but the principal value of the olive consists in the delicious oil that is extracted from its fruit. This is used upon the table and in cookery as the substitute for both butter and lard. It is universally burned in lamps and instead of candles, which are nearly unknown in the East. It is the principal material employed in making soap, and it is exclusively used in lubricating machinery in all the great manufacturing establishments in the world. The products of the vine and fig-tree, besides entering largely into the food of the people, become also the basis of trade in a variety of forms, preserved and manufactured. They were to the Israelites, as they are still to the people of many parts of the East, what our corn and wheat fields are to us, and as the basis of commerce, what our (North American) tobacco, rice, and cotton fields are. The hill country of Judah, now the worst part of Palestine, was precisely adapted in soil and climate to the growth of these important staples, and they made it perhaps the most wealthy and populous part of the land' (431).

In the eloquent description of Palestine already given from the lips of Moses (Deut. viii. 7-10), reference may be made to the mineral products of Palestine, 'whose stones are iron' (comp. xxxiii. 25). According to Joshua xix. 24—31, Asher was to take possession of places in Lebanon, in which mountain Volney and Burckhardt report that iron is found. Bowring (Report, p. 20) says 'there are two iron-mines at Duma and Rihan in Mount Lebanon.' The words above cited, however, have been held to apply, not to iron ore itself, but to the wide-spread basalt field of the Hauran, Ledja, and Jaulan. Pliny says of basalt, 'it has the colour and hardness of iron.' As basalt contains twenty per cent. of iron, and magnet stones are frequently embedded in it, and as in many places it is blended with iron ore, so may it have been popularly regarded as iron ore itself. The basalt of Pere'a is still considered as a bed of iron. The Arabs think the rocks of basalt there found consist chiefly of iron, and Burckhardt was often asked whether he knew how the iron could be hence obtained.

Coal, though not mentioned in the Bible, has been found in Lebanon, where mines were recently being worked.

Rock salt and brimstone are found at the south end of the Dead Sea. There also, and in Hasbeya, asphaltum may be procured. Abulfeda says there were sulphur-pits near Jericho. It was, however, in flocks and herds, in butter, oil, honey, and the fruits of various trees, in wheat and barley of the finest kind, that the wealth of Palestine of old chiefly consisted. Perhaps no country for its size was ever more richly provided with the substantial means of human subsistence. Perhaps, too, no country ever looked more smiling, or had a larger number of happy persons on its varied soil, than Palestine when in its prime. Espe

cially lovely was it made by flowers and the song of birds, which still in spring enchant the traveller.

The Palm the princess of the sylvan race;
When islanded amid the level green,

Or charming the wild desert with her grace,
The only verdure of the sultry scene;
Ever with simple majesty of mien,

No other growth of nature can assume;

She reigns-and most when in the evening sheen,
The stable column and the waving plume

Shade the delicious lights that all around illume.

Had the Israelites been wise, they had at their command all the resources of true and durable happiness. What more could have been done for them than was done? But God's bounties produced insensibility. The more he gave, the more dull became their minds and the more gross their affections, till fulness brought forth disobedience, and disobedience ended in ruin. So is it with men in general. If adversity has slain its thousands, prosperity has proved destructive to myriads. How true as well as beautiful is the following poetic description of what Jehovah did for his people, and the wicked return which they made (Deut. xxxii. 13, seq.):

He fed him with the increase of the fields,

He nourished him with honey out of the rock,

And with oil out of the flinty rock;

With cream of kine and milk of sheep,

With the fat of lambs;

And of rams of the breed of Bashan and of he-goats;

With the fat of kidneys of wheat;

And thou didst drink the pure blood of the grape.

Jacob ate and was satiated;

Jeshurun became fat and kicked:

Then he forsook God who made him,

And despised the Rock of his Salvation.

BOOK II.

HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE HEBREW PEOPLE.

CHAPTER I.

THE CREATION TO THE DEATH OF MOSES.

A. C. 4004 (5550 according to another authority) to 1451.

OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST was born about eighteen hundred and fifty years ago, when Augustus was emperor of Rome, and Herod king of Judea. At this time his native country formed a part of the great Roman empire, though it had then, and for a short time after, a sovereign of its own. About seventy years, however, after Christ was born, the Romans reduced the Jewish people into slavery, after destroying and laying waste Jerusalem, the capital of the country.

From the Birth of Christ to the Deluge, learned men have commonly reckoned two thousand years, and the same number of years have been placed by them between the Creation and the Flood. These numbers, however, possess little authority beyond human calculations; and inquiries have made it probable that they are too small, and that the world is more than six thousand years old.

What by many is considered the history of the first two thousand years, you may find in the book of Genesis (Creation), from the first to the eighth chapter. You are there told how in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth; how, afterwards, he created also all living things, and man to be their master, and to occupy and fill the earth; also how Adam and Eve disobeyed God, and by their sin incurred his displeasure. You moreover learn the shocking evil of sin in the wickedness of Cain, Adam's eldest son, who slew his brother Abel. After this, the history gives you some account of the progress made in the practical arts of civilised life; but the Bible mentions these things only as it passes on to or treats of its own great topics, namely, those which are of a religious nature. Accordingly, it supplies information

of the growing wickedness of men, which at last became so great that God determined to destroy them as a punishment for their sin. With this view he sent a terrible flood, which overwhelmed all the creatures that were known to live on the earth, except Noah and his family, who, with a number of animals, were saved under the kind provision and care of the Almighty.

The book of Genesis, from chapter the ninth to chapter the forty-sixth, contains a second portion of history, in which, after tracing the descendants of Noah in their wanderings over the world, and speaking of the origin of different languages, the writer applies himself to one small branch of the great human tree, in order to begin the chief work and purpose of the older writings of the Bible, namely, to show how God conducted the religious education of one member of his intelligent family, in the gracious intention of thus preparing the way for Christ, and making the people of Israel a source of blessing to all mankind. The head of this chosen race, and so the forefather of the Hebrews, was Abraham, who, while he dwelt among his idolatrous kindred, near the river Euphrates, still preserved in his heart a knowledge of the true God, who made heaven and earth; and was therefore commanded by God to leave his native country, and, proceeding in a south-westerly direction, to settle in CaAs in doing so he had to pass over the river Jordan, so did he receive the name of passer-over, which, in the language of the country, was nearly the same as the word Hebrew, which thus became one of the names of all the direct descendants of A'braham. The land into which he emigrated was at the time inhabited by Canaanites and Phenicians, who were of the same great family of nations as himself, and who had made considerable progress in social cultivation. But they worshiped idols.

naan.

Abraham having met with a friendly reception in Canaan, employed his time in the peaceful employment of pasturing his flocks on the grazing lands which cover a large part of the face of the country. The occurrence of a famine, however, led him to go down into Egypt, where, as we learn from the Bible, he found a settled form of government, with a Pharaoh or king for its head, and where, as we learn from other sources of informa→ tion, he must have seen the temples, palaces, and pyramids, with many other tokens of an advanced civilisation, with which the land was filled.

A famine also was the occasion of Jacob's going down into Egypt, where he found his lost son, Joseph, whom his brothers through jealousy had sold into slavery, in great favour with the king, who placed him in a very high office, and assigned to the Hebrews under Jacob a large portion of the country named Goshen, which lay on the eastern side of the river Nile.

The favour with which the Israelites were received in Egypt was succeeded by a long period of oppression and sorrow,

till at

length Moses, who had been brought up in the court of Pharaoh, without forgetting what was due to his own people, achieved their deliverance. In leading them out of Egypt, Moses intended to take steps for putting them into possession of the land of Canaan, which had been promised to them by the Almighty. In order, however, to effect his purpose, he felt the necessity of educating the nation in the great religious truth-namely, that that there is One God, the Maker of heaven and earth, and none other but he-of which they were to be the guardians, and by the spread of which they were to prove the religious benefactors of the world. With a view to this most desirable and important result, Moses, instead of taking the nearest road into Palestine, proceeded in an easterly direction, and, crossing the Gulf of Suez, entered the peninsula of Sinai, amidst the solitudes of which, during a period of forty years, and under the special guidance and aid of the Almighty, that wise, great, and deeply religious teacher raised the Hebrews into a religious society, with God for their magistrate or king, and with a system of minute observances and offerings designed and fitted to keep the nation apart from the rest of the world, and so to assist in preserving unimpaired and unsullied the precious doctrine of the sole godhead of Jehovah, who made heaven and earth, and all things therein. When those who had been used to the idolatrous practices of Egypt had died, and a new generation, imbued with the great ideas of Moses, had come to manhood, the Hebrews were brought to the borders of Canaan, on the eastern heights of which Moses, having caught a view of the goodly land, breathed his last.

These events may be found narrated at length in the books of the Bible which bear the names of Exodus (Out-going), Leviticus (relating to the levitical or ceremonial law), Numbers (from the numbering of the people, Numb. i. 2, seq.), and Deuteronomy (Second law, or recapitulation), which with Genesis form what is called the Pentateuch, or five-fold volume, and for the substance of which the world is indebted to Moses.

CHAPTER II.

HISTORICAL SKETCH FROM JOSHUA TO THE DIVISION OF THE KINGDOM UNDER JEROBOAM.

A. C. 1451 to 976.

Moses, that 'man of God,' had appointed for his successor Joshua, who undertook and finished the arduous task of taking possession of Canaan, for which purpose he destroyed many of