these facts are recorded), agree exactly with Ezekiel's account of the time, even to the very year, when the city was taken. When all hopes of preserving themselves were vanished, the Tyrians then took to their ships; and carrying their treasures along with them, escaped to their colonies and "isles of the sea," which were scattered in various quarters of the Mediterranean. Nebuchadnezzar was thus grievously disappointed, in having no booty; and herein was fulfilled a very peculiar prediction of Ezekiel, "Yet he had no wages, nor his army, for Tyrus, for the service that he had served against it. Therefore,-I will give the land of Egypt unto Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and he shall take her multitude, and her spoil and her prey, and it shall be for wages for his army." (Ezek. xxix. 18, 19.) Now this was so: and after he had subdued Tyre and Egypt, it is said that he pushed his conquests further into Africa and Spain; and thus being pursued by their conqueror, the Tyrians would have no rest." Be this as it may, the unsettled condition of the Carthaginians and other Tyrian colonies is well known. At the end of "seventy years," Cyrus and the Persians subverted the Babylonian Empire, and restored the conquered nations; and then Tyre amongst the rest, lifted up her head, and having "turned to her hire," recovered her trade and merchandise, being governed by a king from Babylon.

From this time, however, it is the insular part of Tyre that is alluded to. Though she "built her a stronghold, and heaped up silver as dust, and fine gold as mire out of the streets," yet in spite of her insular situation and strongly fortified holds, and walls one hundred and fifty feet high, Alexander besieged and took, and set the city on fire'. And as in the former siege, the inhabitants of old Tyre, "fled to Chittim," the isles and continent of the Mediterranean,- -so they did on this occasion. Of those remaining, 80,000 were slain, and 30,000 sold for slaves; thus fulfilling the prediction, that whereas they had "sold the children of Judah and of Jerusalem,”"behold I will return your recompense upon your own heads, and will sell your sons and your daughters." (Joel iii. 6. 8.)

As with old Tyre, so again it was with the insular one. It was restored by Alexander, and revived in a good deal of its pristine vigour. And then became fulfilled the prediction of its conversion to God. In the Gospel, we have mention of multitudes from Tyre

1 The ruins of Old Tyre contributed much to the taking of the new city; for with the stones, timber, and rubbish of the old one, Alexander built a causeway from the continent to the island; thus singularly and literally fulfilling the prediction "They shall lay thy stones, and thy timber, and thy dust, in the midst of the water." (Ezek. xxvi. 12.) After seven months' labour in the construction, he was thus enabled to storm and take the city.

and Sidon coming to hear Christ. In Dioclesian's time the Tyrians were such sincere converts to Christianity, that they exhibited several glorious examples of martyrdom. Afterwards Paulinus built a most magnificent temple to God there; "in Tyre (says St. Jerome) we may behold churches built to Christ, we may see their riches not laid up nor treasured, but given to those who dwell before the Lord.'" And finally, Tyre had the honour of being erected into an Archbishopric, the first under the patriarchate of Jerusalem, with fourteen bishops under its primacy; in which condition it continued several years: thus fully accomplishing the prediction "even He shall

be for our God." "Her merchandise and her hire shall be holiness to the Lord; it shall not be treasured, but shall be for them that dwell before the Lord to eat sufficiently and for durable clothing." (Isaiah xxiii. 18.)

But after all, the time would arrive when the city was to be totally destroyed for her vain-glory and pride, and to become a place for fishers. And so it has been. After various turns of fortune, and subju- · gation to different masters, it at last came under the Turks, who still hold it. But alas how fallen and changed! From having been the "renowned and mighty Tyre, the mart of the earth,"—it is now a heap of ruins, its port choked up, and visited only by

the boats of a few poor fishermen, that can with diffiA modern traveller (Maun

culty find an entrance.

drell) says, "there is not so much as one entire house left, the poor wretches harbouring themselves in vaults, and subsisting upon fishing; seeming, as if preserved by divine providence, as a visible argument how God has fulfilled His word concerning Tyre, that it should be as the top of a rock, a place for fishers to dry their nets on.'”

DISSERTATION XII.

The Prophecies concerning EGYPT.

EGYPT is one of the first and most famous countries that we read of in history 1; in the days of Joseph at least, if not in the time of Abraham, it was a great and flourishing kingdom; there are monuments of its greatness (viz. the Pyramids) yet remaining, such as are the astonishment of all posterity. It was moreover as celebrated for its wisdom, as for its greatness and antiquity; being as it were the academy of earlier ages; and the sages of Greece and other countries repairing thither to imbibe learning. Moses, we read, "was learned in all the wisdom of Egypt;" and the highest character of Solomon's wisdom was that it "excelled the wisdom of Egypt." (1 Kings iv. 30.) But with all this wisdom, it became early corrupt and

In the Scriptures, it is called Mizraim, and the land of Ham.