THE ASSISTANT OF EDUCATION: RELIGIOUS AND LITERARY. INTENDED FOR THE USE OF YOUNG PERSONS. BY CAROLINE FRY. VOL.IV. LONDON: PRINTED FOR BAKER AND FLETCHER, 18, FINSBURY PLACE, AND D. BROWN EDINBURGH. THE ASSISTANT OF EDUCATION. JANUARY, 1825. A SKETCH OF GENERAL HISTORY. THE HISTORY OF THE JEWS FROM THE BABYLONISH CAPTIVITY, B.C. 588, TO THE REBUilding of jerUSALEM, B.C. 636. WE have now to resume the history of God's chosen people-not, indeed, as a nation and a government known and acknowledged in the world, and playing an important part in the great scene of life. As in the time when Abraham wandered from land to land, and from court to court, but claimed none of his own—as in the darkness of Egyptian bondage, when Moses seemed alone distinguished by the favour that had been promised to his race, we must again seek in the adventures of an individual the thread of this important history. And surely in doing so, a striking, a delightful picture, is presented us of the stability of the Creator's purpose, and the unchangeable faithfulness of his promise. Had there been any lookers-on upon this scene, any who knew what God had purposed and had promised, seeing now what he permitted to be done-how could it have appeared to them but that all was defeated or relinquished. The thread had seemed to them to be snapped in sunder, the chosen race extinct, and the children of God, whom from the beginning we have traced as distinct and separate from the children of men, now finally merged in the corrupted mass, and abandoned to the misery of their race. But they would |