some say that the government of Carthage forbid the settlement upon pain of death, from the fear that it would increase in power so as to deprive the mother country of her possessions there." If Aristotle had uttered this as a prediction, that such a thing would take place in regard to some future nation, no one, perhaps, would have called him a false prophet, for the American revolution would have been its fulfilment. This philosopher lived about 384 years B. C. SENECA lived about the commencement of the vulgar era. He wrote tragedies, and in one of them occurs this passage: "Venient annis Sæeculia seris, quibus oceanus This is nearer prophecy, and may be rendered, in English, thus: "The time will come when the ocean will loosen the chains of nature, and we shall behold a vast country. A new Typhis shall discover new worlds; Thule shall no longer be considered the last country of the known world." ST. GREGORY, who flourished in the 7th century, in an epistle to St. Clement, an African bishop, said that, beyond the ocean there was another world. * Medea. Act. 3—v. 375. CHAPTER IV. ANCIENT KINGS AND WARS. ABRAHAM THE PRINCE, A CONQUEROR OF KINGS. In the days of Amraphet, of Shinar, or Chaldea; Arioch king of Ellasar or Assyria; Chedorlaomer king of Elam or Persia; and Tidal king of Nations, made war with Bera, king of Sodom; and with Bimsha, king of Gomorrah; Shinab, king of Admah; and Shemeber king of Zeboim; and the king of Bela, or Zoar, in that country now called Africa, and Asia. All these were joined together in the valley of Siddim which is the Salt Sea. Twelve years they served Chedorlaomer the king of Persia, and in the thirteenth year they rebelled; and in the fourteenth year, came Chedorlaomer and the kings that were with him, and smote the Rephaims in Ashterothkarnaim, and the Zuzims in Ham, and the Emims in Shaveh-kiriathaim, and the Horites in their Mount Seir unto El-paran, which is by the wilderness. And they returned and came to Enmishphat which is Kadesh, and smote all the country of the Amalekites, and also the Amorites that dwelt in Hazezontamar; and there went out the king of Sodom, and the king of Gomorrah, and the king of Admah, and the king of Zeboim, and the king of Zoar; and they joined battle in the valley of Siddim, with Chedorlaomer the king of Persia, and with Tidal king of Nations, and Amraphet king of Chaldea, and Arioch king of Assyria. kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled and fell there, and they that remained fled to the mountain, and took all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah, and all their victuals, and went their way; and they took Lot, Abraham's brother's son, who dwelt in Sodom, and his goods, and The carried them away. And there came one that had escaped, and told Abram the Hebrew, for he dwelt in the plain of Mamre, the Amorite, [an Ethiopian] brother of Eshcol, and brother of Aner, and these were confederate with Abram. And when Abram heard that Lot was taken captive, he armed his trained servants who were in his own house, three hundred and eighteen men, and pursued them unto Dan. And he divided his men against them by night, he and his servants smote them and pursued them unto Habah, which is on the left hand of Damascus, and brought back all the goods again, also his brother Lot, his goods and women and the people. And the king of Sodom went out to meet him, [after his return from the slaughter of Chedorlaomer, and of the kings that were with him,] at the valley of Sheveh, which is the king's dale. And Melchizedek, king of Salem, the priest of the Most High God, brought forth bread and wine: and he blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abram of the Most High God, which hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand. And he gave him tithes of all. And the king of Sodom said to Abram, Give me the persons, and take the goods to thyself. And Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have lifted up mine hand to the Lord, the Most High God, the possessor of heaven and earth, that I will not take from a thread even to a shoe-latchet; and that I will not take any thing that is thine, lest thou shouldst say, I have made Abram rich: save only that which the young men have eaten, and the portion of the men which went with me, Aner, Eshcol and Mamre, let them take their portion. (Gen. xiv. xii. xxiv.; Heb vii.) THE ETHIOPIAN KINGS OF EGYPT. 1. Menes was the first king of Egypt. We have accounts of but one of his successors-Timans, during the first period, a space of more than two centuries. 2. Shishak was king of Ethiopia, and doubtless of Egypt. After his death 3. Zerah the son of Judah became king of Ethiopia, and made himself master of Egypt and Libya; and in tending to add Judea to his dominions, made war upon Asa. king of Judea. His army consisted of a million of men, and three hundred chariots of war. (2 Chr. xiv. 9.) 4. Sabachus, an Ethiopian, king of Ethiopia, being encouraged by an oracle, entered Egypt with a numerous army, and possessed himself of the country. He reigned with great clemency and justice. It is believed, that this Sabachus was the same with Solomon, whose aid was implored by Hosea king of Israel, against Salmanaser king of Assyria. He is the same 5. Sethon reigned fourteen years. with Sabachus, or Savechus the son of Sabacan or Sual the Ethiopian who reigned so long over Egypt. 6. Tharaca, an Ethiopian, joined Sethon, with an Ethiopian army to relieve Jerusalem. After the death of Sethon, who had filled the Egyptian throne fourteen years, Tharaca ascended the throne and reigned eight years over Egypt. 7. Sesach or Shishak was the king of Egypt to whom Jeroboam fled to avoid death at the hands of king Solomon. Jeroboam was entertained till the death of Solomon, when he returned to Judea and was made king of Israel. (2 Chr. xi. and xii.) This Sesach, in the fifth year of the reign of Rehoboam marched against Jerusalem, because the Jews had transgressed against the Lord. He came with twelve hundred chariots of war, and sixty thousand horse. He had brought numberless multitudes of people, who were all Libyans, Troglodytes, and Ethiopians. He seized upon all the strongest cities of Judah, and advanced as far as Jerusalem. Then the king, and the princes of Israel, having humbled themselves and asked the protection of the God of Israel; he told them, by his prophet Shemaiah, that he would not, because they humbled themselves, destroy them all as they had deserved; but that they should be the servants of Sesach: in order that they might know the difference of his service, and the service of the kingdoms of the country. Sesach retired from Jerusalem, after having plundered the treasures of the house of the Lord, and of the king's house; he carried off every thing with him, and even also the 300 shields of gold which Solomon had made. [Rollin.] The following are the kings of Egypt mentioned in scripture by the common appellation of Pharaoh;— 8. Psammetichus Pharaoh, king of Egypt, owed his preservation to the Ionians and Carians. He permitted them to settle in Egypt, whence all foreigners had hitherto been excluded. By assigning them sufficient lands, and fixed revenues, he made them forget their native land; and by his order the Egyptian children were placed under their care to learn the Greek language. Psammetichus engaged in war against the king of Assyria, on account of the limits of the two empires. This war was of long continuance. Ever since Syria had been conquered by the Assyrians, Palestine, being the only country that separated the two kingdoms, was the subject of continual discord; as afterwards between the Ptolemies and the Seleucidæ. They were eternally contending for it, and it was alternately won by the stronger. Psammetichus, seeing himself the peaceable possessor of all Egypt, and having, restored the ancient form of government, [this revolution happened about seven years after the captivity of Manasseh king of Judah,] thought it high time for him to look to his frontiers; and to secure them against the Assyrian, his neighbor, whose power increased daily. For this purpose he entered Palestine at the head of an army. Perhaps we are to refer to the beginning of this war, an incident related by Diodorus: That the Egyptians, provoked to see the Greeks posted on the right wing by the king himself in preference to them, quitted the service, they being upwards of two hundred thousand men, and retired into Ethiopia, where they met with an advantageous settlement. Psammetichus died in the 24th year of the reign of Josiah king of Judah; and was succeeded by his son Nechao or Necho- in Scriptures frequently called Pharaoh Necho. 9. Nechao or Pharaoh Necho reigned sixteen years king of Egypt, (2 Chron. xxxv. 20,) whose expeditions are often mentioned in profane history. The Babylonians and Medes having destroyed Nineveh, and with it the empire of the Assyrians, did there |