capitals. Immediately before the entrance into the grand temple, are two colossal statues, twenty-seven feet high, which have mitre-caps and earrings. Thirty-five pillars, of an octagonal form, about five feet in diameter, support the arched roof of the temple. Their bases and capitals are composed of elephants, horses, and tigers, carved with great exactness. At the further end is an altar, of a convex shape, twenty-seven feet high, and twenty feet in diameter, directly over which is a large concave dome cut out of the rock. Immediately about this grand pagoda, there are said to be ninety figures of idols, and not fewer than six hundred within the precincts of the excavations. The walls are crowded with figures of men and women, engaged in various actions, and in different attitudes; along the cornices are figures of elephants, horses, and lions, in bold relief; and above, as in a sky, genii and dewtahs are seen floating in multitudes.* It is supposed by Mr. Grose, that the labor expended in constructing the works of Elephanta and Salsette, must have equalled that of erecting the pyramids of Egypt.

But, magnificent as are these excavations, they are surpassed by those in the neighborhood of Vellore. Sixteen of these early efforts of human skill have been minutely described by Sir C. Mallet, in a paper published in the sixth volume of the Asiatic Researches. I shall not, however, stop to describe any of these, as enough has already been said to convey some idea of the general character of those ancient works, and to afford some faint idea of the amazing expense of ingenuity and labor, which the religious feelings of remote antiquity called forth. In contemplating them, we cannot fail to be reminded, how deeply a sense of the unseen world is seated in the human heart, and how mighty is its influence on the conduct, even when debased by ignorance and deformed by superstition. It were well, if a more exalted and enlightened faith, in chasing away the darkness and phantoms of an idolatrous age, should retain an equal hold on the heart and affections of its professed votaries.

* [The genii or jinee, are a kind of fairies, and the dewtahs or devetas, are inferior gods, in the wild mythology of India.—AM. ED.]

It is melancholy to reflect that the gigantic efforts of these ancient times were made, not in support of truth, but of falsehood; not for the real interests and advancement of the human mind, but for riveting the chains of ignorance, superstition, and vice. It was the triumphant work of the powers of darkness. The extent of this malignant influence never appears so tremendous or appalling, as when men are persuaded willingly to labor for their own enthralment, and to forge the chains which are to bind degradation on their souls.

These remarks may be extended to the whole history of antiquity, as connected with architecture; but they especially come home to the bosoms of Britons, in looking at India. If, for the emancipation of that important and interesting portion of the globe, from this spiritual tyranny, but half the pains had been taken in these more enlightened times, which, in a dark and fanciful age, were employed for their mental subjugation, what a glorious revolution might have been effected.

Assuredly, on Christian Britain this obligation lies; or, rather, to Britain this high privilege belongs. It was not for the mere secular aggrandizement of this highly-favored country, that one hundred and thirty millions of men at the furthest extremity of the world, have been cast on her protection; nor can she acquit herself of the honorable task thus imposed, till the sound of the Gospel be echoed from shore to shore over those wide-spread plains, and from the pagoda and the mosque, converted into Christian churches, the glad tidings of salvation be borne into the hearts of the people.

IV.

25

X.

TENTH WEEK-THURSDAY.

ARCHITECTURE.-ITS

ANCIENT HISTORY AND PRACTICECENTRAL ASIA-TOWER OF BABEL, OR TEMPle of BELUS -BABYLON.*

ON Mount Ararat, in Central Asia, the ark rested which saved the remnant of living beings from the ravages of the Universal Deluge. It was, therefore, in this region that the renovated world was first peopled, and from this, as their common centre, the human race diverged to store the earth with intelligent beings. We should, therefore, look here especially for the earliest specimens of architectural ingenuity and labor; and, in fact, there is at least one remnant of the remotest antiquity in this locality. I allude to what is believed to be the ruined Tower of Babel. On the Plain of Shinar, vestiges of this extraordinay edifice, which is connected with so remarkable an era

the history of the human race, are still to be traced. It was, in many a succeeding age, used as a temple of Belus,f the Baal of Scripture, and was, according to the testimony of ancient authors, half a mile in circumference,

*For much of the information contained in this, and some subsequent papers, I am indebted to the indefatigable and judicious labors of Dr. Keith, in his excellent work on Fulfilled Prophecy,' a careful perusal of which I earnestly recommend to the youthful student.

† In the very short account of the building of the Tower of Babel, which we find in Scripture, the intentions of the builders are, in our translation, rendered in these words, "And they said, go to, let us build us a city, and a tower whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth," (Gen. xi. 4.) The words in italics are not in the original. This clause of the verse, literally rendered, would be, "A tower whose top unto heaven." Some ingenious critics have supposed that the meaning of these obscure words was, that the top of the tower should be devoted to the worship of heaven, or of the sun, the god of heaven. If this criticism do not seem to be overstrained, it will remove much difficulty from the passage, and correspond with what history records of the subsequent use of this immense fabric. The confusion of tongues will then appear to be a judgement on mankind for deserting the worship of the true God.

and a furlong in height. It was originally built of a pyramidal form, of eight successive towers, each seventyfive feet high, rising above each other, and diminishing in size, to that which crowned the whole, and formed the Sanctum Sanctorum of the god of fire. Its ascent was by an inclined plane, which passed eight times round the tower. It is now consolidated into one irregular hill, exhibiting a different aspect, and of different altitudes, from whichever side it is viewed. "The eastern face," says an intelligent traveller, "presents two stages of hill, the first showing an elevation of about sixty feet, cloven in the middle into a deep ravine, and intersected in all directions by furrows channelled there by the descending rains of succeeding ages. The summit of this first stage stretches in rather a flattened sweep, to the base of the second ascent, which springs out of the first, in a steep and abrupt conical form, terminated on the top by a solitary standing fragment of brick-work, like the ruin of a From the foundation of the whole pile, to the base of this piece of ruin, measures about two hundred feet, and from the bottom of the ruin to its shattered top, are thirty-five feet. On the western side, the entire mass rises at once from the plain in one stupendous, though irregular, pyramidal hill, broken in the slopes of its sweeping acclivities, by the devastations of time, and rougher destruction. The southern and northern fronts are particularly abrupt.”*

tower.

On the summit of the hill are immense fragments of brick-work, of no determinate figures, tumbled together and converted into solid vitrified masses. Some of these huge fragments measured twelve feet in height, by twenty-four in circumference; and, owing to the circumstance of the standing brick-work having remained in a perfect state, the change exhibited in these is only accountable from their having been exposed to the fiercest fire, or rather scathed by lightning. They are completely molten, and the ruined mass in parts resembles, what the Scriptures prophesied it would become, a burnt mountain."+ "Through the whole of these awful testimonies

66

* Sir R. K. Porter's Travels,' vol. ii. p. 310. † Jeremiah, li. 25..

of the fire," says the writer already mentioned, "whatever fire it was which hurled them from their original elevation, the regular lines of the cement are visible, and so hardened, in common with the bricks, that, when the masses are struck, they ring like glass. On examining the base of the standing wall, contiguous to these huge transmuted substances, it is found tolerably free from any similar changes,-in short, quite in its original state; hence, I draw the conclusion, that the consuming power acted from above; and that the scattered ruin fell from some higher point than the summit of the present standing fragment. The heat of the fire, which produced such amazing effects, must have burned with the force of the strongest furnace; and from the general appearance of the cleft in the wall, and these vitrified masses, I should be induced to attribute the catastrophe to lightning from heaven. Ruins, by the explosion of any combustible matter, would have exhibited very different appearances."

There is something exceedingly striking in this account. It seems as if this doomed building, which was founded in impious rebellion, and afforded in its earliest history a signal instance of Divine interference, should, after a long period, during which it was devoted to the service of idolatry, and perpetuated the rebellion it had commenced, be destined again to experience the vengeance of the insulted Deity, and to perish at last by fire from heaven, leaving to remote ages an indelible impression of the Omnipotent hand which struck it.

This state of the ruins fulfils another remarkable prophecy concerning its fate. "They shall not take of thee a stone for a corner, nor a stone for foundations; thou shalt be desolate for ever. ""* The vitrified masses on the summit of Birs-Nimrood, as ancient Babel is now called, cannot be rebuilt. Though still they be of the hardest substance, and indestructible by the elements, yet, incapable of being hewn into any regular form, they neither are, nor can now be taken as materials for building. Even of the unscathed bricks, indeed, on the solid fragments of wall, travellers

*Jeremiah li. 26.