HERALD

OF THE

KINGDOM AND AGE TO COME.

“And in their days, even of those kings, the God of heaven shall set up A KINGDOM which shall never perish, and A DOMINION that shall not be left to another people. It shall grind to powder and bring to an end all these kingdoms, and itself shall stand for ever.”—DANIEL.

JOHN THOMAS, Editor. NEW YORK, AUGUST, 1853—

Volume 3—No. 8

THE SABBATH.

The following report is an outline of one of a series of lectures being delivered at Convention Hall, 179 Wooster Street, by the editor of this paper. The lectures which have been already extemporised have treated of “The Beginning;” of the “Elohim;” of “the Earth in its pre-Adamic state;” “the Spirit of God;” the antecedence of spirit to matter; the “Heavens and the Earth;” the creation-days not geological periods; the non-original creation of the sun, moon, and stars on the Fourth Day; the creation of Man in the “image and likeness” of the Elohim; Man’s original dominion; the Four States revealed in the Bible; &c. &c.

The lecture now presented to the reader, is upon that theologico-political “vexed question,” the Sabbath. The lecturer considers that if the doctrine of the Sabbath as it is exhibited in the Holy Scriptures were understood, there would be an end to all Sabbatarian disputes, that Sabbath-desecration denunciations would be withheld, and much valuable time within and without the halls of legislation would be saved, both in America and Britain. He states that in its origin the Sabbath was not a religious institution. It was Paradisaic, but not religious. He hoped the audience would not misunderstand him in this. He thought they would not when they understood the sense in which he used the word “religious.” Religion is a Latin noun converted into an English one by the addition of the letter “n.” Religio may be derived from the verb “ligo,” to close up by binding, as vulnera veste ligare; and the particle re, implying that the thing bound up had once been united, but being divided needed to be made one again. This might not be the pagan import of the noun, but it was unquestionably the scriptural. The paradisaic was a state of union between God and man, which union sin, “the transgression of law,” divided. Hence, religion is that remedy or system of things, divinely appointed for closing up the breach, and restoring paradisaic harmony upon the earth. As the Sabbath, therefore, was instituted before “sin entered into the world by one man,” it is evident that it was no part of the sin-remedy, and consequently not a religious institution.

Shavbath, called “Sabbath” in our tongue, signifies cessation, resting, or time of rest, from the verb shahvath, he ceased; hence the phrase, eth-yom hasshavbath, the resting or sabbath day. Moses says that this day was “the seventh day,” and that it terminated the period during which the Elohim by the Spirit of the Invisible were occupied in fitting up the earth as a dwelling-place for the animal races. The work being ended on Friday night, shahvath, he ceased, the Spirit ceased or refrained from creating and making on Saturday. Hence the reason given for blessing and sanctifying the seventh day—“And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it; because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.” He did not rest in the sense of being tired; for “the everlasting God, Jehovah, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary:” but he simply assumed inactivity, or ceased his demiurgic operations. What the words of blessing were we cannot tell, because they are not recorded. We may, however, infer that they were words of promise to man for whom the sabbath was made; and judging from subsequent revelation, we may conclude that the words of sanctification and blessing predicted a state of things upon the earth in the enjoyment of which all Adam’s posterity approved of God should “be as the gods,” holy, happy, and in perfect harmony with himself.

To sanctify is to make holy. This is the prerogative of Deity. Holiness is not an essential quality of time, space, or matter, so that if either of these is made holy, it must be by virtue of its being constituted such. Man, originally “upright,” has lost his integrity, and is defiled. He is therefore essentially the opposite of holiness; and cannot therefore confer upon things an attribute of which he is himself destitute. To make things holy is to separate them from a common to a special use according to divine appointment. Men cannot therefore of their own notions make ground, buildings, persons, times, seasons, and days, holy. They may agree among themselves to call cemeteries, churches, and days, holy; and can inflict penalties for the “desecration” of such things; but the violation of their laws with respect to these, lowers no man in the estimation of God. Adam did not sanctify the seventh day. If he had made the attempt he would have failed, not knowing in what an acceptable sanctification would consist; and this is precisely the difficulty in which his posterity are involved—they have a vague idea the day should be kept holy, but they know not how to do it, much less do they know how to make it so. God made it holy by his absolute authority. He made it holy for man’s benefit; for the Lord of the sabbath has so declared, saying, “The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath.”

The lecturer proceeds to remark, that beyond an allusion to the division of time into periods of seven days in the account of Noah’s sending forth the dove from the ark, nothing more is said about the seventh day than what is contained in Genesis 2: 2-3, until a miracle was wrought to prevent its desecration, in giving a double quantity of manna on Friday and none on Saturday; and until its observance was enacted by a law accepted by the Twelve Tribes of Israel. The church and state of this renowned people was one and indivisible, and grafted upon the stock, whose roots were “the Foundation of the World.” They were therefore told to “remember the resting-day, to keep it holy.” In what way it was to be kept holy is defined in the sabbath-law. It consisted in not doing any work on the seventh day. There was no other way of keeping it holy. The Son of Man, who is Lord of the sabbath, taught that it was “lawful to do good on the sabbath day;” but then for an Israelite to kindle a fire, or pick up sticks, or buy and sell, or speak his own words, or do any kind of work, or for any other member of his household, stranger, or any thing that was his, to work and pursue the ordinary avocations of the previous six days, was doing evil and not good, for the simple reason that God had forbidden it. To observe the seventh day law in letter and spirit was to keep it holy; but to violate it in one particular was to be as much guilty unto death as if no regard were paid to the day at all; for the transgressor came under the sentence, which extended to the violation of the Mosaic law, in whole or part, namely, “Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things written in the book of the law to do them.” Besides this total abstinence from work, “two lambs of the first year, without spot, and two tenth deals of flour for a meat offering, mingled with oil, and a drink offering of strong wine to be poured unto the Lord,” were to be offered as the burnt-offering of every sabbath, beside the continual burnt-offering, and its drink offering. These sabbath-offerings, like all others, were only acceptable from the Altar and from the Holy Place of the tabernacle and temple. It is clear, therefore, from the requirements of the law, that not only do the pious among the Gentiles not keep the sabbath, but neither can they, nor the Israelites, however zealous for its observance.

But saith the lecturer, the observance of the seventh day was only enjoined upon those who were “under law” to God; not upon those who were “without law;” that is, non-Israelitish nations. The sabbath was “a sign” between the God of Israel and that people; and signified good things to come upon them, and through them upon the rest of mankind, when “the times of the Gentiles” should be fulfilled. This appears from the words of Jehovah to Israel by Moses his faithful servant in all his house. “Verily,” saith he, “my sabbaths shall ye keep; for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations: that ye may know that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you. Ye shall keep the Sabbath therefore; for it is holy unto you: every one that defileth it shall surely be put to death: for whosoever doeth any work therein, that soul shall be cut off from among his people. Six days may work be done; but in the seventh is the Sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord: whosoever doeth work on the Sabbath-day, he shall surely be put to death. Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever: for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed.”

That the observance of the seventh day was given exclusively to the house of Israel appears from the reason assigned for imposing it upon them. “Remember,” saith Moses, “that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that Jehovah, thy God, brought thee out thence with a mighty hand, and by a stretched out arm: therefore, the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath day.” When they were slaves in Egypt they served a hard bondage to Pharaoh, having no rest to their souls; but after being “baptised into Moses in the cloud and in the sea,” the nation rested from its work, and in anticipation of its rest under Joshua, kept the Sign-Sabbath in the wilderness. The Egyptian servitude, the national baptism into Moses, the wilderness-cessation from the works of slavery, and the Joshua-rest in Palestine, were, however, examples only, first, of things spiritual in relation to baptised believers of the gospel of the kingdom; anticipative, secondly, of things national on a grander scale, when, the world having passed through its MILLENNARY WORKING DAYS of six thousand years from its foundation, the Twelve Tribes and the Nations of the Earth, ceasing from their own works in which they serve their own lusts, and the tyrants who oppress them in mind, body, and estate, shall, by a mighty hand, and out-stretched arm, be constitutionally inducted into Abraham and his Seed, the Christ, and keep the DIVINE SABBATISM, the rest that remains for Israel in their own land under their glorious and immortal rulers; and for the nations under their own vines and fig-trees, in all the Day of Christ, the Millennary Sabbath Day of a thousand years, in which God and men will cease from their works, and be refreshed.

The present dispersion of Israel is the penalty for not keeping holy the seventh day in its true significancy. For if they had turned away their foot from the Sabbath, from doing their pleasure on God’s holy day, and called the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable; and had honoured him, not doing their own ways, nor finding their own pleasure, nor speaking their own words: “then,” saith Jehovah, “shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord: and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee, O Israel, with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.” Thus testifies Isaiah; and the testimony of Jeremiah is like it, only with a threatening of the consequences to the nation if it did not keep the day. “It shall come to pass if ye diligently hearken unto me, saith the Lord, to bring in no burden through the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day, but hallow the Sabbath day, to do no work therein; then shall there enter into the gates of this city kings and princes sitting upon the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, they, and their princes, the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and this city shall remain for ever. And they shall come from the cities of Judah, and from the places about Jerusalem, and from the land of Benjamin, and from the plain, and from the mountains, and from the south, bringing burnt offerings, and sacrifices, and meat offerings, and incense, and bringing sacrifices of praise. But if ye will not hearken unto me to hallow the Sabbath day, and not to bear a burden, even entering in at the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day; then will I kindle a fire in the gates thereof, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched.” That fire has been twice kindled unquenchably, once by Nebuchadnezzar, and once by Titus: and on both occasions, because they regarded not the Sabbath of the Lord in the way that pleased him. At the Assyrian overthrow of their commonwealth they defiled the Sign-Sabbath; and at the Roman, they refused to hallow it in its spiritual signification, by ceasing from their own works in no longer serving sin in the lusts thereof, and delighting in the Lord whom Jehovah had sent them as an ambassador of peace and glory to the nation—the Angel of the great Sabbatic Covenant.

“The law,” which is a phrase expressive of the Mosaic institutions in the aggregate, being “the representation of the knowledge and the truth,” and “the pattern of things in the heavens,” the sabbath, which, being incorporated into it, is a part thereof, is also “a shadow of things to come.” The sign-sabbath is a “rudiment” or “element of the world;” and therefore classed among “the weak and beggarly elements” to which the Galatian christians wished again to be in bondage. In writing to the Colossians the apostle says, “Let no man judge you in respect of a holy day, or of the sabbath: which are a shadow of things to come; but the body (casting the shadow) is of Christ.” Jesus rested on the seventh day in the silence of the tomb from all his work pertaining to his offering for sin; and on “the eighth day,” commonly called Sunday, or the first of the week, arose as the Light of the new creation, as a strong man to run a race. The mystery of the Sabbath was thus laid substantially in him. The sabbath, or “rest remaining to the people of God,” was proclaimed in his name to the Jew first, and afterwards to the Greek. All believers, who desired to enter into that rest, were commanded to “cease from their own works, as God did from his;” in other words, to sabbatise from sin, by being “buried with him by baptism into death” to sin; “that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so they also should walk in newness of life.” This, saith the lecturer, is the only way Jew or Gentile can keep the sabbath, so long as the commonwealth of Israel, and the dwelling place of David, are in ruins, and trodden under foot of the worst of the heathen, as at this day.

But the seventh day was only one of the sabbaths of the law. To mention no others, the eighth day was also a sabbath. The first and eighth days of the feast of ingathering, were sabbaths. This feast was representative of the future ingathering of the Twelve Tribes into their own land; and of the gathering of the Saints, the palm-bearers, with them unto Messiah their king, when both classes shall rejoice before the Lord. They will then celebrate the eighth day as the sabbath day of the Age to Come instead of the seventh, as it is written in Ezekiel, saying, “Seven days shall they purge the altar, and purify it, and the priests shall consecrate themselves. And when these days are expired, it shall be, that upon the eighth day (Sunday) and so forward, the priests shall make your burnt offerings upon the altar, and your peace offerings, O Israel; and I will accept you, saith the Lord God.” This testimony relates to the order of things in the kingdom of Israel under Messiah the Prince during the Millennium. Israel and the nations will then keep the Eighth-day, instead of the Seventh-day, Sabbath, as under Moses. The gospel is glad tidings concerning that kingdom and age; and those who believe it, and have obeyed it, being therefore the heirs of its kingdom and glory, sabbatise by ceasing from sin, and rejoicing in their present eighth-day probation in hope of entering God’s millennial rest by a resurrection to the life of the age to die no more.

There are two crotchets among the people respecting the sabbath which deserve a passing notice in conclusion of the subject. The one is that the seventh day, or Saturday, should be kept holy according to the Mosaic law; and the other is that Sunday should be observed as the Jewish sabbath. The adherents of the former, are Israelites, and Gentile Sabbatarians; while those of the latter, are the pious who maintain that the seventh day observance was changed for the keeping holy of the eighth according to the sabbath law. Both these classes are great sticklers for keeping holy their sabbath days after Moses’ prescription; yet, it is manifest from what has gone before, that they have no scriptural claims to the approbation of the Lord for so doing. If Sabbatarians would keep the seventh day holy, they must keep it according to the law thereof. They have no right to dispense with what suits them not, and to retain the rest. Neither God nor Moses have given them this license. In lighting fires, making up beds, cooking, using their horses, &c., and preaching sermons, which is “speaking their own words,” certainly not the Lord’s, they break the sabbath and defile it, as much as any anti-sabbatarian, who performs double work on Saturday that he may lose as little as possible by resting from his labour on the following day. Such keeping of the Sabbath in the light of Moses’ law, is truly wonderful, and only parallelled by the others who impose on God the pretension of keeping his sabbath by abolishing the celebration of the seventh day, and observing Sunday after their own taste and convenience. When God says, “Keep holy the seventh day, O Israel, by resting from every kind of work, and offering the sacrifices of the law;” he does not mean, “Keep holy the first or eighth day, O Gentiles, by resting according to your views of profit or convenience.” Yet, practically, such is the construction put upon his words by those, who would bind heavy burdens upon men’s shoulders, grievous to be borne, but would be the last to help them to endure. A rest of one day in seven is an excellent provision for labouring, and business men; and if they could be persuaded to use it aright, it would be inestimable. They cannot, however, keep Sunday to the Lord as his day, while they remain disobedient to the “one faith.” They must believe and obey the gospel, and then “continue steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine, fellowship, breaking of bread, and in prayers.” When such assemble on the First Day for the worship of the Father in spirit and in truth; and to honour the Son even as they honour him, showing forth his death, and memorialising his resurrection, in hope of his appearing in his kingdom and glory, ceasing from their own works, and doing the works of God; they observe the Lord’s day in the only way acceptable to Him who seeketh only such to worship him as are intelligent in the truth.

Having brought the subject to this point, the following recapitulation is presented, which concludes this exposition of the Bible doctrine of the Sabbath. I have shown,

1. That the seventh day is the measure of the duration of each of the previous six days of the creation-work;
2. That God sanctified, or separated it, from the other days of the week as a sign foreshadowing good things to come, in a millennial Sabbatic day; which should be a sabbatismal refreshing for mankind when the work of replenishing the earth, and subduing it, should be sufficiently accomplished;
3. That the hallowed seventh day was incorporated with the institutions of Moses; and its observance imposed upon the Twelve Tribes of Israel, with the penalty of death to all individual violators of its holiness, and the overthrow of their commonwealth for its national desecration;
4. That the hallowed resting day, called Saturday by the Gentiles, was enjoined by the Mosaic law as a sign between Jehovah and the descendants of Jacob or Israel—a sign of the divine rest they shall enjoy from all their national afflictions, under their own kings and princes of the house of David—adopted into that royal house by an obedient faith in the gracious promises covenanted to him: and destined to ride upon the high places of the earth in the everlasting age;
5. That God commanded Israel to keep the sabbath day, because that in bringing them out of Egypt he had caused them to rest from all the works imposed upon them by Pharaoh’s taskmasters;
6. That non-Israelitish nations were never commanded to keep the seventh day holy;
7. That Sunday, or the first day of the week, was never imposed upon the nations by divine authority to be kept holy according to the law of Saturday or the seventh day;
8. That the seventh day is kept holy neither by Israelites, nor Sabbatarians; because they do not observe it according to the requirements of its law; which, under existing circumstances, can be kept by none;
9. That Sunday will be the sabbath, or resting day, for Israel and the nations, when they shall all be constituted the kingdom and empire of Jehovah’s king in the Age to Come. And lastly,
10. That the only persons who keep holy the sabbath day in its spiritual signification, are those who, having become obedient to the gospel of the kingdom promulgated in the name of Jesus as its king, “cease from their own works, as God rested from his.”

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THE MOVEMENTS OF RUSSIA.

The following is the copy of a letter addressed by the editor to Lord Palmerston, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, at the epoch of the Autocrat’s intervention in aid of the Emperor of Austria against the Hungarians, and with the ulterior view of putting down rebellion throughout Europe. Thinking it might be interesting to the readers of the Herald at this crisis of renewed manifestation of autocratic ambition, it is now inserted in our columns. They will see that our prevision takes precedence of historical development, proving thereby the possibility of a correct interpretation of the prophets before the events they predict have come to pass. On June 10^th, 1853, I delivered a discourse at Rochester, N.Y., on the Mission of Russia, in which I showed the identity of the Moscovite Power with the Gogue of Ezekiel and Daniel’s King of the North, in chapter 11: 40; and that we might expect news of a warlike character from Constantinople every mail indicative of the movement of Russia against Turkey, as a result of the policy of the Frog-Power in Moslem affairs. In three days after tidings were published in New York that the Russian ambassador had left Constantinople, and that the Autocrat and Sultan were preparing for war. News has not yet arrived of its declaration; but this will come eventually: for, as I have often remarked in view of the divine testimony, peace cannot be maintained. The Moslem will lose the Dragon’s throne, and yield it to the Czar. This will be a great sign of the times. Thenceforth events will develop rapidly. The Sultan’s will not be the only imperial dynasty that will fall. The mission of the Frog-Power being accomplished, Napoleonism will give place to the Fleur de Lis; and the Bourbon dynasty will shine forth the reflector of the imperial majesty of the Czar. Events will head onwards towards the East. Palestine will be invaded, Egypt annexed, and Jerusalem captured, by “the proud man, who keepeth not at home, but enlargeth his desire as the grave and as death, and cannot be satisfied, but gathereth unto him all nations, and heapeth unto him all people—lading himself with thick clay.” Possessed of the Holy Shrines, the mission of Russia is complete. This is the great sign to the believer that the Lord may hourly appear—this is the crowning event of the worldquake in 1848. “Watch” then, and be thankful that you are favoured, O Reader, with the monthly visits of a Herald, which points out to you with the precision of this periodical, the steps by which the great consummation of the faith is so surely and rapidly approaching. The King of Israel will not come upon you as a thief if you have wisdom enough to heed the things urged upon you in these pages. There is but little time left you to prepare for His manifestation. Woe be to you if he appear before you put on the wedding garment. There is no time for delay. Therefore trim your lamp with the oil of truth, that you may shine in the day of darkness and distress.

Lord Palmerston is said to hate Russia and Austria. It may be so; it is well known they have no affection for him, or his country. This enmity will increase and make Britain what she ought to be—the preadventual antagonist of the Assyrian, and the promoter of all good works, in the interest of the Jews and the Holy Land. The letter subjoined was a proffered hint in this direction. Whether it was discerned by his lordship, or perceived as a wink to the blind, I am not prepared to say. The letter is before the reader, who can draw conclusions for himself.

June 17^th, 1853 EDITOR.

LETTER TO LORD PALMERSTON.

Your lordship, as “Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs,” is doubtless well aware of the movements of Russia. The advance of such a Barbarian Host cannot be viewed with indifference by the Minister of a power having such a commercial stake in Europe and India, as Great Britain. To a statesman, reasoning from the premises of the past and present only, the future must be dark, or at most problematical. Can your lordship divine what will be the end of the Autocrat’s beginning to put down rebellion in Europe? You may “guess,” and conjecture, and “calculate,” but without a revelation you cannot define the consummation of his ambition. Conjecture as to future results is the basis of the Foreign Policies of all nations. If the French President had prevised the inconvenient results of General Oudinot’s expedition, he would probably not have sent him to Italy, and, if your lordship had seen the end of the Sicilian affair from the beginning, it is almost certain you would not have troubled yourself about the matter, unless to keep in check the impulses, or eccentricities of Gallic Diplomacy. Good, however, has resulted from your lordship’s Sicilian and Italian policy, notwithstanding the thunderings of The Times. You have amused the Gauls and Propagandists, now exciting hopes and then creating fears, by which a diversion has been created in favour of the gallant Hunns, and time gained for the Austrians to make temporary headway, that they might be enabled to take part in the crisis that has overtaken Rome. A very important thing, by-the-bye; for by delaying the catastrophe at Rome, the collision between France and Austria is rendered more certain; and a power has at length been introduced into Italy, which will bring times of trouble upon the Austrians there as it did in former years.

Certainty, then, as a foundation for Foreign Policy, is “devoutly to be wished,” I apprehend, by all Foreign Secretaries. Now, there has arisen no question of an importance to England (and Europe too) equal to that now arising out of the movements of the Autocrat. Your lordship ought to know what is the great crisis of the age looming in the future; and I am certain if you did you would open your eyes and become “wide awake.” Is your lordship aware of what “the mission of our Sacred Russia” is? I suspect that the Autocrat himself does not at present dream of the magnitude of the work marked out for him by the finger of God: so that, if you were to confer with his ambassador, he would doubtless give you “the most solemn assurance” of the “pacific intentions” of his master. But, if your lordship be wise, you will put no faith in Nicolas or his representative. The former will just do what opportunity may hereafter invite him to do. Therefore believe no assurances he may give you.

Now, from the style of this letter, your lordship will conclude, that the writer at least does not believe that his premises are conjectural. Indeed he does not, or he would not trouble you with it. When Cyrus, King of Persia, saw what was written about him and his mission in Isaiah, he published a decree, saying, “the Lord God of Heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth; and he hath charged me to build him a Temple in Jerusalem, which is in Judah;”—Isaiah 44: 28; 2 Chronicles 36: 23. This pagan prince, you perceive, acknowledged that what was written in the Prophet was a mandate of the Lord God to him, and he acted accordingly. He had faith in what was recorded there. He formed his policy according to its dictates; acted like a wise prince, and became the Protector of the Jewish Nation. A hint to the wise is enough.

I trust that your Lordship, with all the advantages of the 19^th century at command, is not less enlightened, or less sagacious, than Cyrus or Nebuchadnezzar. The same writings they recognised in their Foreign Policy, reveal to your lordship, and to all men of mind, what the mission of Russia is, in regard to Europe and the Holy Land; so that by taking heed thereto, you will be in no danger of being victimised by the cunning of its diplomacy. The Prophets Ezekiel and Daniel (the latter, Grand Vizier to five of the greatest monarchs of antiquity,) have recorded the destiny of Russia in relation to Europe and the East; and also the part which Britain is destined to play as its antagonist in the approaching contest for the dominion of the Old World. Does your lordship care to know what they declare shall “surely come to pass” in relation to these powers? If so, then inquire where it can be shown what has been revealed through them upon the subject. “The wise shall understand.” Seek the interpretation they can give, and your search will not be in vain.

With due respect for your lordship,

I subscribe myself,

JOHN THOMAS.

3 Brudenell Place, New North Road, London

June 5, 1849.

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LAYARD’S LAST DISCOVERIES.

(Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon. Being the result of a second Expedition undertaken for the Trustees of the British Museum. By Austen H. Layard, M.P. London: Murray, 1853.

Layard’s Monuments of Nineveh, Second Series. London: Murray, 1853.)

The veil is gradually falling from one of the sublimest pictures that have been vouchsafed to the inquiring mind of man since he first addressed himself to the investigation of truth in the spirit of daring and heroic importunity. Upon the earth and above it, proofs of the wisdom and power of Omnipotent God, have long been accumulating upon us with a force and swiftness that might well challenge the respect of the sceptic and put to shame the audacious folly of the atheist. It has been left for our own time to deliver up from the very bowels of the earth evidence equally overwhelming and conclusive of the value and truth of those writings in which the doings of God’s chosen people from the earliest times find their only record. It is difficult to speak or write without emotion of the significant and extraordinary discoveries that have been made upon the site of ancient Nineveh. We have read as children of the devastating wars of Sennacherib, and been subjected to the awe arising from the perusal of events occurring at a period of time which it fatigued even the imagination to reach. We have listened, as children still, to the prophetic denunciations of Ezekiel, and trembled as we reflected upon the dismal fate of the gorgeous city he had doomed—once a city, a barren desert now. We have grown older and acquired at school some knowledge of those classic times in which, first Greece, then Italy, stamped the impress of civilisation upon the world, —times so remote as to be themselves buried in antiquity, yet not so near to the still far-off Assyrian epoch as to be conscious of the least remains of its once-surpassing glory. As children, as youths, as men we have thought of Nineveh and Babylon as of the world before the flood, —with interest, —with belief, —with amazement, and with dread; but, knowing nothing of their history beyond the intimations afforded in the Bible, how could we entertain the hope that their hidden story, kept back from the conquerors of the world 2,000 years ago, should be revealed silently, but absolutely, and in all its fulness now? Yet, so it is! What the Geeks knew not we clearly apprehend. Three thousand years have passed over the Assyrian mounds—three thousand years of storm, of passion, of darkness, and of light, and at length the grave gives up its dead. Athens has breathed her beauty upon the world, and expired. Rome has lived to prove the triumph of its institutions and the hollowness of its strength. Yea, the Son of Man has appeared among the nations to teach a heaven-born creed, which, happily for human progress, is taking root in every quarter of the globe. Dynasties have risen and been extinguished. Great countries have dwindled into molehills, and specks of earth have grown into the mightiest empires; and, at the end of all, the crusted earth, beneath which Nineveh has for so many ages been inhumed, cracks, bursts asunder, and reveals, not a miracle, but a petrified verity—the monumental history of its greatness, the imperishable witness of its once incomparable renown, the marble commentary of an inspired text. It is all there! The other day we had but a glimpse of the treasure, —today we discern more; and every hour is adding to the richness and the marvel of the unexpected sight.

The connected history of these Assyrian discoveries is scarcely less interesting than the revelation itself. But for the concurrence of many fortunate incidents, the mounds of Assyria would still have held exclusive possession of their booty; and, but for the combination of a second series of such accidents, the precious acquisitions, even won, would have been worthless for want of an interpreter skilful enough to decipher their meaning. Let the reader accompany us for a moment as we endeavour hastily to trace the current of events which has made us heirs to one of the noblest legacies ever bequeathed to man. Knowledge of the subject, though general, is somewhat indistinct. Men have heard that palaces have been dug up at Nineveh, and they have seen sculptured giants in the halls of the British Museum. But it is time to know more. That we may be prepared for discoveries greater than any that have yet been brought to light—and such disclosures most assuredly await us—it is well for us to have an exact conception of the wealth of which we already stand possessed.

France shares with England in the glory of these acquisitions. The two nations are coheirs in this startling bequest from hoary antiquity. France, never slow to recognise the claims of her citizens upon her gratitude and affection, will know how to apportion the credit that attaches to any of her sons for services rendered on the Assyrian plains. England acknowledges one renowned name in connection with her portion of the gains, and is proud, as well she may be, of her chivalrous Layard. It is easy to see that from no ordinary traveller could such results have been obtained as those which Austen Layard has collected together for our wonder and instruction. Passionate enthusiasm in discovery and research; intense labour and perseverance; a cheerful, patient mind; a strong frame; great knowledge of men, of books, and of Eastern countries and habits; perfect self-command; a resolute will; a modest and conciliating demeanour; the faculty of ruling others as well as of controlling himself, —all these conditions were essential to the success achieved by the young Englishman, and all were possessed in a degree that cannot fail to win our admiration and regard. Mr. Layard was but 22 years of age, when in 1839, after having wandered through Asia Minor and Syria, “scarcely leaving untrod one spot hallowed by tradition, or unvisited one ruin consecrated by history,” he experienced the irresistible desire to penetrate to those regions beyond the Euphrates which for all time to come must be identified with his name. In his first published work he informed us how his wanderings in Asia Minor had been conducted. One adventurous spirit only was his travelling companion. The pair rode unattended; their arms were their sole protection; a valise behind their saddles was their wardrobe; they mixed freely among the people, acquired their language and their habits, and partook gratefully of their hospitality. “No experienced dragoman,” he wrote at the time, “measured our distances and appointed our stations. We were honoured with no conversations by Pashas, nor did we seek any civilities from governors. We neither drew tears nor curses from villagers by seizing their horses or searching their houses for provisions. Their welcome was sincere; their scanty fare was placed before us, we ate, and came, and went in peace.” This early training had an incalculable effect upon the subsequent operations. The influence exercised by Layard over his miscellaneous workmen and among his Arab sheikhs is not that of a powerful stranger, but rather of a beneficent chief, ruling by affection and justice in the midst of his own people. It is without the smallest feeling of surprise that we learn, for instance, how that none but Mussulmans are admitted within the holy precincts of a certain tomb at Nebbi Yunus, though this privileged Englishman has “more than once visited the shrine, with the sanction of his good friend Mullah Sultan, a guardian of the Mosque.” How could it be otherwise, when tribes at deadly war with each other agree to suspend their feuds at his bidding, and afflicted races, persecuted by the Turk and by each other, implored his mediation in the spirit of brotherhood and with confidence unbounded? In tracing the history, therefore, of the Assyrian discoveries, let us never be unmindful of what we owe to the especial character of the discoverer—a guileless man, as he appears from his books, frank in his utterance—with no envy or unworthy jealousies at his heart—plain-spoken and conscientious—learned and laborious—venerating the traditions of the past, yet, by his activity and intelligence, becoming a living embodiment of the advancing spirit of the present.

In the month of April, 1840, Layard first caught sight of the ruins of Nineveh, near the city of Mosul—rude heaps, without form, deposited in a scene as desolate as the remains themselves. He tells us that the huge mounds of Assyria then made a deeper impression upon him, and gave rise to more serious thoughts and more earnest reflection, than the temples of Balbec and the theatres of Ionia. His curiosity was excited, and from that time he formed the design “of thoroughly examining, whenever it might be in his power, these singular remains.” In the summer of 1842, Mr. Layard was in Mosul again. Since his former visit, M. Botta had been appointed French Consul at that place, and had found means to prosecute the work which Layard himself was eager to begin. Opposite to Mosul was the great mound of Konyunjik, and here the enterprising Frenchman had first commenced excavations. But his success on this spot was small. He had obtained but a very few fragments of brick and alabaster, when his attention was called to Khorsabad, a village some five hours distant from Mosul, where he was informed sculptured stones had from time to time been thrown up by natives digging for foundations for new houses. M. Botta quitted Konyunjik upon the intimation, and formed a trench in the mound at Khorsabad. His reward, so to speak, was instantaneous. To his astonishment he found that he had entered a chamber, connected with others, which was “surrounded by slabs of gypsum covered with sculptured representations of battles, sieges, and similar events.” The style of the sculptures was new, and no clue was present to guide him to the history of the men who had placed them there. Moreover, the slabs were accompanied by inscriptions which it was impossible to decipher, for the character was no longer in use among men, and seemed to defy all scholarship. It is true that this character, being cuneiform or arrow-headed, must necessarily have belonged to an age preceding that of Alexander; but, beyond this knowledge, the fortunate discoverer had no power to travel. It was clear at the very first glance that the monuments were the work of a very ancient and a very civilised people. It was not until a later period that it became equally certain that “M. Botta had discovered an Assyrian edifice, the first probably which had been exposed to the view of man since the fall of the Assyrian Empire.” The mighty city of Nineveh could not be far off.

M. Botta communicated his discovery at once to the French Academy of Fine Arts, and the French government, with an enlightened munificence which it knows how to exercise at all times—whether it be the Government of a Republic or an Empire—sent to the Consul sufficient means to proceed with his excavations to the fullest possible extent. M. Botta lost no time. The work went forward, and by the beginning of 1845 the monument of Khorsabad had been to a large extent uncovered. The Consul, laden with fine specimens of Assyrian sculpture, many of them containing the most valuable, though as yet undeciphered inscriptions, returned to his country, a notability of his time.

Mr. Layard was at Constantinople during the progress of this singular labour. Drawings of the monuments came into his hands, and he publicly announced his conviction that the ruined palace brought to light by M. Botta owed its origin to the old Assyrian kings, and belonged to an age preceding the Persian conquest of Assyria. His anxiety to be upon the spot was now intense; for, although M. Botta had lighted upon an Assyrian palace, he was satisfied that Nineveh itself had yet to be discovered; and that the mounds of Nimroud below Mosul, as well as the ruins of Konyunjik, over against it, had treasures to give up, exceeding in interest and value even the important memorials rescued from Khorsabad. Sir Stratford Canning came to the help of the eager Englishman. He liberally advanced Mr. Layard from his own resources, sufficient money to carry on excavations for a limited period, and enabled him, in fact, to do all that he has since accomplished. Thus fortified, Mr. Layard quitted Constantinople in the middle of October, 1845, without acquainting any one with the object of his journey. He “crossed the mountains of Pontus and the great steppes of the Usun Yilak as fast as post-horses could carry him, descended the high lands into the valley of the Tigris, galloped over the vast plains of Assyria, and reached Mosul in 12 days.”

On the 8^th of November, Mr. Layard descended the Tigris, and in five hours reached Nimroud. He proceeded with his excavations in one of the mounds without delay; and, at the close of a day’s work, found himself in possession of a chamber, the sides of which were marked by 10 large slabs, all in good preservation, and all containing cuneiform inscriptions, similar to those on M. Botta’s bas reliefs. A quantity of charcoal and other evidences satisfied the explorer that the building into which he had penetrated had been destroyed by fire. At the end of three days more inscriptions were uncovered, but no sculptures; later, some bas relief sculptures were dug out; then came to light several gigantic figures, a human figure nine feet high, a pair of winged lions without heads, and more arrow-headed writings. Digging went on, and there seemed no end to the treasures. Before the end of March, two works of Assyrian art were unearthed, which threw all former discoveries into the shade—a pair of winged human-headed lions in perfect preservation, and most elaborately carved; “the most minute lines in the details of the wings and in the ornaments had been retained with their original freshness;” and the remains of colour might still be detected in the eyes. For hours, Mr. Layard tells us, he used to contemplate and muse over these mysterious emblems, the works of instructed races who had flourished 3,000 years ago.

“What more noble forms,” he exclaims, “could have ushered the people into the temple of their gods? What more sublime images could have been borrowed from nature by men, who sought, unaided by the light of revealed religion, to borrow their conception of the wisdom, power, and ubiquity of a Supreme Being? They could find no better type of intellect and knowledge than the head of the man; of strength than the body of the lion; of rapidity of motion than the wing of the bird. These winged, human-headed lions were not idle creations, the offspring of mere fancy; their meaning was written upon them.”

The entrance formed by the human-headed lions led into a chamber, round which were sculptured winged figures. Other chambers were dug out, and by degrees Mr. Layard was enabled, not only to collect the long-hidden sculptures of the Assyrian Kings, but also to trace out the form and character of the mighty structure of which they had formed so conspicuous and beautiful a part. He was master of the north-west palace of Nimroud.

The heat of the weather and the state of Mr. Layard’s health compelled him to suspend for a time his operations at Nimroud. He quitted the neighbourhood for the hot season, and proceeded on a visit to the Tiyari Mountains, inhabited by the Nestorian Christians. Before he set out, however, he took care to transmit to England the first results of his labours, and to satisfy himself, to a certain extent, of the relative antiquity of the ruins of Konyunjik. Opening trenches in the great mound of this village he discovered sculptures and inscriptions that convinced him that the most ancient palace of Assyria was the one he had excavated at Nimroud, that Konyunjik and Khorsabad belonged to a more recent epoch, and that in all probability the two latter were contemporary structures.

Upon his return to Mosul in September, Mr. Layard received letters from England informing him that the Government had granted to the British Museum funds for the continuation of the researches commenced at Nimroud, and that he might proceed with his excavations. The grant was miserably small and insufficient, and significantly contrasted with the liberal sum placed by the French authorities at the disposal of M. Botta; but Mr. Layard cheerfully accepted his commission, and determined to go forward. In October he was again at Nimroud. His success was greater than he could have expected from the scantiness of his means. Some admirably executed bas reliefs representing the wars of the King of Assyria were found, and in the centre of the mound was discovered a black marble obelisk about six feet six inches high, having on each side five small bas reliefs, and above, below, and between the sculptures a carved inscription 210 lines in length. The monument was well preserved, the figures were well defined, and the cuneiform inscriptions perfect. In the south-west corner of the mound discoveries scarcely less important were made at the same time. The southern entrance to the palace was formed by a pair of winged lions, and between them were a pair of crouching sphinxes. The sphinxes, when entire, were five feet in length, but it would appear that the fire which had consumed the building had raged severely in this direction, for the whole entrance was buried in charcoal, and the sphinxes were almost reduced to lime. One had been nearly destroyed; but the other, though cracked in a thousand pieces, was still standing when uncovered. Mr. Layard had scarcely time to make a drawing of the riven monument before it fell into useless fragments at his feet. On Christmas day 23 cases more, all filled with Nineveh monuments, and one of them containing the obelisk, floated down the Tigris on their way to the British Museum.

After Christmas Mr. Layard resumed his labours. By the end of April, 1847, he had opened twenty-eight rooms in the north-west palace of Nimroud, which had not been destroyed by fire, and had exhumed a variety of bas reliefs, figures, and ornaments, all affording remarkable evidence of the period to which they belonged. One specimen, consisting of two slabs, forming an entrance to a small chamber, contained the name of the King who built the Khorsabad Palace, and proved the greater antiquity of the building at Nimroud. So long as his money held out the indefatigable explorer went on; but, for want of means, Mr. Layard was at length compelled to desist from further digging at Nimroud. “There were too many tangible objects in view,” he writes in his first publication, “to warrant an outlay in excavations promising no immediate results; and a great part of the mount of Nimroud was left to be explored when the ruins of Assyria should be further examined.” We shall see hereafter, when Mr. Layard returns to his labours at Nimroud, how much he had still left himself to accomplish in these parts.

From Nimroud Mr. Layard proceeded to the mounds of Kalah Shergat, a village on the Tigris, a few miles below Nimroud, and by some travellers supposed to be the Ur of the Chaldees. Here a sitting figure in black basalt was uncovered, of the size of life, but much mutilated; on three sides of the block on which the figure sat were cuneiform inscriptions. The writing was in part defaced, but enough remained to enable him to fix the comparative epoch of the ruins. The same reason that induced Mr. Layard to suspend operations at Nimroud would seem to have influenced him at Kalah Shergat, and he accordingly returned to Mosul after having spent only two days on the spot. Having reached the city he despatched to England, under somewhat exciting circumstances, the largest and most important monuments he had yet secured. Such sculptures as he was unable to forward he restored to their former graves until more favourable circumstances should enable him to add sensibly to the interesting collection.

A small sum of money, however, still remaining in his hands, Mr. Layard resolved, before returning home, to make some inroad into the mound of Konyunjik, into which, it will be remembered, M. Botta had originally dug without waiting long enough to reap the fruit of his attempt. According to Mr. Layard’s theory, Nimroud, Konyunjik, and Khorsabad at one time formed part of the same great city, although each of the palace temples was probably the centre of a separate quarter. In his first work he distinctly states that the city was originally founded on the spot now occupied by the ruins of Nimroud—that the north-west palace was first built, and that successive monarchs added the centre palace and other edifices which rose by its side. As the population increased, and conquered nations were brought to settle round the Assyrian capital, the dimensions of the city increased also. A king, founding a new dynasty, chose a new site for the erection of a palace. The city, gradually spreading at length embraced all these buildings.

“Thus Nimroud represents the original site of Nineveh. At a much later period, subsequent monarchs erected their temple palaces at Khorsabad and Konyunjik. Their descendants returned to Nimroud. The city had now attained the dimensions assigned to it by the Greek geographers and by the sacred writings. The numerous royal residences, surrounded by gardens and parks, and enclosed by fortified walls, each being a distinct quarter known by a different name, formed together the great city of Nineveh.”

A month’s work at Konyunjik was not thrown away. By the end of that time nine chambers were explored (of the same character as those at Khorsabad and Nimroud), the largest of which was 130 feet long and 30 feet wide, and many bas-reliefs were uncovered. “The ruins,” writes the explorer, “were evidently those of a palace of great magnificence. The sculptures portrayed the battles, conquests, and triumphs of the Assyrian King, whom one of the inscriptions pointed out to be the son of the builder of Khorsabad.” By the month of June the sum furnished by the liberality of the British Government was expended, and Mr. Layard brought, for the present, his worthy labours to a close. He covered up the ruins, and the Assyrian palaces were once more hidden from the eye. It was time to return to England, and to urge upon the authorities the necessity of further exploration. The sculptures, attesting to the value of what had already been accomplished, were already on their homeward road. The inscriptions which promised to reveal the history and civilisation of one of the most ancient and illustrious nations of the earth, had been carefully copied. A year before not one Assyrian monument had been known beyond those which had been so fortunately discovered by M. Botta at Khorsabad. The time of disinterment had been most opportune. Had the palaces been exposed to view some years previously, Mr. Layard contends that no European could have preserved them from complete destruction. Had they been discovered a little later, he adds, there would have been insurmountable objections to their removal. How can we sufficiently rejoice at having secured in our city the most convincing and lasting evidence of the magnificence and power which made Nineveh the wonder of the ancient world!

On the 24^th of June 1847, Mr. Layard quitted Mosul for England. Having reached his own country, he prepared, but did not as yet publish, the memorable work from which we have, in order to bring the whole subject clearly before the reader’s eye, hastily collected the few preceding facts. “After a few month’s residence in England during the year 1848, to recruit,” as he tells us, “a constitution worn by long exposure to the extremes of an Eastern climate,” he received orders to proceed to his post at Her Majesty’s Embassy in Turkey. It was after his departure for the East that his admirable book was given to the world. It was welcomed as it deserved to be, and noticed in these columns at the time. Among its other effects was a request from the British Museum to Mr. Layard, to undertake the superintendence of a second expedition into Assyria. That gentleman responded cheerfully to the summons. On the 28^th of August, 1849, he left the Bosphorus by an English steamer bound for Trebizonde. On the 28^th of April, 1851, he again bade farewell to Nineveh. What he had accomplished in the meanwhile is contained in the charming and most instructive volumes, the titles of which we have given. We shall proceed to dwell with more minuteness upon their contents than we have thought it necessary to extend to the earlier production. During the first expedition Mr. Layard, so to speak, laboured in the dark, as a student busy with the mere alphabet of his science, or as a clerk patiently and humbly transcribing rare documents which he was not as yet privileged to decipher. He has derived knowledge and experience from his pursuit, and every fresh discovery has given him new confidence and additional strength. He is now a man where he was formerly a child—a free master, where he was once the laborious apprentice. The other day he had enough to do to collect and arrange his scanty materials; at this hour he generalises upon the accumulated results of his work, and proudly points to the connected and marvellous history he has built up from the broken but splendid fragments conveyed by his industry and zeal from the mounds of Assyria to the Museum of our own London city.

Before we trace, however, the latest discoveries of this intelligent man, it is due to another name, as well as to Mr. Layard and our readers, to advert briefly to other discoveries no less extraordinary and interesting than those with which we are immediately concerned, and of which, indeed, they form a most important feature. We have spoken of inscriptions found on the bas-reliefs. These inscriptions, written in characters no longer in use among men, and utterly unintelligible to the common eye, are freely rendered in Mr. Layard’s volumes, and are made to interpret events and to indicate facts of the most momentous kind. But for such rendering, all the excavations must have been to no purpose, and the sculptured monuments would have been worthless as the dust from which they have been torn. By what splendid accidents, then, has it happened that illumination has been thrown into heaps, and that art, interred for 3,000 years, becomes, when brought to light, in an instant as familiar to us all as though it were but the dainty work of yesterday? How comes it that these arrow-headed, or, as they are more generally styled, cuneiform characters, which bear no analogy whatever to modern writing of any kind, and which have been lost to the world since the Macedonian conquest, are read by our countrymen with a facility that commands astonishment and a correctness that admits of no dispute? The history is very plain, but certainly as remarkable as it is simple. Fifty years ago the key that has finally opened the treasure-house was picked up, unawares, by Professor Grotefend, of Gottingen. In the year 1802 this scholar took it into his head to decipher some inscriptions which were, and still are, to be found on the walls of Persepolis, in Persia. These inscriptions, written in three different languages, are all in the cuneiform (or wedge-like) character, and were addressed, as it now appears, to the three distinct races acknowledging in the time of Darius the Persian sway—viz., to the Persians proper, to the Scythians, and to the Assyrians. It is worthy of remark, that although the cuneiform character is extinct, the practice of addressing these races in the language peculiar to each still prevails on the spot. The modern Governor of Bagdad, when he issues his edicts, must, like the great Persian King, note down his behests in three distinct forms of language, or the Persian, the Turk, and the Arab who submit to his rule will find it difficult to possess themselves of his wishes. When Grotefend first saw the three kinds of inscription he concluded the first to be Persian, and proceeded to his task with this conviction. He had not studied the writing long before he discerned that all the word of all the inscriptions were separated from each other by a wedge, placed diagonally at the beginning or end of each word. With this slight knowledge for his guide, he went on a little further. He next observed that in the Persian inscription one word occurred three or four times over, with a slight terminal difference. This word he concluded to be a title. Further investigation and comparison of words induced him to guess that the inscription recorded a genealogy. The assumption was a happy one. But to whom did the titles belong? With no clue whatever to help him, how should he decide? By an examination of all the authorities, ancient and modern, he satisfied himself at least of the dynasty that had founded Persepolis, and then he tried all the names of the dynasty in succession, in the hope that some would fit. He was not disappointed. The names were Hystaspes, Darius, and Xerxes. Although the actual pronunciation of these names had to be discovered, yet by the aid of the Zend (the language of the ancient Persians) and of the Greek the true method of spelling was so nearly arrived at that no doubt of the accuracy of the guess could reasonably be entertained. The achievement had been worth the pains, for twelve characters of the Persian cuneiform inscription were now well secured. Twenty-eight characters remained to be deciphered before the inscriptions could be mastered. Grotefend here rested.

The next step was taken by M. Bournouf, a scholar intimately acquainted with the Zend language. In 1836 he added considerably to the Persian cuneiform alphabet by reading 24 names on one of the inscriptions at Persepolis; but a more rapid stride was made subsequently by Professor Lassen, of Bonn, who, between the years 1836 and 1844, to use the words of Mr. Ferguson, the learned and ingenious restorer of the palaces of Nineveh and Persepolis, “all but completed the task of alphabetical discovery.”

While progress was thus making in Europe, Colonel Rawlinson, stationed at Kermanshah, in Persia, and ignorant of what had already been done in the west, was arriving at similar results by a process of his own. He too had begun to read the Persian cuneiform character on two inscriptions at Hamadan, the ancient Ecbatana. This was in 1835. In 1837 he had been able to decipher the most extensive Persian cuneiform inscription in the world. On the high road from Babylonia to the East stands the celebrated rock of Behistun. It is almost perpendicular, and rises abruptly to the height of 1,700 feet. A portion of the rock, about 300 feet from the plain, and still very perfect, is sculptured, and contains inscriptions in the three languages already spoken of. The sculpture represents King Darius and the vanquished chiefs before him—the inscriptions detail the victories obtained over the latter by the Persian monarch. This monument, at least 2,350 years old, deciphered for the first time by Major Rawlinson, gave to that distinguished Orientalist more than 80 proper names to deal with. It enabled him to form an alphabet. Between the Major and Professor Lassen no communication whatever had taken place, yet when their alphabets were compared they were found to differ only in one single character. The proof of the value of their discoveries was perfect.

Thus far the Persian cuneiform character! To decipher it was to take the first essential step towards reading the cuneiform inscriptions on the walls at Nineveh. But for the Persepolis walls, the Behistun rock, and Colonel Rawlinson, it would have been a physical impossibility to decipher one line of the Assyrian remains. In the Persian text only 40 distinct characters had to be arrived at; and when once they were ascertained the light afforded by the Zend, the Greek, and other aids rendered translation not only possible but certain to the patient and laborious student. The Assyrian alphabet, on the other hand, has no fewer than 150 letters; many of the characters are ideographs or hieroglyphics representing a thing by a non-phonetic sign, and no collateral aids whatever exist to help the student to their interpretation. The reader will at once apprehend, however, that the moment the Persian cuneiform character on the Behistun rock was overcome, it must have been a comparatively easy task for the conqueror to break the mystery of the Assyrian cuneiform inscription, which, following the Persian writing on the rock, only repeated the same short history. Darius, who carved the monument in order to impress his victories upon his Assyrian subjects, was compelled to place before their eye the cuneiform character which they alone could comprehend. The Assyrian characters on the rock are the same as those on the bas-reliefs in the Assyrian palaces. Rawlinson, who first read the Persian inscriptions at Behistun, and then by their aid made out the adjacent Assyrian inscriptions, has handed over to Layard the first fruits of his fortunate and splendid discovery, and enabled him for himself to ascertain and fix the value of the treasures he has so unexpectedly rescued from annihilation. As yet, as may readily be imagined, the knowledge of the Assyrian writing is not perfect; but the discovery has already survived its infancy. Another year or two of scholastic investigation, another practical visit to the ancient mounds, and the decipherment will be complete! Fortunate Englishmen! Enviable day-labourers in the noblest vocation that can engage the immortal faculties of man! What glory shall surpass that of the enterprising, painstaking, and heroic men who shall have restored to us, after the lapse of thousands of years, the history and the actual stony presence of the world-renowned Nineveh, and enabled us to read with our own eyes, as if it were our mother tongue, the language suspended on the lips of men for ages, though written to record events in which the prophets of Almighty God took a living interest! —London Times.

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THE FATE OF TURKEY.

It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of the events now taking place at Constantinople. The attention of every politician in Europe is fixed upon them. Above all, the English public ought clearly to understand the relation in which this country stands with Turkey, the nature of the mighty interests at stake, the magnitude of the question which may arrive at its solution tomorrow, or may impend during months, or even years.

A great and ancient empire, a member of the European states system, is rapidly passing away. Of this even the most indifferent speculators are at last convinced. No one pretends to doubt that the Ottoman power is falling. Influences are acting against it which its tottering frame and decrepit spirit cannot, by any possibility, withstand. Two of the principal governments of Europe are employing all the art and force at their disposal to undermine it. A third has lately sought to prevent the success of those intrigues by more unscrupulous intrigues of its own. A fourth—we mean Great Britain—though apparently resolved to maintain Turkey against external attack, seems utterly at a loss respecting the manner in which the inevitable result of her internal decay is to be provided for.

Meanwhile, it is certain that the catastrophe, whether we provide for it or not, is approaching. The Porte has not for a long period been independent. It has been under the protection of a British ambassador. Its integrity is virtually gone. Up to this moment, however, by advising and assisting, by patching and repairing, the mouldering fabric has been preserved erect, and our influence in Eastern Europe has enjoyed a just preponderance, because there was a state, nominally independent, on the shores of the Bosphorus. That security is now failing us. To foreign intrigue and aggression are added domestic corruptions, impoverishment, and disorganisation, so great that every statesman and journalist of any importance confesses the further existence of the Ottoman Empire, as it stands, to be utterly out of the question. We now have, in addition to the general information which previously existed on the subject, an important pamphlet, written “by One who has Resided in the Levant,” in which the writer exposes the true condition of the Turkish dominions. He shows that many false ideas have been propagated on this subject, and many such, we know, are circulated by the paid agents of the Porte. However, the author of Hints on the Solution of the Eastern Question removes any doubts which might have lingered in our minds. And what is his picture of the empire whose territories are soon to be disposed of? Its fleet is a mere show; its army is an ill-paid, undisciplined, and spiritless rabble; its finances are exhausted, and rendered more miserable through the attempt to replenish them by fraud; the pride of the nation is gone; the incapacity and peculation of officials are only equalled by the poverty and discontent of the people; a conflict of foreign factions has usurped the place of the legitimate government in the capital; open and irrepressible revolt is spreading in the provinces, and, instead of a single favourable sign appearing, every day brings the eruption of a new malady, and the exposure of new weakness.

Statesmen and merchants in Great Britain are alarmed. They exclaim that one more effort must be made to preserve the integrity of the Turkish empire, in order that Russian arms or politics may not sweep our influence, our commerce, and our interests as an empire out of Eastern Europe as well as the Mediterranean. We tell them they will lose their labour. The resuscitation of a dead power is hopeless. The Ottoman state is palsied, paralysed, fed upon already by insurrection and the territorial avarice of its neighbours. Therefore our diplomacy can avail nothing in this direction; we cannot prevent the fall of the Turkish empire. Fall it will, whether we assist or oppose. There remains, then, the question—how shall the inheritance bequeathed by this defunct government be disposed of? The distribution of it among Russia, Austria, France, and Great Britain is proposed. To that we have more than one answer. It would be morally iniquitous. It would disarrange the whole balance of Europe. It could not well be effected; and, even if it were, would infallibly lead to future wars. Chiefly, however, we insist that it would be a flagitious crime, against which the sense of this age would revolt. No one who supports the idea ought ever again to say one word condemning the partition of Poland and the annexation of Cracow. Besides, difficulties almost insuperable present themselves at the very first contemplation of the idea, even if we omit the argument that it would be the worst policy for a free country like ours to add millions of population and the area of many ancient kingdoms to increase the mass of humanity already suffering under the despotism of Austria, Russia, and France.

There remains, then, but one alternative, which is proposed by “One who has Resided in the Levant,” and has been accepted by our leading journalists. This is the erection of a Christian state upon the ruins of the Ottoman monarchy. The Greeks, as the most numerous, the best civilised, the most intelligent, and the least prejudiced people in Eastern Europe, would, of course, form the basis of the new arrangement; and an independent powerful Greek government might be set up in place of an effete and crumbling despotism, which threatens every hour to fall, and overwhelm in its descent the tranquillity of the world. The Greeks have already the focus of a state. They are the rightful possessors of the country which it is now proposed to restore to them, and they were only deprived of those countries by an invasion like that of a banditti. The establishment of a free Greek power in the present dominions of the Porte, appears, therefore, the only facile and safe solution of this formidable question.

Commercially, nothing could be more advantageous to Great Britain than such an arrangement as this. Politically, it would be of utmost benefit, because a real barrier would thus be erected against the tide of Russian power, and the gates of the east would be once more secure. As it is, our influence throughout Western Asia and Eastern Europe, and even our position in India, stand ready to be shaken by the first collision of national interests in the Dardanelles. The development of our trade is slow, and the amount of our manufactures consumed comparatively small. We are pledged to uphold a state which cannot continue to exist, and which, in the religion, manners, interest, and opinions of its ruling nationality, is completely dissevered from our own. If we seek to ensure perpetuity to a system like this, plainly the result will be that we shall disgrace ourselves, without benefiting our protégé. Treaties are valuable because they are the depositions of the agreements of nations under a common public law, but there is a law paramount to treaties, and the moment we attempt to oppose our conventions to the course of nature, our diplomacy becomes worse than contemptible. —Sunday Times.

“The erection of a Christian state upon the ruins of the Ottoman monarchy,” and that state “an independent, powerful Greek government,” opposed to Russian aggression, is an “alternative” beyond the compass of possibility. The progress of the northern king is not to be stayed by such a device as this. He is by faith already Greek; and when he comes against Stamboul, he will establish a state upon the ruins of the Moslem empire, that will be as independent, powerful, and Greek, as “our leading journalists” can wish; but not anti-Russian, as they would fondly hope. A Greco-Roman dominion sceptred by the “Prince of Ros, Mosc, and Tobl,”—Russia, Moscovy, and Tobolski—is the “Christian state” soon to be founded “upon the ruins of the Ottoman monarchy.” The Bible declares this, and the opposition of France and England will only expedite the catastrophe. It is truly cheering to see the end approaching. A few years will place Nebuchadnezzar’s Image upon its feet among the mountains of Israel, with the Greek element embodied in its “belly and thighs of brass.” Then “will I raise up thy sons, O Zion, against thy sons, O Greece, and make thee, O Zion, as the sword of a mighty man, saith Jehovah. And the Lord shall be seen over them, and Ephraim shall go forth as the lightning; and the Lord God shall blow the trumpet, and shall go forth with whirlwinds of the south.” Coming events cast their shadows before. The “alternative” of “our leading journalists” is one of these shadowy forms. The Greek state will come up; but they must accept it as presented to the world by one who is destined to move the heart of Britain as British hearts were never moved before.

EDITOR.

JUNE 17 1853.

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THE EASTERN QUESTION.

TURKEY AND THE BALANCE OF POWER.

(To the Editor of the Leader.)

Sir, —The question of Turkey is of more than European importance. From the first moment when those distant specks upon the horizon denoted the gathering clouds that have hung over the capital of the East, the public expectation of the Continent and of Great Britain has been directed with incessant anxiety to the Bosphorus, seeking some tangible ground of hope and some indication of encouragement. And now, the “Dead March in Saul” is already being played over the Turkish empire! When Lord Chatham exclaimed, that he could hold no discussion “with that man who did not see the interest of England in the preservation of the Ottoman Empire;” his lordship did not foresee the crisis which would call that sentence from oblivion and attach to it its due weight and importance. Yet in connection with the balance of power that sentence is of little consequence; it derives its practical application from other and more reasonable sources. Greece gave the first fatal blow to Mussulman supremacy, (In 1821, when the Sixth Vial began to pour out upon Turkey. —Editor Herald), founded upon the unconditional accordance of Western support. Ibrahim Pasha followed the bitter stroke with more effective hostilities; but as a question between Mussulman and Mussulman, not involving religious tenets nor ages of glorious memory, the fleets of Europe propped up the decrepitude of Turkey, and condemned to inaction the nervous arm that would have regenerated the enfeebled East. And this, sir, was to preserve the so-called balance of power! Well—the balance of power so marvellously preserved; this balance of power for which Europe risked a general war; this same said balance of power is now proclaimed dead; the unfortunate victim of a felo de se, without example and without parallel.

Possibly Turkey contained within itself the elements of decay. Founded upon fanaticism and the sword, and upon doctrines irreconcilable with civilisation, its only virility lay in war, its only safety in bigotry. The struggle was for life and death, and Turkey is weakened—nearly destroyed. Yet the members of the Greek Church—all fanatics, multitudes plunderers—are strong, powerful, and tending to a great nationality! The struggle here was, or must be, one of life and death also. But the ruler of Turkey, enlightened before his time and his people, prematurely chose reform; its consequences face us now.

Mahmoud—that melancholy image which rises before us with the blood of the empire oozing from every pore, was a reforming sultan. The successor to the power that thundered under the walls of Vienna and filled Christian (Not “Christian,” but papal kingdoms, styled in Scripture, “the Kingdoms of this World.”—Editor Herald) kingdoms with terror and dismay, desired to inoculate Europeanism upon the tree of Turkish life and failed; for with the blood of the Janissaries rolled through the gutters of Constantinople the last remaining hope and strength of the Ottomans. “Lord Palmerston is not the Minister of Russia or of Austria, he is the Minister of England.” Mahmoud should have lived and died the Sultan of Turkey; he forgot his mission, he misunderstood his time, and failed. Broad national characteristics are the life-blood of nationalities. Faithful to his Empire, had Mahmoud raised on high the standard of a fanaticism that had already conquered half the world, allah il allah might again have rung in the ears of the startled Viennese. Reformatory Ministries for Turkey! And the first great Liberal Minister convicted of peculations that would have overwhelmed the concoctor of the “state lotteries” with astonishment and with dismay!

Toleration for Turkey! Christian virtues and charities conferred by heathenism, and by a Government whose vitality was drawn from heathen springs. No wonder, sir, the springs refused to run. No wonder effete bashaws and weak sultans. No wonder the Turkish empire shrank, dried, (This is the language of the Apocalypse, though the writer knows it not. John says: “The sixth angel poured out his vial upon the Euphrates, and the water thereof was dried up.” The Ottoman is a dried up dominion. —Editor Herald), shrivelled up to the merest skin and bone, and existed but by the outward pressure and support necessary to keep its trembling joints within their sockets. And those poor creaking joints and this rickety skeleton are the remnants of Soliman! Yes, broad, national characteristics are the life-blood of nationalities. Modern sentimentality seeks national strength, and comprehensive, almost universal, principles. Impossible realisation. For each land has its church, its religion, and prejudices. Assimilate all these and men have no individual country worth struggling for; it is the same life in the latitude of Constantinople, of St. Petersburg, of Vienna, Berlin, Paris, and London. If we desire no nationality, let us call upon Lamartine, install him at the Invalides or Pimlico, and assist in administering the Christianised government and the Ibergallitanian republic! Turkey has fallen, then, and from the inoculation of Europeanism. The virile infidel, who braved the hammer of Martel, who stood before the greatest armies of the world, has succumbed to doctrinal discourses, and to the theories of civilisation. Is this a victory or a defeat?

In presence of that gigantic Colossus, whose brutal heels have crushed growing nationalities, and whose giant steps have spanned 2500 miles into Europe, whose fleets ride triumphantly the Black Sea, and whose battlements frown terror upon Constantinople: —in presence of this Czar Nicholas, the most wily politician of the present age, who shall affirm that Turkey weakened, is Christianity and freedom strengthened, or civilisation reinforced? “History is continually repeating itself.” This strange jingle of Lavalette, Menschikoff, Rose de la Cour, Stratford de Redcliffe, is but a substitution for Zarik, Roderick, Amblessa, Eudes, Abderame, and Martel. The juggle of words, the jargon of mere phrases, momentarily usurps empire over the sword; and oh! Strange and significant moral, it is again the pretext of religious fanaticism; but this time the fanaticism of Christianity, which makes Constantinople the scene of its impious struggles, and which conducts its obscene wrestlings on the steps of the holy sepulchre. Constantinople, the metropolis of Mahometanism, the heart of the prophet’s faith, with its ventricles surcharged and stifled with the breath of Christian doctrinists! The temples of this religion of the sword, resounding with the clamour of diplomatists, the murmured prayers of these Mussulman devotees, broken in upon by the wordy brawlings of Christian controversy; strange spectacle! over which the crescent casts a pale ray, the last enfeebled beam of the glorious radiancy of the Ottoman empire. Yes, when Turkey surrendered the initiative of fanaticism, when she became the object—the battle-ground—of religious diplomacy, forgetting her promulgative mission, she proclaimed her own rapid abasement and her speedy fall.

And thus, sir, we see reform and toleration struggling with prejudices and blind fanaticism. The infatuated ruler of diversified races, seated in the palace of the dominant faithful, destroying the keenness of the edge of that flaming sword which placed him there. Surrounded by Bosnians and Wallachs, by Servians and Montenegrins, by all the hot-blooded belief of the children of the Greek Church, with half-revolted provinces, active and persevering enemies on his frontiers, exhausted treasuries, corrupt innovating ministers, the humbled descendant of the conquering Prophet perseveres in reform and toleration, and signs, in abject dismay, the shameful treaty dictated by the Russian power, under the walls of the second city of the Turkish Empire! Having broken the well-tempered Damascus blade of the true believer, having affirmed the worthless character of the dogmas on which the glory of the crescent was erected, the Sultan sees before him rebellious provinces and revolted dependencies, which even threaten to overturn the trembling throne itself. And the descendants of the prophet, armed no more in the panoply of their belief, forget to draw their impatient swords to avenge the divinity of their faith. The humiliated Sultan stretches his arms towards the West, invoking the aid of Christianity! And it is the sword of Christianity which raises the despised crescent, only that, despaired of even by its own followers, it may tremble rapidly to its proximate fall.

Sententious dogmatists, great statesmen, utterers of brilliant aphorisms, contemplate history inscribing your frailties upon the ever-enduring tablets of her marble records. “The balance of power,” that unfortunate sentence, which has cost England her hundreds of millions, and made bankrupts of great and powerful states, has hurled the world far back, centuries in arrear of her destined advancement. The infallibility of that principle has been screeched forth, when it has been the most infringed. Turkey, Poland, Italy, Russia, Spain, speak to its absurdity and to its impracticability. And now the people, pleased like children with a new toy, still unconvinced, ignorant of the strength and of the sources of weakness within nations, —unconscious of the pressure applied from without, dreaming of an equilibrium and self-abnegation, which are impossible, continue to hold up the battered doll of non-intervention, as the image which we must henceforth fall down before and reverently worship!

But, sir, this worship of principles has already cost us much: it threatens to cost us still more; and the object of my next letter will mainly be to indicate the unexpected and melancholy results that non-intervention has always hitherto produced, and to foreshadow, by this indication, what, if applied to our future policy, and especially to Turkey, will be its pernicious and fatal consequences.

ALPHA.

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THE PROPHECY OF THE VIRGIN’S SON.