On the fourth evening brother King introduced his first class to prove the divine origin of the Christian System, which was Prophesy, and the items selected first were, the dispersion of the Jews, and the destruction of Jerusalem-reading Deuteronomy xxviii. from the forty-ninth verse-pointing out the definite complexity contained therein and urging that the fulfilment of the predictions, in so many items, must demonstrate that the Record was from God.

The existence of the prophesy for three hundred years previous to the destruction of Jerusalem, was proved by referring to the Septuagint being translated into Greek by Ptolemy Philidelphus, and placed in the Alexandrian Library. After showing the condition upon which the children of Israel were to continue to possess the land, and that these requirements were not regarded by them, he proceeded to analyse the Scripture above referred to, and to notice the separate items as follows-first, the character of the enemy who was to destroy them, reading the 49-52 verses. The Romans were shown, in every respect, to answer this description, while had the natious, (who were nearer neighbours) been the conquerors, the very opposite characteristics must have been used to pourtray them; and not only were the persons thus minutely described, but their conduct; for while, on the one hand, Moses foretold that the enemy should eat the fruit of their cattle, and the corn, oil, and wine, until they are destroyed, (51 verse) Josephus, on the other hand, records its exact fulfilment; as is also the case with reference to the gates and the walls, in which Moses said they would trust, and the stones of which were twelve yards in length, composing a wall so massive that Titus protested that the gods must have given the place into their hands, as mere human effort could not have taken it.* Brother King continued to exhibit sundry other items, such as the following,-showing that the points fulfilled were most numerous, and of the most definite character, such as could not have been the result of accident, and such as were in themselves the most unlikely to have happened, and, therefore, their fulfilment gives the most positive stamp of divine communication to the prophesy. Deuteronomy xxviii. 53-57 records thus-" And thou shalt eat the fruit of the flesh of thy sons and thy daughters in the siege wherewith thine enemies shall distress thee; and the eye of the tender and delicate woman shall be evil towards her children, and she shall eat them for want of food in the time of the siege."¶ Josephus, a Jewish general and historian, and an eye witness of the passing scenes, records the fulfilment of this most unprecedented prophesy; on page 749 he makes the following statement :-" A certain woman snatching up her son, who was sucking at her breast, said—'Oh! miserable infant, for whom shall I preserve thee,' &c., and adding, Come on, be thou my food,' she slew him, and roasted him, eat one half, reserving the other, and concealing it, lest the hungry and thieving multitude should take it from her, which persons coming in, and smelling the aroma, demanded that she should produce her food, or they would cut her throat, when she presented, to their amazement,

* See Deuteronomy xxviii. 52; also Josephus, page 720. examine Deuteronomy xxviii.

Let the reader carefully

the remaining part of her roasted infant." And, again, after all this had befallen them, (the Jews), they were to be "plucked from off the land;" and, in order that one jot of God's Word might not remain unfulfilled, they were not permitted by their conquerors to remain ; and, after a time, it was enacted that any Jew found upon that ground should be subject to a severe penalty; and, further, they were to be sold till no man would buy them; and Josephus records their being offered as slaves in such prodigious numbers, that no more purchasers could be found; and also the last verse, in chapter xxviii., promises that they should return again into Egypt, from whence they were then travelling. The mode of their journey is also described as being not on foot, as when they came out, but by the sea, in ships; and even on this point, Josephus remarks, "Such were the numbers of captive Jews, that they were sent in ships to Egypt, and doomed to work in the mines." And, lastly, the prophesy was noticed concerning their dispersion-that, suffering in all nations, and yet remaining a separate and distinct people, and in a position to fulfil the prediction of thus returning to re-build Jerusalem. In Leviticus, chapter xxvi., we read-" I will scatter you among the heathens, and will draw out a sword after you, and your cities shall be desolate, and you shall pine away in the land of the heathen, and perish in your enemies' land; and yet, for all that, I will not cast you utterly away." "And I will remove them into all the kingdoms of the earth, for to be a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse, in all the places whither I shall drive them."* Brother King continued to observe that the fulfilment was so universally known as to need but little comment; and so strikingly clear was it, that it caused him to wonder what Mr. Sullivan would do with it; to deny their accomplishment was impossible, and to attribute them to chance would be absurd. But to refresh the minds of some, he would read an extract from a Jewish historiau (Basnage)" Kings have often employed the severity of the edicts, and the hands of the executioner, to destroy them (the Jews); the seditious multitude has performed massacres and executions infinitely more tragical than the princes. Both kings and people, heathens, Christians, and Mahometans, who are opposite in so many things, have united in the design of ruining this nation, and not been able to effect it. The bush of Moses, surrounded with flames, has always burnt without consuming. The Jews have been driven from all places of the world, which has only served to disperse them in all parts of the universe. They have, from age to age, run through misery and persecution, and torrents of their own blood." "Emperors, kings and caliphs, all united in subjecting them to the same iron yoke.' Constantine, after having suppressed a revolt which they raised, and having commanded their ears to be cut off, dispersed them as fugitives and vagabonds into different countries, whither they carried them, in terror to their kindred, the mark of their suffering and infamy. In the reign of the tyrant Phocas, a general sedition broke out among the Jews in Syria; they and their enemies fought with equal desperation. They obtained the mastery in Antioch, but a momentary

*Read Jeremiah ix. 15; xv. 5; xvi. 13,

E

victory only led to a deeper humiliation, and to the infliction of more aggravated cruelties than before. They were soon subdued and taken captive; many of them were maimed, others executed, and all the survivors were banished from the city. Gregory the Great afforded them a temporary respite from oppression, which only rendered their spoilation more complete, and their sufferings more acute, under the cruel persecutions of Heraclius. The emperor, unable to satiate his hatred against them by inflicting a variety of punishments on those who resided in his own dominions, and by finally expelling them from the empire, exerted so effectually against them his influence in other countries, that they suffered a general and simultaneous persecution from Asia to the farthest extremities of Europe."* In Spain, conversion, imprisonment, or banishment, were their only alternatives. In France a similar fate awaited them. They fled from country to country, seeking in vain any rest for the soles of their feet. Even the wide extended plains of Asia afforded them no resting place, but have often been spotted with their blood, as well as the hills aud valleys of Europe. Mahomet, whose imposture has been the law and the faith of such countless millions, has, from the precepts of the Koran, infused into the minds of his followers a spirit of rancour and enmity towards the despised and mis-believing Jews. He set an early example of persecution against them, which the Mahometans have not yet ceased to imitate. In the third year of the Hegira, he besieged the castles which they possessed in the Hegiasa, compelled those who had fled to them for refuge and defence to an unconditional surrender, banished them from the country, and parted their property among his mussulmans. The Church of Rome ever ranked and treated them as heretics; the canons of different councils pronounced excommunication against those who should favour or uphold the Jews against Christians; enjoined all Christians neither to eat nor to hold any commerce with them; prohibited them from bearing public offices or having Christian slaves; appointed them to be distinguished by a mark; decreed that their children should be taken from them and brought up in monasteries; and what is equally descriptive of the low estimation in which they were held, and of the miseries to which they were subjected, there was often a necessity, even for those who otherwise oppressed them, to ordain that it was not lawful to take the life of a Jew without any cause."+ Hallam says, "They were every where the objects of popular insult and oppression-frequently of a general massacre. A time of festivity to others, was often the season of mockery and persecution to them. It was the custom at Thoulouse to smite them on the face every Easter. At Beziers they were attacked with stones, from Palin Sunday to Easter, an anniversary of insult and cruelty generally productive of bloodshed, and to which the populace were regularly instigated by a sermon from the Bishop. It was the policy of the Kings of France to employ them as a sponge to suck their subjects' money, which they might afterwards express with less odium than direct taxation would incur. It is almost incredible to what a length extortion of money from the Jews was carried. A series of alternate persecution and tolerance was borne by this extra

Basuage's History, Book 6th, chap. xxi.

+ Dupin's Ecclesiastical History.

ordinary people with an invincible perseverance, and a talent of accumulating riches, which kept pace with the exactions of their plunderers. Philip Angustus released all Christians in his dominions from their debts to the Jews, reserving a fifth part to himself. He afterwards expelled the whole nation from France." Basnage says, "St. Louis twice banished and twice recalled them; and Charles VI. finally expelled them from France. From that country, according to Mezeray, they were seven times banished. They were expelled from Spain; and, by the lowest computation, one hundred and seventy thousand families departed from that kingdom." Gibbon says, "At Verdun, Treves, Mentz, Spires, Worms, many thousands of them were pillaged and massacred. A remnant was saved by a feigned and transient conversion; but the greater part of them barricaded their houses, and precipitated themselves, their families, and their wealth, into the rivers or the flames. These massacres and depredations on the Jews were renewed at each crusade." "In England, also, they suffered great cruelty and oppression at the same period: during the crusades the whole nation united in the persecution of them. In a single instance, at York, fifteen hundred Jews, including women and children, were refused all quarter-could not purchase their lives at any price-and, frantic with despair, perished by a mutual slaughter. Each master was the murderer of his family, when death became their only deliverance. The scene of the Castle of Massada, which was their last fortress in Palestine, and where nearly one thousand perished in a similar manner, was renewed in the Castle of York. So despised and hated were they, that the Barons, when contending with Henry III., to ingratiate themselves with the populace, ordered seven hundred Jews to be slaughtered at once, their houses to be plundered, and their synagogues to be burned."

REVIEW OF BOOKS.

Translated

THE RUINS OF EMPIRES: BY M. VOLNEY. from the French. Second Edition. J. JUHNSON, ST. PAUL'S CHURCH YARD. 1795.

FRANCE is generally considered the centre of the modern civilized world-furnishing ever and anon vast impulses to thought and action, and giving the prevailing tone to the manners of the age. But certainly whatever lessons of sterling value she has given to other nations, her experience has done nothing in her own elevation. By the immense flood of light streaming and rushing from her dreadful volcano, other powers have clearly discerned the hideous gorges of ruin towards which they were rapidly advancing, and have retraced their steps with trembling. But France herself remains, whether in conflagration or in ashes, merely the blind unconscious beacon or the sullen monu ment of the nations.

If the reader will carry his mind backward to the eighteenth century he may contemplate one of those transition periods in the destinies of humanity, which alternately produce joyful wonder or shuddering dismay, being so prolific in ripening all the seeds of good and evil, and hurrying onward the harvest of the earth in such marvellous stages, that both sowers and reapers are confounded between fear and hope.

Before the period of reference, a leaden slumber, occasionally varied by oppressive nightmare, brooded over the nations of Europe. The tyrant king, and the godless priest, had pushed despotism and superstition to the extreme limit, and were revelling on the spoil of ignorance and weakness. The reaction of such dismal torpor and servitude must come by necessity, and when it came, gave such a tremendous revelation of human nature as the sun had never looked upon before. The lightning flashes which vollied athwart, and penetrated downward into the abysses of our nature, revealed such fathomless deeps, peopled with such shapes and forms of demonical hate and wrath, as the wildest imagination had never conceived. Yet here and there in the gulf appeared' an angel of etherial light, flitting amid the dusky throng, and kindling up the torch of hope in the region of despair.

While the elements of the great revolution were accumulating and fermenting, an host of Atheistic philosophers were intensely watching the caldron, expecting that the boiling ingredients would so combine and clarify, that the elixir of youth and immortality would stream forth as the water of life, for the renovation of the world and the perfectibility of man. Transported by such a hope they sounded their trumpets of defiance through the universe, being confident that no powers of heaven or earth could arrest the advance of that golden age which in rare sunrise was dawning on the world. No imagination can conceive, no pen can adequately describe the bounding exultation of every class and condition. Millions of hungy men anticipated a perpetual feast without the toil of labour or the languor of satiety. Myriads of ardent politicians dreamt of a perfect social mechanism, defying alike the friction of the parts, and the action of the elements. Hosts of Deists yearned for a condition in which the divinity of their imagination might be worshipped, without any medium of revealed truth or ordinances of imperious obligation. Thousands of Atheists were confident that reason might safely and constitutionally ascend the throne of the new empire, and the old idea of God be ignominiously banished from the human mind, from the moral world, and from all the provinces of nature.

Among the enchanters that appeared on the stage, in that period of frenzy and impiety, Count Volney is entitled to some pre-eminence.