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the book of Esdras we are told " that the ten tribes taken prisoners by Salmanasar, the king of Assyria, were carried over the water, and came into another land, but they took counsel amongst themselves, that they would leave the heathen, and go forth into a farther country, where never mankind dwelt, and that they entered into Euphrates, by the narrow passages of the river; for the Most High then showed signs for them, and held still the flood, till they were passed over, for through that country there was a great way to go, of a year and a half; and the region was named Arsareth, then dwelt they there until the latter time, and now, when they shall begin to come, the Highest shall stay the springs of the stream again, that they may go through."

Such are the chief passages in the inspired writings, and in the Apocrypha, informing us of the destiny of the ten tribes after their removal from the favour of God; since which time they have remained, as regards the larger portion of them, as entirely unknown with any certainty, as if, like other nations, they too had become extinct, but that they are not, that they shall again arise a mighty nation, a people to be again called and chosen, the word of God informs us, Israel shall again be found, the nations shall again give them up. "I will say to the north, Give up; and to the south, Keep not back: bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the ends of the earth;" the dry bones shall again hear the words of the Lord, stand up, breath shall enter into them, and they shall live; the Lord shall again take "the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel his fellows, and will put them with him, even with the stick of Judah, and they shall be one in mine hand and I will make them one nation in the land, upon the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king to them all; and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all;-so shall they be my people, and I will be their God; and David my servant shall be king over them;" such then are also some of the many passages of Scripture, informing us that again they shall arise from the dark tomb in which for so many ages they have been engulphed; Persia, Ethiopia, and Lybia, shall give them up, Sheba, Dedan, and Tarshish shall restore them; wars and rumours of wars for ever fled, they shall sit " every man under his fig tree, and every man under his vine, and none shall make them afraid," Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall not vex Ephraim."

But in the mean time, until the mighty gathering of this people "terrible from the beginning hitherto," where are they?

It has been conjectured, if we could with certainty know where they' abode at the Christian era, and again, a few centuries on we might ascertain now their position; one of the remarkable features, however, of the dispersion of the ten tribes being, that their brethren of the House of Judah know not the land where they at present abide; the general opinion among them seems to be that the greater part of Israel still exist where they were at first carried captives, and Dr. Buchanan mentions when enquiring from the Jews on the coast of Malabar for the tribes of Israel, they replied "to what country did we suppose they had gone, if they had emigrated from the Chaldean provinces, and whether we had ever heard of them moving in a great army on such an expedition," and that it was commonly believed among them that the great

body of the Israelites are to be found in Chaldea, and in the countries contiguous to it, being the very places whither they were first carried into captivity; that some few families had migrated into regions more remote, as to Cochin and Bajapoor, in Tucha, and to other places yet farther to the east; but that the bulk of the nation, though now so much reduced in number, had not to this day removed two thousand miles from Samaria; they informed him, that in some places of the remote dispersion, their brethren have but small portions of the Scriptures, and that the prophetical books were rare; and they gave him a written list of no less than sixty-five places in India, Tartary, and China, where there were small colonies of their brethren residing.

In the 2 Chron. xxx., we find that a part of the tribes of Asher, Manassah, and Zebulun, came up to Jerusalem to keep the feast of the Passover on Hezekiah's writing to them, while the greater part refused to do so, which shows us plainly, that at that time the individual tribes were still known, as also their places of existence.

Agrippa, one of their own kings, when exhorting the Jewish people to submit to the Romans, expostulated with them, by enquiring " What, do you stretch your hopes beyond the river Euphrates?

Do any of you think that your fellow tribes will come to your aid out of Adiabane ? besides, if they would come, the Parthien will not permit it;" from this, then, we may conclude the ten tribes were at that time captive in Media.

Josephus mentions a portion of the ten tribes coming up to Jerusalem, but that the main body of them abode still in Media, and that, "there are two tribes living in Asia and Europe, in subjection to the Romans; but the ten tribes are beyond the Euphrates to this time. He calls them Adiabaniens, from a part of Assyria named Adiabane, and the river Ahavah, (mentioned in Ezra x. 15, 31,) in that land, being also sometimes called by the same name." Josephus also tells us, "that Helena, the queen of Adiabane, who had been converted to the Jewish religion, sent some of her servants to Alexandria to purchase large supplies of corn, and also to Cyprus to procure large quantities of dried figs, which she distributed to the Jews that were in want; and that this was the time of the famine which is mentioned by Agabus, Acts xi. 28:" and, consequently, about the forty-seventh year of the Christian era, and from this we may conclude, that there must have been many Jews in Adiabane at that time. We find accounts too, in the works of other Jewish historians mentioning that they were not only carried into Media, but into the north countries beyond the Bosphorus.

Jerome, writing in the fifth century, says, "Unto this day, the ten tribes are subject to the kings of the Persians, nor has their captivity ever been loosed," and also adds, "the ten tribes inhabit at this day, he cities and mountains of the Media." Herodotus also declares, "that the Scythians conquered the empire of Media soon after the expulsion of the ten tribes from Palestine;" and another writer supposes that the Scythians derived their name from Cutha, or Cush.

Tartary, too, claims for her subjects the honour of being descended from the ten tribes, and their famous conqueror Timour, or Tamerlane, oasts in one of his works, that he was descended from the tribe of Dan;

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nor need we wonder at their claiming this origin, remembering the present Tartary was the ancient Scythia.

Benjamin of Tudela, who travelled in Tartary in the 12th century, says of it," In Samarchand, the city of Tamerlane, there are fifty thousand Jews under the presidency of Rabbi Obadiah, and in the mountains and cities of Nisbor, there are four tribes of Israel resident, viz., Dan, Zabulun, Asher, and Napthali."

Dr. Fletcher, who lived in the sixteenth century, and envoy at the court of Russia, says, that Tartary was the chief abode of the ten tribes, and argues much in favour of this, from the language, customs, the situation of Tartary, and from the name of many of the cities, and their chief one, Samarchand, he supposes to be derived from Samaria. Dr. Boudinot, also writes, that in Tartary there is 66 a city on a hill named Mount Tabor, another named Jericho, and two cities named Chorazin, the greater and the less." And these are but a few of the many accounts given by early writers as to the supposed position of these tribes, and many more places mentioned by modern travellers may lead us to conjecture with much certainty as to where the greater part of their descendants are dwelling in the present day, of which, perhaps, Affghanistan may be looked upon as containing the greater number, and from the daily accounts of its inhabitants, perhaps the most interesting, and the history of which people, with the proofs brought forward to show their descent from the ten tribes, would, of itself, form no inconsiderable work.

And what a mighty gathering will that be, when the tribes of Israel shall again go up to worship at Jerusalem, each tribe gathered one by one, and each individual gathered one by one. "And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall beat off from the channel of the river unto the stream of Egypt, and ye shall be gathered one by one, Ö, ye children of Israel. And that day the trumpet shall be blown, and they shall come who were ready to perish in the land of Egypt, and shall worship Jehovah in the holy mountain of Jerusalem."

As from our Saviour's words recorded in Matthew xxiv., the Jews received a warning which to those who would accept of it, as such pointed out the means of escaping the destruction which should come upon their nation, a declaration containing one of the most solemn warnings we find in Scripture, teaching us the importance the Divine speaker attached to it, a warning which those who would receive the words of Christ as truth, believed in, and on seeing those things coming to pass which He had predicted fled, and were saved, the declaration of Christ was then literally accomplished, but the words applied equally to every nation, and to every people "who should see these things coming to pass," as the time drew night for the figurative accomplishment of His prophecy, that they might learn from thence that the fulfilment of the whole of it was near even at the doors;" already we see the supposed remnants of Israel enquiring after the truth, though hidden among the heathen with whom they dwell; already we see the traditions of men which with the Hebrews, and with others have kept them from the true knowledge of God, beginning to be despised for their weakness and rejected for their falsity; and already do we see the mourning in'

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spirit of some of the tribe of Judah, a shaking among the dry bones, and already in great numbers do the dry bones hear the world of the Lord, and we see, that upon many of His long afflicted people "the spirit of the Lord is poured," and that the dry bones live; and seeing then the commencement of the events which shall usher in the great day of their final gathering, we have but to recollect that bearing the name of Christ implies belief in the whole, the entire, and complete whole of His words, and that, consequently, like the Jews, as the signs of the destruction of their city and nation approached, we too, may believe, that "This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled." He whose words were those of truth alone, to warn us of unbelief in this prophecy, and to assure us of the certainty of its being fulfilled, added, "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away;" and warns us also, that as it was in the days of Noah, so should it also be as these great events come to pass; therefore, though the infidel would tell us to disbelieve the words of Christ, and the idolater would pervert them to the interpretation most convenient to his traditions and doctrines of men, like the Scribes and the Pharisees of old, "rejecting the commandment of God that they may keep their own traditions," and of whom our Saviour said, "well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written," This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me: howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men;" yet the Christian fully believing in Christ, and in his words as those of perfect truth, however his faith may be derided, his confidence in the word of God as the sure word of prophecy ridiculed, he may still safely believe, and steadily look forward to that great time ere long appearing, which from the fulfilment of prophecy and the present state of the Jewish nation, we may justly conclude cannot be far off, when the dry bones "shall stand up upon their feet an exceeding great army," when the wings of Israel shall be as the wings of a dove covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold; when the Lord shall again bring his people from Bashan, from the depths of the sea, wher Benjamin, Judah, the princes of Zebulon, and the princes of Naphthali shall arise, and Ethiopia shall stretch out her hands unto her God. Nov. 18th.

AN EXTRACT FROM "SOCIALISM UNMASKED." "WITH regard to Poverty; it is indeed truly distressing to every one, who has a heart to feel, to see any of his fellow-creatures suffering for want of the necessaries of life.-If we understand the word Poverty in this sense, we believe that most persons will acknowledge that they have found by their own experience, that many, at least, of such cases of extreme poverty, are traceable to moral causes in the persons themselves, sometimes to the want of due foresight or prudence, some

times to sloth and idleness, sometimes to extravagance, and " consuming upon lusts" and vanity, that money which God had provided such persons with, for the reasonable maintenance of themselves and their families. Such cases of poverty as these might be reduced in number, not by the levelling plan of the Owenites, but by the removal of those moral causes which produced such want and wretchedness-by these persons exercising more foresight and good management, more