cessive centuries; and how could it possibly have been imagined that this identical land would ever yield so scanty a subsistence to the desolate dwellers therein, and that there would be so few men left? Yet in it shall be a tenth. The city that went out by a thousand shall leave an hundred, and that which went out by a hundred shall leave ten. The present population of Judea has been estimated, without reference to any prediction, at a tenth of the number by which it was peopled previous to the dispersion of the Jews. Volney, on a comparative estimate, reduces it even to less. It is impossible to ascertain the precise proportion. The words of Pierre Bello, quoted by Malte Brun, though the same in substance with the testimony of others, here afford the closest commentary. "A tract from which a hundred individuals draw a scanty subsistence, formerly maintained thousands."* The mirth of the tabret ceaseth, the noise of them that rejoice endeth, the joy of the harp ceaseth. Instrumental music was common among the Jews. The tabret and the harp, the cymbal, the psaltery, and the viol, and other instruments of music, are often mentioned as in familiar use among the Israelites, and regularly formed a great part of the service of the temple. At the period when the prediction was delivered, the harp, the viol, and the tabret, and pipe, and wine were in their feasts; and even though the Jews have long ceased to be a nation, the use of these instruments has not wholly ceased from among them. But in the once happy land of Judea the voice of mirthful music is at rest. In a general description of the state of the arts and sciences in Syria (including the whole of the Holy Land) Volney remarks, that adepts in music are very rarely to be met with. They have no music but vocal, for they neither know nor esteem instrumental; and they are in the right, for such instruments as they have, not excepting their flutes, are detestable." The mirth of the harp ceaseth, the joy of the tabret ceaseth. 66 But this is not the sole instance in which the melancholy features of that desolate country seem to be transferred to the minds of its inhabitants. And the plaintive language of the prophet (the significancy of which might * Malte Brun's Geography, vol. ii. p. 151. well have admitted of some slight modification, if one jot or tittle could pass away till all be fulfilled) is true to the very letter, when set side by side, unaided by one syllable of comment, with the words of a bold and avowed ⚫ unbeliever. All the merry-hearted do SIGH; they shall not drink wine with a song; all joy is darkened, the mirth of the land is "Their pergone. Their shouting shall be no shouting. formance" (singing) "is accompanied with sighs and gestures. They may be said to excel most in the melancholy strain. To behold an Arab with his head inclined, his hand applied to his ear, his eyebrows knit, his eyes languishing; to hear his plaintive tones, his sighs and 99* If sobs, it is almost impossible to refrain from tears." any further illustration of the prediction be requisite, the same ill-fated narrator of facts exhibits anew the visions of the prophet. From his description (chap. xl.) of the manners and character of the inhabitants of Syria, it is obvious that melancholy is a predominating feature. "Instead of that open and cheerful countenance, which we either naturally possess or assume, their behaviour is serious, austere, and melancholy. They rarely laugh; and the gayety of the French appears to them a fit of delirium. When they speak it is with deliberation, without gesture, and without passion; they listen without interrupting you; they are silent for whole days together; and by no means pique themselves on supporting conversation. Continually seated, they pass whole days musing, with their legs crossed, their pipes in their mouths, and almost without changing their attitude. The orientals, in general, have a grave and phlegmatic exterior; a stayed and almost listless deportment; and a serious, nay, even sad and melancholy countenance." Having thus explicitly stated the fact, Volney, by many arguments, equally judicious and just, most successfully combats the idea that the climate and soil are the radical cause of so striking a phenomenon: and after assigning a multiplicity of facts from ancient history, which completely disprove the efficacy of such causes, he instances that of the Jews, "who, limited to a little state, never ceased to struggle for a thousand years against the most powerful empires. If the men of these nations were inert," * Volaey's Travels, p. 439, 440. † Ibid. p. 461, 476. + Ibid. p. 464. he adds, "what is activity? If they were active, where then is the influence of climate? Why, in the same countries, where so much energy was displayed in former times, do we at present find such profound indolence?" And having thus relieved the advocate for the inspiration of the Scriptures from the necessity of proving that the contrast in the manner and character of the present and of the ancient inhabitants of Syria is (even now, when the change has become matter of history and observation, and when the circumstances respecting it are known) incapable of solution from any natural causes, such as by some conceivable possibility might have been foreseen, he proceeds to point out those real, efficacious, and efficient causes, viz. the mode of government and the state of religion and of the laws-the nature of which no human sagacity could possibly have descried, and which came not into existence or operation in the manner in which they have so long continued, for many ages subsequent to the period when their full and permanent effect was laid open to the full view of the prophets of Israel. The fact thus clearly predicted and proved is not only astonishing as referable to the inhabitants of Judea, and as exhibiting a contrast, than which nothing of a similar kind can be more complete, but it is so very contradictory to the habits of men and customs of nations, that it is totally inexplicable how, by any human means, such a fact, even singly, could ever have been foretold. From the congregated groups of savages, cheered by their simple instruments of music, exulting in their war-songs, and revelling in their mirth, to the more elegant assemblages of polished society, listening with delight to the triumphs of music,— from the huts of the wilderness to the courts of Asia and of Europe, and from the wilds of America, the jungles of India, and even the deserts of Central Africa, to the meadows of England, the plains of France, or the valleys of Italy; the experience of mankind in every clime, except partially where the blasting influence of the crescent is felt,-proclaims as untrue to nature the predicted fact, which actually has been permanently characteristic of the inhabitants of the once happy land of Israel. The fact perhaps would have been but slowly credited; and the synonymous terms of the ample description and of the repeated prophecies, might have been reckoned the fiction of a biassed judgment, had a Christian, instead of Volney, been the witness. 66 99* They shall not drink wine with a song. Strong_drink shall be BITTER unto them that drink it. The more closely that the author of the Ruins of Empires traces the causes in which the desolation of these regions and the calamities of the inhabitants originate, he supplies more abundant data for a demonstration that the prophecies "One of the respecting them cannot but be divine. chief sources," continues Volney, "of gayety with us is the social intercourse of the table, and the use of wine. The orientals (Syrians) are almost strangers to this double enjoyment. Good cheer would infallibly expose them to extortion, and wine to corporal punishment, from the zeal of the police in enforcing the precepts of the Koran. It is with great reluctance the Mahometans tolerate the Christians the use of the liquor they envy them.' To this statement may be subjoined the more direct but equally unapplied testimony of recent travellers. "The wines of Jerusalem," says Mr. Joliffe, are most execrable. In a country where every species of vinous liquor is strictly prohibited by the concurrent authorities of law and gospel, a single fountain may be considered of infinitely greater value than many wine-presses."t Mr. Wilson relates that "the wine drank in Jerusalem is probably the very worst to be met with in any country." While the intolerance and despotism of the Turks, and the rapacity and wildness of the Arabs, have blighted the produce of Judea, and render abortive all the influence of climate and all the fertility of that land of vines, the unnatural prohibition of the use of wine, and the rigour with which that prohibition is enforced, have peculiarly operated against the cultivation of the vine, and turned the treading of the wine-press into an odious and unprofitable task. Yet, in a country where the vine grows spontaneously, and which was celebrated for the excellence of its wines, nothing less than the operation of causes unnatural and extreme as these could have verified the language of prophecy. But in this instance, as truly as in every other, a recapitulation of the prophecies is the best summary of the facts. And, by only changing the future *Volney's Travels, vol. ii. p. 480. Joliffe's Letters from Palestine, vol. 1. p. 184. Reland. Palest. p. 381, 792. into the present and the past, after an interval of two thousand five hundred years, no eyewitness, writing on the spot, could delineate a more accurate representation of the existing state of Judea, than in the very words of Isaiah, in which, as in those of other prophets, the various and desultory observations of travellers are concentrated into a description equally perspicuous and true. 66 Many days and years shall ye be troubled, for the vintage shall fail, the gathering shall not come. They shall lament for the teats, for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine. Upon the land of my people shall come up thorns and briers: yea, upon all the houses of joy in the joyous city. Because the palaces shall be forsaken -the multitude of the city shall be left-the forts and towns shall be for dens-a joy of wild asses-a pasture of flocks.* The highways lie waste-the wayfaring man ceaseth-the earth mourneth and languisheth. Lebanon is ashamed, and hewn down, or withered away -Sharon is like a wilderness-and Bashan and Carmel shake off their fruits.t The land shall be utterly emptied and utterly despoiled. The earth mourneth and fadeth away: it is defiled under the inhabitants thereof. Because they have transgressed the laws, therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate, and few men left: the vine languisheth, all the merry-hearted do sigh. The mirth of tabrets ceaseth-the noise of them that rejoice endeth-the joy of the harp ceaseth. They shall not drink wine with a song-strong drink shall be bitter to them that drink it-the city of confusion is broken down--all joy is darkened-the mirth of the land is gone."‡ To this picture of common and general devastation, that no distinguishing feature might be left untouched or untraced by his pencil, the prophet adds, "When thus it shall be in the midst of the land, there shall be as the shaking of an olive-tree, and as the gleaning of grapes when the vintage is done. The glory of Jacob shall be made thin: and it shall be, as when the harvestman gathereth the corn and reapeth the ears with his arm—yet gleaning grapes shall be left in it, as the shaking Isaiah xxxii. 10-14. Isaiah xxxiii. 8, 9. |