Release Date: May 3, 2004 [EBook #12248]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE
KING'S CUP-BEARER ***

Produced by Joel Erickson, Michael Ciesielski, Marit Henningsen and
the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

[Illustration: NEHEMIAH'S MIDNIGHT SURVEY.]

THE
KING'S CUP-BEARER
By
MRS. O.F. WALTON
Author of 'Christie's Old Organ,' 'A Peep Behind the Scenes,' 'Elisha,
the Man of Abd-Meholah'

CONTENTS.
* * * * *
CHAP.
I. THE CITY OF LILIES
II. THE KING'S TABLE
III. THE GOOD HAND
IV. TO EVERY MAN HIS WORK
V. THE SWORD AND THE TROWEL
VI. THE WORLD'S BIBLE
VII. TRUE TO HIS POST
VIII. THE PAIDAGOGOS
IX. THE SECRET OF STRENGTH
X. THE EIGHTY-FOUR SEALS
XI. THE BRAVE VOLUNTEERS

XII. THE HOLY CITY
XIII. HAVING NO ROOT
XIV. STRONG MEASURES
XV. THE OLDEST SIN
XVI. GOD'S REMEMBRANCE
[Illustration: PLAN OF THE PALACE AT PERSEPOLIS.]

THE KING'S CUP-BEARER
* * * * *
CHAPTER I.
The City of Lilies.
The great Rab-shakeh, magnificently attired in all the brilliancy of
Oriental costume, is walking towards the city gate. Above him stretches
the deep blue sky of the East, about and around him stream the warm
rays of the sun. It is the month of December, yet no cold biting wind
meets him, and he needs no warm wraps to shield him from the frost or
snow.
The city through which the Rab-shakeh walks is very beautiful; it is the
capital of the kingdom of Persia. Its name is Shushan, the City of Lilies,
and it is so called from the fields of sweet-scented iris flowers which
surround it. It is built on a sunny plain, through which flow two
rivers,--the Choaspes and the Ulai; he sees them both sparkling in the
sunshine, as they wind through the green plain, sometimes flowing
quite close to each other, at one time so near that only two and a half
miles lie between them, then wandering farther away only to return
again, as if drawn together by some subtle attraction.

Then, in the distance, beyond the plain and beyond the rivers, the great
Rab-shakeh sees mountains, for a high mountain range, about
twenty-five miles from the city, bounds the eastern horizon. He has
good reason to love those high mountains, which rise many thousands
of feet above the plain, for even in the hottest weather, when the heat in
Shushan would otherwise be unbearable, he can always enjoy the
cooling breezes which come from the everlasting snow-fields on the
top of that mountain range, and which blow refreshingly over the sultry
plain beneath.
The City of Lilies is a very ancient place. It was probably built long
before the time of Abraham. We read in Gen. xiv. of a certain
Chedorlaomer, King of Elam, who gathered together a number of
neighbouring kings, and by means of their assistance invaded Palestine,
and took Lot prisoner. This Chedorlaomer probably lived by these very
rivers, the Choaspes and the Ulai, and Shushan was the capital city of
the old kingdom of Elam over which he ruled.
Later on the City of Lilies was taken by the Babylonians. They had
their own capital city, the mighty Babylon, on the Euphrates. But
although it was not the capital, still Shushan was a very important place
in that first great world-empire. We find Daniel, the prime minister,
staying in the palace of Shushan, to which he had been sent to transact
business for the King of Babylon, and it was during his visit to the City
of Lilies that God sent him one of his most famous visions. In his
dream he thought he was standing by the river Ulai, the very river he
could see from the palace window, and before that river stood the ram
with the two horns and the strong he-goat, by means of which God
drew out before his eyes a picture of the future history of the world.
But the great Babylonian empire did not last long. Cyrus the Persian
took Babylon, Belshazzar was slain, the great Assyrian power passed
away, and the second great world-empire, the Persian empire, was built
upon its ruins.
What city did the Persian kings make their capital? Not Babylon, with
its mighty walls and massive gates, but Shushan, the City of Lilies.
They chose it