found their last resting place there. Barak, descending with ten thousand men from Mount Tabor, here discomfited the army of Sisera; and here Josiah, king of Judah, met the king of Egypt, and fell." It has been a chosen place of encampment in every contest carried on in this country from the early days of the Assyrian history, until the disastrous march of Napoleon from Egypt into Syria. Jews, Gentiles, Saracens, Christian Crusaders, and Anti-Christian Frenchmen, Egyptians, Persians, Druses, Turks, and Arabs, warriors out of every nation which is under heaven, have pitched their tents upon the plain of Esdraelon, and have beheld the various banners of their nations wet with the dews of Tabor and of Hermon."*

To the Christian I need not say that no part of that land can be trod but with thrilling interest. There is not a hill or vale there; a mountain or a plain; a rivulet or a lake; a cliff or a cavern, which is not rendered sacred by some deeply interesting association. It is the land of the prophets and of the Redeemer-the radiating point of what is yet to be the religion of the world. On that land, too, the nations of Europe, roused by the preaching of Peter the Hermit, were poured for conquest ;--and there occurred the thrilling and romantic scenes of the crusades-events so momentous in their reflex influence on Europe, and on the civil laws and the literature of the world. Any one of the points on which I have now touched would furnish materials for an interesting article. But I shall not return to them again.

The leading design of this article is, to show that the Scripture prophecies must certainly be accomplished; and that there are causes now rendering their fulfilment certain; causes resulting from changes in the commerce of the world which none but an inspired mind could have foreseen. To illustrate this, I shall show the nature and the extent of the ancient commerce of Western Asia; the influence which that commerce had in giving origin to the cities and towns that are now sunk in ruins; the changes which have occurred in the commercial relations of that portion of the world; the causes, and the inevitable effect of those changes in securing the permanent fulfilment of the prophecies. One reason of

* Robinson's Calmet.

entering into this discussion is, that while the fact of the fulfilment of the prophecies respecting Babylon, and Petra, and Tyre is now generally admitted, and is indeed undeniable, the causes of their exact fulfilment seem not to be as generally understood, and the reasons which operate to secure the permanent fulfilment of those prophecies seem scarcely to have received any attention. After all that has occurred, an infidel might still be disposed to ask, What evidence is there that Babylon and Tyre will not rise from their ruins, and again be at the head of empire and of commerce? Why may not the deserts of Idumea again be thronged with caravans, and Petra be again a splendid commercial emporium? My aim will be to show that the great changes which have occurred in the world make it certain that this can never again occur; that their desolation is complete and certain; and that whatever revolutions may occur again in Western Asia, those places are destined to remain as the prophets said they would.

Whoever will cast his eye on the map of the world, will see, that the region of which Babylon was the centre, is by nature perhaps better fitted to be the seat of empire than any other portion of the earth; or at least that it possesses extraordinary advantages for being the centre of a wide dominion. It is a central position between Europe and Western Asia, on the one hand, and Central Asia and India on the other. Whatever may be said of it now, it was once distinguished for a most fertile soil, and for all that can contribute to the wealth and power of a kingdom. It was in fact the early seat of empire. The kingdoms of Assyria and Babylon rose to the height of power long before Rome had extended its arms beyond Italy; and such was the pride, and power, and extent of those kingdoms, that when Alexander had conquered them, and had reached the Indus, he felt that there was a natural limit to conquest, and that he had in fact subdued the world. Amidst all the desolations of war in that vast region, cities struggled into being; and when one fell another rose in its place ;-as if the land was reluctant to yield to the desolating tread of conquerors, and would assert its native right to be the centre of power, notwithstanding every effort to strew it with ruins. When, after the downfall of the Chaldean and Persian monarchies, the glory of Babylon waned, Seleucia, a great and flourish.

SECOND SERIES, VOL. IV. NO. II.

5

ing city, rose on the banks of the Tigris. Under the sway of the Arabians, Bagdad and Ormus rivalled Babylon and Seleucia, and became like them the home of the merchant, and the abode of the learned.*

As this region was the natural seat of empire, so it was of ancient commerce. The great prize in all ancient commerce, as it has been to a great extent in all modern commerce, was INDIA. To secure the rich and much valued productions of India led to most of the schemes of commerce in ancient times; to most of the discoveries made by navigation; and to most of the changes which have occurred in the commercial world. This was the object of the ancient commerce by caravans across the plains of Chaldea and Syria; and to accommodate those caravans the cities of Seleucia, and Bagdad, and Tadmor, and Damascus, and Tyre, rose and flourished; and this rich commerce gave existence and splendor to the city of Alexandria in Egypt, more than 1800 years. To accommodate this commerce, Petra rose into grandeur and wealth in Idumea, and Tyre acquired her importance. In subsequent times Venice and Genoa flourished on the riches of the commerce of India; and in pursuit of the same object Columbus directed his course to the west, and discovered the new world; and at nearly the same time the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope gave a new direction to commerce, and changed the aspect of nations. The glittering prize of INDIA, then, has contributed more to the founding of cities and kingdoms, and to the discoveries in the art of navigation, than any other single cause. Nearly all the cities in that region whose commerce I am attempting to describe rose and fell with the fluctuations of that commerce; and the great changes there have been caused by the different direction which the wealth of India has taken in its passage to Europe, and to our own country.— What was that prize? In what did it consist? And why should the changes in it be attended with so important consequences on the aspect of the world?

As all that I have to say depends on the character and value of the ancient commerce of India, and its changes, it is important to remark that the ancient merchandise of India consisted chiefly in that which went rather to promote the

Bib. Reposit. VII. 365.

luxury, than the necessities or the comforts of mankind. It will at once be seen that the heavier articles of modern commerce could have had no place in the traffic which was carried on, almost wholly by land, with that remote country. Men usually prize that most which comes from distant lands; and though much that was brought from the East was comparatively valueless in regard to the real necessities of life, and contributed much, by the luxury which it engendered and fostered, to the ultimate downfall of the Roman empire, yet it was not sought with the less avidity, and gave birth, as it does now, to some of the most daring and hazardous expeditions in which man can engage. Among the articles which constituted that commerce, and gave so much importance to the ancient intercourse with the oriental world, were,

First-Spices and Aromatics. They were produced chiefly in the East; they were consumed in the West. The custom prevailed in all ancient worship of using frankincense as an agreeable, and, as it was supposed, an acceptable part of worship. It was burnt on the altar and in the censer, in the worship of Jehovah at Jerusalem, and in all the temples of the numerous gods that were adored in Chaldea, in Arabia, in Egypt, at Athens, and at Rome. But aromatics and spices, with the ancients, were used not only in public worship. They were deemed invaluable for the health and ornament of the body while living, and for its funeral rites. The Romans were accustomed to burn the bodies of the dead; and it became a matter of vanity, or of respect for the dead, to accompany the funeral obsequies with a large quantity of aromatics. The dead body and the funeral pile were covered with the most valuable spices. At the funeral of Sylla, two hundred and ten "burdens" of spices were strewed on the pile. Nero is said, at the funeral of Poppoa, to have burned a quantity of cinnamon and cassia greater than the countries from which it was imported produced in a year. "We consume in heaps," says Pliny, "these precious substances with the carcasses of the dead; we offer them to the gods only in grains."* The Egyptians

Nat. Hist. Lib. xii. c. 18. It is true that frankincense was at first introduced into Europe not from India, but from Arabia. But it is now well known that the Arabians not only

too embalmed their dead; and the materials for embalming were chiefly the productions of the East. The catacombs of Egypt, it is said, now furnish articles of fuel in the vast quantities of aromatics that were employed in embalming the dead.

The process of embalming was first described by Herodotus, who visited Egypt about 460 years before Christ. The custom of embalming the dead among the Egyptians, so as to preserve the body for thousands of generations, arose from the doctrines of their religion, in which it was taught that the continuance of the soul in a state of blessedness was contingent upon the preservation of the body. When that perished the banished soul had to begin anew its career in connexion with physical existence, and after migrating again through various forms of being for 3,000 years, ultimately became reunited with the human formto go over again the same precarious mode of being.* It was from this opinion that so much care was evinced to preserve the human body. My purpose does not require me to state the process of embalming further than may be connected with the commerce of the East The immense amount of aromatics of various kinds employed in embalming the millions who now repose in the catacombs of Egypt must have been borne there by an extended and an active commerce. A small part of the materials were produced in Egypt. Some were produced in Arabia; and much was brought through Arabia, and other thoroughfares from India. As early as the time of Joseph (B. C. 1729,) we learn that Ishmaelites passed through Canaan on their way

furnished to foreign merchants the productions of their own country, but also those of higher value which they brought from India. In every ancient account of the commodities of India, spices and aromatics hold a conspicuous place. Strabo, Lib. ii. p. 156, also Lib. xvii., asserts that the greater part of the spices imported were not the production of Arabia but of India. In the Augustan age, an entire street in Rome was occupied by those who sold frankincense, pepper, and other aromatics. Hor. Epis. Lib. ii. 1, 269, 270.

Deferar in vicum vendentem thus, et odores,

Et piper, et quidquid chartis amicitur ineptis.

*Note of the Editor of the Pict, Bib, on Gen. 4: 2.