Phoenicia and Egypt? He found them, indeed, rapidly losing that proud pre-eminence which had so long distinguished them among the nations of the earth. Still he everywhere beheld enough of magnificence and grandeur to overwhelm him with astonishment; and to render perfectly credible all that was told him of their ancient greatness. He surveyed, as it were, but the ruins of those mighty empires which had flourished through a period of nearly two thousand years, unrivalled in arts and science and letters and power and splendor, and which had already diffused the light and comforts of civilization to many rude and distant nations.

Did Herodotus ascertain that the Babylonians or Egyptians had ever been a wandering, fierce, brutish, hunting race, similar to the savage or half-savage tribes then existing in various parts of Asia, Europe and Africa? He did not. Nor is there a single fragment of authentic history in the world, which intimates that those celebrated nations had ever been destitute of the usual arts and intelligence of civilized life. I repeat, that the romance of poetry is not to enter into the account: nor is the metaphysic of philosophy to weigh against fact. In the days of Hesiod and Homer, those empires were in the zenith of their glory. That they had ever been otherwise than polished and enlightened and great and powerful, the Greeks did not know and could not prove. Their poets, philosophers and historians, who, at later periods, travelled far and resided long in the East, appear to have learned but little of their early history.

We have then no historical evidence that man was ever found in a savage state, or in a state at all approaching the savage, in the countries specified. All the evidence of history goes to establish the contrary opinion. As far back as we can trace the history of the Assyrians, Phoenicians and Egyptians, we find them civilized, and that too in a very high degree. Now, what right have we-supposing we could extend our researches no further-to infer that they were ever otherwise than civilized? or that their ancestors had been savages? None at all unless it could be proved that these were not the most ancient nations in the world; and that the nations from which they sprung had been originally savage. This, it is apprehended, none will attempt to prove. History then confirms the argument grounded on Scripture and Reason.

Should it be objected, that the proof from history is merely negative; that though it establish the fact of civilization in the

countries already mentioned, up to the remotest period to which it reaches, yet that it leaves us in the dark in regard to their earliest condition and character: I answer, that it is clear, direct and positive, so far as it touches on the subject. And this is sufficient for our purpose. If history cannot point us to the time and the place when and where the most ancient inhabitants of the earth were savages, then history utterly fails to countenance the system of those who maintain that the savage was the primeval state of mankind. If history represent the most ancient people ever known in the world as civilized at the time when its records commence, then does history yield all the support to our system of which it is capable.

It is much to be lamented that all the ancient archives of Nineveh and Babylon and Tyre and Thebes and Memphis have perished. For, that they once possessed very ample histories and annals, we have abundant testimony. Their loss is but poorly supplied by the comparatively modern Greek and Jewish historians, or by the Christian fathers. It is to the Bible chiefly, that we must have recourse for information relative to all that vast period which elapsed anterior to the time at which Herodotus commences his elaborate and interesting history.

Here it may be proper to remark, that after the more learned of the Greeks had ascertained their own origin, and had become convinced of their obligations to Egypt for letters, arts and philosophy, they then indulged in a strain of eulogy and admiration bordering on extravagance whenever they had occasion to speak of their intercourse with that marvellous country. Nor did they hesitate to assign to their recently discovered instructors and benefactors the most remote, as well as the most resplendent antiquity. "For my own part (says Herodotus) I am of opinion, that the Egyptians did not commence their origin with the Delta, but from the first existence of the human race." Euterpe, 15.

But, in the absence of every other source or means of information, let us follow the sure guidance of revelation. Or, if any further aid from revelation be refused us, inasmuch as our appeal has been made to history; let us recur to Moses and the prophets merely as historians, and allow them to be as trustworthy as other historians, neither more nor less. And less credible, they will not be deemed even by those who deny them the infallibility of plenary inspiration.

Moses informs us, that, about one hundred years after the

deluge, agreeably to the Hebrew chronology, the earth was divided among the descendants of Noah according to their families, tongues and nations.* In this grand division-made, we presume, by Noah, pursuant to the divine command-Shem had the south of Asia; and the Jews, Arabs, Persians, Hindoos, with the inhabitants of farther India and the Asiatic Isles, are numbered among his descendants. Japheth obtained the northern and central parts of Asia, the Isles of the Gentiles or Europe; and, more recently, large portions of America. China, according to Sir William Jones, was originally peopled by a colony of Hindoos, with which their neighbors and conquerors, the Tartars, afterwards intermixed. Japan was very anciently peopled from China, and was subsequently subdued by the Tartars, etc. So that China and Japan are now inhabited by a mixed race descending from Shem and Japheth. To Ham was alloted Africa, together with certain districts of Asia. The mighty empires of Assyria and Egypt, the commercial republics of Sidon, Tyre and Carthage, the Philistines and other nations of Palestine or Canaan were his inheritance and his posterity. From him also are probably descended the American Indians.

In the tenth chapter of Genesis, we have a particular account of" the generations and the sons of Noah," and of the beginnings of many cities and nations. Thus, about one hundred years after the deluge, Nimrod, the son of Cush and grandson of Ham, commenced his career in Shinar as a mighty warrior and conqueror. Among other cities of less note, he built or began to build Babylon, afterwards "the glory of kingdoms, and the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency." Ashur, son of Shem and grandson of Noah, built Nineveh, and gave name to the empire of Assyria. Or if, instead of the common

* Whether this division took place before or after the building of Babel is disputed. Bryant says, "that there were two memorable occurrences in ancient history, which the learned have been apt to consider as merely one event. The first was a regular migration of mankind in general by divine appointment: the second was the dispersion of the Cuthites, and their adherents, who had acted in defiance of this ordination;" that the Cuthites, under their leader Nimrod, refused to emi grate, built Babel, were punished, and scattered abroad into different parts, etc. Hence the fables of the Titans and Giants, etc.

version of Gen. 10: 11, "out of that land went forth Ashur, and builded Nineveh," we adopt the marginal reading, which is preferred by Bochart and other learned critics, the text will stand thus: "Out of that land he [Nimrod] went forth into Assyria and built Nineveh." This is probably the true reading. It better accords with the context, and with the subsequent fortunes of that remarkable city, and of Ham's posterity generally.* Ninus, its reputed founder, and from whom it was named according to oriental tradition, may have been a son of Nimrod, or merely another name for Nimrod himself. But however all this may be, there is no doubt that Nineveh was built at this time, or about one hundred and thirty years after the flood; and that it soon became an exceedingly great, magnificent and renowned metropolis.

Mizraim (i. e. the family of Mezr), son of Ham, peopled Egypt. Throughout Africa and the East, Egypt is to this day called Mezr, and the Egyptians Mezraim. Another son of Ham, Canaan, peopled the land of Canaan, afterwards Palestine, or the promised land-the future home of the Israelites. Sidon, son of Canaan, gave name to the city Sidon, and was the father of the Sidonians. Uz, grandson of Shem, is supposed to have settled in Colo-Syria, and to have been the founder of Damascus. This famous city, by whomsoever built, belongs undoubtedly to the earliest ages: and it has never ceased to act a conspicuous part at every epoch of oriental history, from Abraham's time to the present day.

We thus behold the inhabitants of this new world, going forward with spirit and enterprise to build cities and to form civil communities, as soon as their numbers would permit. And the grandest cities which have ever existed, at least since the deluge, were founded soon after that event. Nay, they actually reached the highest pitch of power and splendor within a very few centuries, some of them, probably, long before the death of Noah. Profane history does not carry us back to the period at which Nineveh and Babylon and fifty other cities were not large and splendid. Nor can it tell us when or by whom they were built; or what were the several steps in their progress to greatness. The Bible informs us only when the foundations were laid. But the Bible ever after speaks of them as

* Bryant dissents from Bochart, and very ingeniously defends the common version.

SECOND SERIES, VOL. VI. NO. I.

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large and magnificent cities. That many of them were so within a very few years cannot be doubted. As soon as there were people enough in the world to build cities, it might be expected that they would build them. And that there might have been a population of hundreds of millions, has been shown by the calculations of sundry eminently learned and judicious writers. Should any persons, however, be inclined to demur or to cavil on this score, they are welcome to all the benefit which the chronology of the Samaritan Pentateuch and the Septuagint version can afford them.* That cities should have been built during the lifetime of a single monarch or patriarch, or by a single generation, need not surprise us. Every body knows the history of Alexandria in Egypt-and of the scores of cities built by the successors of the Macedonian conqueror. St. Petersburgh too is a modern instance of a similar kind. And as to American cities-they grow up so rapidly and so abundantly, that no mortal pretends to an acquaintance with their statistics or hardly with their geographical positions.

But the further we ascend towards the commencement of human enterprise, the greater do we find the combination of skill and effort in the production of imposing and colossal works of art. Probably the labor bestowed on the tower of Babel— certainly that bestowed on many a structure in Egypt, say a pyramid, or labyrinth, or temple-would suffice to build a modern city of very respectable dimensions. The truth is, for several centuries after the flood, something of the antediluvian spirit and fashion seems to have prevailed among mankind. Every thing was designed and executed on a grand scale, and in the most durable style. It is immaterial at present to inquire what could have induced men, in those early ages, to unite in the construction of such massive and costly edifices. Whether it was the result of voluntary action on the part of the laborers, or whether it was the effect of despotic power, is of no consequence to the main purpose of our investigation. Were we to admit that the whole was the work of slaves-that all the mighty monuments of Asiatic and African grandeur were the works of slaves--still, this would no more prove a general deficiency in science or the arts, than the existence of slavery in our own free, happy and Christian country, implies a want of

* See Dr. Hales's New Analysis of Chronology; and Dr. Russell's Connection of Sacred and Profane History.