INDEX TO PLATES. PAGE EGYPTIANS MOVING A COLOSSUS, Facing Title-page FRONT OF THE GREAT TEMPLE OF ABOO SIMBEL, NUBIA, ASSYRIANS MOVING A HUMAN-HEADED BULL, ASSYRIAN KING SUPERINTENDING THE REMOVAL OF A COLOSSAL BULL, HEAD OF THE GREAT SPHINX AND PYRAMIDS OF GIZEH, EGYPT, CENTRAL AVENUE OF THE GREAT HALL OF COLUMNS, KARNAK, THEBES, 211 NOTE.-Several of the above are introduced, without being particularly described, to The colored plates are taken from Roberts' splendid work, "The Holy Land, Idumea, CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. N looking at a history of the world in a small compass, we may well exclaim, A history of the world, in two or three small volumes! The world! composed of vast empires and of many nations; why the history of the decline of a single empire has filled many volumes! The world! having twelve hundred millions of inhabitants, and having had a hundred generations of hundreds of millions of people! Many volumes have been written on the life of one man. Enough books have been written on the world's history to make a large library. A full history of the world in all its bearings we shall have time to read only in eternity. It is all recorded. John says, "I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God: and the books were opened: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works."2 In such a history, therefore, we can do little more than take a bird's-eye view of the world: soaring over it as if in a balloon, seeing plainly the great nations, and the great men, which rise up, here and there, like the mountain-tops; dipping occasionally down to the valleys; catching a glance at the cities; and now and then at the gatherings of men. We shall see the earth covered by a dark, heavy, moral cloud, like a funeral pall: through that cloud we shall see 'More than half a century ago, Müller, the Swiss historian, in laying the foundation of his Universal History, made extracts from the writings of one thousand seven hundred and thirty-three authors of ancient and modern times. 2 Rev. xx. 12. the beams of the Sun of Righteousness breaking, growing brighter and brighter, and carrying life to all nations. We shall hear an almost universal wail of woe, which has been going up continually for six thousand years from the earth's inhabitants. But gradually rising above this, we shall hear shouts of praise, growing louder and louder, as the "good tidings of great joy, to all people, that a Saviour is born, which is Christ the Lord," are spread through the earth. As we soar through six thousand years, we shall see the lights and shadows of a beautiful picture both in nature and morals. While studying it, shall we forget the Great Painter and Architect? Him "who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance. That stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in: that bringeth the princes to nothing. Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things." In looking into the history of man and of nations, we behold a vast and complicated machinery in continued motion ; and the more we look into it, the more wonderful do we find it in all its parts. Its movements are beyond our comprehension. Who made it? Why was it made? Is it left to regulate itself? Suppose we were looking at an immense piece of mechanism, made with admirable finish; its parts fitting together, and moving with a velocity and a power which, if uncontrolled, would carry destruction to itself and to every thing near it. Could we believe it made itself? Could we believe that it moved without having power communicated to it? Could we believe that the Maker had no purpose in view when he made it? Let us endeavor, then, in studying the history of the world, to learn why it was made; for we have a personal interest in knowing why. 'Isaiah xl. 12, 22, 26. |