restored the temple from its foundation, or else adorned it in so costly a manner, that it was esteemed one of the most stupendous works of the age. His reign was tarnished by his unnatural cruelties. He put to death Mariamne, his wife, and her mother Alexandra; and at last killed the sons he had by Mariamne, who were falsely accused by Antipater.

2. After the death of Herod the Great, the kingdom was divided between Herod Antipas, and his brothers Ar chelaus and Philip. Each division was called a Tetrarchy, or fourth part, and the brothers governed under the name of Tetrarchs. The wife of Herod Antipas was Herodias, by whose persuasion, John the Baptist was beheaded. In these times, Christ suffered under the government of Pontius Pilate; and thus " gave his life, a ranson" for the world.

3. Herod the third, or Agrippa the elder, who, by the favour of the Romans, was declared prince of all Judea; he was an excellent and a prudent governor-but he is charged with the death of the apostle James. To this Herod, Paul's celebrated oration was addressed.

4. Herod the fourth, or Agrippa the younger, governed under the Emperor Claudius; who once more annexed Judea to Syria.

5. Herod Agrippa; in whose time Jerusalem was besieged and taken, and with the temple utterly destroyed by Titus, the Roman general.

Thus ended the Jewish nation and worship; nor have the Jews ever since been able to regain the smallest power in Judea, nor indeed in any other country, though there is scarcely any part of the globe where they are not to be found. One of their own people* has feelingly, but faithfully, depicted the state of this oppressed nation, from the destruction of their temple to the present time.

'Soon after the establishment of Christianity,' says this writer, 'the Jewish nation, dispersed since the second destruction of its temple, had totally disappeared. By the light of those flames which devoured the monuments of its antient splendour, the conquerors beheld a million of victims dead or expiring on their ruins. The hatred of the enemies of that unfortunate nation raged longer than the

• Transactions of the Parisian Sanhedrin, p. 64. !

fire which had consumed its temple. Weighed down by taxes, and forced to contribute more than Christians for the support of society, they had hardly any thing of the rights which it gives. If a destructive scourge happened to spread havock among the inhabitants of a country, the Jews had poisoned the springs ;t or, those men, cursed by heaven, had, nevertheless, incensed it by their prayers against the nation which they were supposed to hate. Did sovereigns want pecuniary assistance to carry on their wars? The Jews were compelled to give up those riches in which they sought some consolation against the oppressing sense of their abject condition:-as a reward for their sacrifices, they were expelled from the state which they had supported, and were afterwards recalled, to be stript again. Compelled to wear, exteriorly, the badges of their abject state, they were every where exposed to the insults of the vilest populace. When from his solitary retreat an enthu siastic hermit preached the crusades to the nations of Europe, and a part of its inhabitants left their country to moisten with their blood the plains of Palestine, the knell of promiscuous massacre tolled before the alarm-bell of war. Millions of Jews were then massacred to glut the pious rage of the crusaders. It was by tearing the entrails of their brethren, that these warriors sought to deserve the protection of heaven. Sculls of men, and bleeding hearts were offered as holocausts on the altars of that God, who has no pleasure even in the blood of the innocent lamb, and ministers of peace were thrown into a holy enthusiasm by these bloody sacrifices. Basil, Treves, Coblentz, and Cologn became human shambles. Upwards of 400,000 victims of all ages, and of both sexes, lost their lives at Cesarea and Alexandria.'

To confirm this eloquent account of their sufferings, we subjoin the following sketch. In the year of Christ 135, there were destroyed by the Romans 580,000 Jews. In the year 1262, seven hundred were slain in London, because a Jew would have forced a Christian to pay him more than two shillings per week for the loan of twenty. In 1274, every Jew who lent money on usury, was command

+ This relates to a fatal epidemic distemper which raged in the year 1348; on this occasion a million and a half of the Jews were cruelly massacred.

ed to wear a plate upon his breast, signifying that he was a usurer, or to quit the realm. In 1282, all their synagogues were ordered to be destroyed. Five years after this time, all the Jews in England were apprehended in one day, their goods and chattels confiscated to the king, and they, to the number of 15,660, were banished the realm, having only sustenance money allowed them, and remained exiles for 364 years, till the time of Oliver Cromwell, who restored them. In 1317, a general massacre of the Jews took place at Verdun by the peasants, who conceived from a pretended prophecy, that the Jews were to recover the Holy Land from the infidels. Five hundred of these persecuted people took shelter in a castle, and defended themselves to the last extremity, when for want of weapons, they threw their children at the enemy, and then killed each other. They were driven out of France in 1394. Half a million were driven out of Spain, and 150,000 from Portugal in the year 1492. In antient times, all their goods belonged to the chief lord where they lived; and he had such an absolute property in them, that he might sell them; for they had not liberty to remove to another lord without leave.

However cruelly persecuted the Jews may have been in former times, there can be no cause of complaint now ;for, wherever they choose to fix their residence among civi lized nations, they enjoy the rights of meu and of citizens, and may practise, unmolested, their peculiar form of wor ship, with all its attendant rites and ceremonies. These ought to be conformable to the law of Moses; the ritual however, enjoined by their antient laws, is by no means observed it is encumbered with a multitude of modern absurdities.

We cannot contemplate without strong emotion, the history of this nation, scattered by the storm of adversity, over the face of the habitable globe, unfortunate, perse cuted, but faithfully adhering to the religion of its ances tors, in spite of tortures, and of sufferings. This is striking phenomenon, incomprehensible to human reason, unless we admit, what is so repeatedly inculcated in propcecy, that their concerns are under the special superintendance of God's providence. For what purpose can we suppose them to be thus preserved distinct, among all the

nations of the earth, except for that which is no less repeatedly declared in prophecy; namely, their conversion and restoration? The time will, assuredly, arrive, when they shall be gathered out of all the countries of their dispersion, and brought to the saving knowledge of the gospel; when Jews and Gentiles shall jointly form only one flock and when the hallowed name of Jesus the Messiah, shall be great even to the very ends of the earth.

Though the Jews have been so widely scattered, their number is very considerable. According to the return made to Buonaparte, by the Jewish Sanhedrin, which was assembled by him in 1807, for political purposes, there were in the Turkish empire one million; in Persia, China, and India, on the east and west of the Ganges, three hundred thousand; and in the west of Europe, Africa, and America, one million seven hundred thousand; making an aggregate population of three millions, one third part of which number, is already under the dominion of the French empire.

* Select Books on Jewish History.

The Historical Books of the Old and New Testaments. The Historical Works of Josephus, (in Whiston's Translation) particularly his account of the destruction of Jerusalem; which is a perpetual commentary on the predictions contained in the New Testament. Shuckford's and Prideaux's Connections of Sacred and Profane History, each in 4 vols. 8vo. Howell's History of the Bible, 3 vols. 12mo. or 8vo.

SECT. II.-ASSYRIAN EMPIRE.

At the head of the Assyrian kings who reigned at Babylon, is placed Belus, its reputed founder, and who is supposed to have been the Nimrod of the Bible. After Belus the principal kings were:

1. Ninus, who built Nineveh, and removed thither the seat of empire. He was the first who made war solely for the purpose of dominion. Having reduced Asia, he conquered the Bactrians with their king Zoroaster. After this he espoused Semiramis, by whom he had a son, named Ninyas.

12. Semiramis was an queen of an heroic mind; odisguising her sex, she took possession of the kingdom, instead

of her son; enlarged Babylon, and surrounded it with a wall, which was 480 furlongs in extent.

3. Ninyas, having slain his mother, took possession of the kingdom, which had been greatly improved by his parents. He was a very slothful sovereign, but rarely seen, and grew old in the company of his concubines.

4. Sardanapalus, the last of the Assyrian monarchs, was effeminate in the extreme. When Arbaces, governor of Media, beheld him sitting in the midst of his women, twirling the distaff, and spinning the purple, he was moved with indignation. He waged war against him, and reduced him to such distresses, that he burnt himself and his riches in a fit of despair, and, both perished together in the flames.

After the death of Sardanapalus, the Assyrian empire was divided into three kingdoms; the Median, Assyrian, and Babylonian. The first king of the Median dynasty was Arbaces. This kingdom continued till the time of Astyages, who was subdued by Cyrus. Ecbatana was the metropolis of the Median, as Nineveh was of the Assyrian empire; the first king was Phul, succeeded. by Tiglathpileser, Salmanassar, Sennacherib, and at last by Esarhaddon, who took possession of the kingdom of Babylon; but after his death, the Assyrian kingdom was subjected to the Medes and Babylonians, who destroyed Nineveh. The principal city of the Babylonian kingdom was Babylon. Here also the royal residence was fixed. The most celebrated of the kings of Babylon was Nebuchadnezzar; who subdued almost the whole of the east. The last king was Darius the Mede; but, he being conquered by Cyrus, king of Persia, the Babylonians submitted to the Persians. Thus, in the time of Cyrus, there arose a new monarchy, called the Persian. ⠀

Among the kingdoms most worthy of notice, in this period, Egypt claims the first rank; whether we consider the multitude of its inhabitants and cities, its cultivation of the arts, the fertility of the land, or its stupendous edifices. Egypt, according to Diodorus Siculus, contained 18,000 cities; of which, Heliopolis, or the City of the Sun, (called Thebes, by the Greeks,) was the chief. This city, which boasts Busiris for its founder, was remarkable for its hundred gates, the buildings, the statues, and the obe