but even the want of these proclaims, most powerfully, the truth of the word of God!

SECTION VII-BABYLON.

Babylon was the capital of Babylonia, an ancient kingdom founded by the first descendants of Noah, soon after the deluge; and enlarged by Nimrod, his great grandson, about two thousand years before the birth of Christ. Many additions were made to it by queen Semiramis, and it was greatly strengthened and beautified by various succeeding sovereigns: but it was Nebuchadnezzar and his daughter Nitocris, who brought it to such a degree of magnificence and splendour, as rendered it one of the wonders of the world. Babylon stood in the midst of a large plain, in a very deep and fruitful soil. It was divided into two parts by the river Euphrates, which flowed through the city from north to south. Both these divisions were enclosed by one wall; and the whole formed a complete square, four hundred and eighty furlongs, or sixty miles in compass. The walls were of extraordinary strength, being eighty-seven feet broad, capable of admitting six chariots abreast to run upon them, and three hundred feet high. On each side of the river Euphrates was built a quay, and high wall, of the same thickness with the walls around the city. The entrances to the city were by one hundred gates, of immense size, made of solid brass; and the two parts of the city were connected by a remarkable stone bridge across the river. To prevent inconvenience from the swellings of the river, two canals were cut, above the city, by which the superabundant waters were carried off into the Tigris. Besides, prodigious embankments were made, effectually to confine the stream within its channel, and as a security against inundation. The materials for these stupendous works were taken, principally, from the western side of the city, where an extraordinary lake was dug, the depth of which was thirty-five feet, and its circumference fortyfive miles.

At the two ends of the bridge were two magnificent palaces, which had a subterraneous communication with

each other, by means of a vault or tunnel under the bed of the river. The old palace, on the east side, was about thirty furlongs in compass, surrounded by three separate walls. The new palace, on the opposite side, was about four times as large as the other, and is said to have been eight miles in circumference. Within this palace were artificial hanging gardens; consisting of large terraces, raised one above another, till they equalled the walls of the city, and were designed to represent a woody country, having large trees planted on them, in soil of sufficient depth. Near to the old palace stood the temple of Belus, forming a square nearly three miles in compass. In the middle of the temple was an immense tower, six hundred feet in height. This large pile of building consisted of eight towers, each seventy-five feet high, and which were ascended by stairs winding round the outside. On this temple of Belus, or, as some say, on its summit, was a golden image forty feet in height, and equal in value to three and a half millions sterling. There was, besides, such a multitude of other statues and sacred utensils, that the whole of the treasure contained in this single edifice, has been estimated at forty-two millions of pounds sterling. These things displayed the vast wealth and power of the Babylonian empire, and were, certainly, among the mightiest works of mortals. Babylon was called the glory of kingdoms, the golden city, the lady of kingdoms, and the praise of the whole earth: but its pride, idolatry, and wickedness, have been visited in its utter desolation, agreeably to the inspired predictions of the holy prophets.

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Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation; neither shall the Arabian pitch his tent there; neither shall the shepherds make their fold there. But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there. And the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in

their pleasant palaces: and her time is near to come, and her days shall not be prolonged. For I will rise up against them, saith the LORD of hosts, and cut off from Babylon the name, and remnant, and son, and nephew, saith the LORD. I will also make it a possession for the bittern, and pools of water: and I will sweep it with the besom of destruction, saith the LORD of hosts. Thus saith the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two-leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut; I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron; and I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I, the LORD, who call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel. Publish, and conceal not say, Babylon is taken, Bel is confounded, Merodach is broken in pieces; her idols are confounded, her images are broken in pieces. Because of the wrath of the LORD, it shall not be inhabited, but it shall be wholly desolate every one that goeth by Babylon shall be astonished, and hiss at all her plagues. Come against her from the utmost border, open her storehouses: cast her up as heaps, and destroy her utterly: let nothing of her be left. One post shall run to meet another, and one messenger to meet another, to show the king of Babylon that his city is taken at one end. And Babylon shall become heaps, a dwelling-place for dragons, an astonishment, and a hissing, without an inhabitant," Isa. xiii. 19-22. xiv. 22, 23. xlv. 1—3. Jer. 1. 2. 13. 26. li. 31. 37.

The particulars of the siege of Babylon are detailed by Herodotus and Xenophon, two eminent heathen historians. In exact accordance with the inspired predictions of Isaiah and Jeremiah, they say, that Cyrus, with a large army of the Medes and Persians, besieged Babylon; that the Babylonians, conceiving their walls impregnable, could not be provoked to an engagement; that Cyrus contrived a snare for the Babylonians, by turning the course of the river Euphrates through the great lake;

that the waters being thus dried up, the soldiers marched to the bridge in the channel of the river; that, from the negligence of the guards, some of the gates, leading from the river to the city, were left open; that the troops of Cyrus, entering by this means, took Babylon during the night of an idolatrous festival; that its princes, nobles, and captains, being drunk with their feasting, were suddenly slaughtered, and that the glorious city, never before conquered, was thus taken without the knowledge of the king, till the posts and messengers ran with the information, which he had scarcely time to receive and understand, before he was also numbered among the multitudes of the slain. Babylon soon began to decline: its lofty walls were reduced to only a quarter of their original height; and from an imperial, it was reduced to a tributary city. Xerxes, a successor of Cyrus on the Persian throne, seized the sacred treasures, plundered the temples, and destroyed the images of precious metal. Alexander attempted to restore Babylon to its former glory; and designed to make it the metropolis of a universal empire. Ten thousand men were employed in repairing the embankments of the Euphrates, and the temple of Belus: the death of Alexander occasioned the abandonment of the work.

About a hundred and thirty years before the birth of Christ, a Parthian conqueror destroyed the fairest parts of Babylon. Several new cities, especially Seleucia, called New Babylon, were built by successive sovereigns in those regions, for the purpose of immortalizing their own names; by which the population of the old city was drained.

After the commencement of the christian era, Babylon was but very thinly peopled; and wide spaces within its walls were brought under cultivation. Babylon continued to decline, and its desolations to increase, till, in the fourth century, its walls formed an inclosure for the breeding of wild beasts; and it was thus made a hunting park for the Persian monarchs. A long series of ages succeeded, in which no record was made concerning it; while, as the prophets testified, it was approaching utter desolation,

The site on which Babylon stood has been completely ascertained; and the ruins have been visited and described by several intelligent English travellers. From being the " glory of kingdoms," Babylon is now the greatest of ruins; and after the lapse of two thousand four hundred years, it exhibits to the view of every traveller the precise scene defined by the prophets of God.

The name and remnant are cut off from Babylon. There the Arabian pitches not his tent: there the shepherds make not their folds; but wild beasts of the desert lie there, and their houses are full of doleful creatures. It is a place for the bittern, and a dwelling place for dragons it is a dry land and a desert a burnt mountain -empty-wholly desolate-pools of water-heaps-and utterly destroyed-a land where no man dwelleth-every one that passes by it is astonished.

The superstitious dread of evil spirits, and the natural terror at the wild beasts which dwell among the ruins of Babylon, restrain the Arab from pitching his tent, or shepherds from making their folds there. The princely palaces and habitations of the wondrous city, utterly destroyed, are now nothing but unshapely heaps of bricks and rubbish instead of their stately chambers, there are now caverns, where porcupines creep, and owls and bats nestle; where lions find dens, and jackals, hyænas, and other noxious animals, their unmolested retreats, from which issue loathsome smells; and the entrances to which are strewed with the bones of sheep and goats. On one side of the Euphrates, the canals are dry, and the crumbled bricks on an elevated surface exposed to the scorching sun, cover an arid plain, and Babylon is a wilderness, a dry land, a desert. On the other, the embankments of the river, and with them the vestiges of ruins over a large space, have been swept away: the plain is in general marshy, and in many places inaccessible, especially after the annual overflowing of the Euphrates: no son of man doth pass thereby; the sea or river is come upon Babylon, she is covered with the multitude of the waves thereof.

Birs Nimrod, or the temple of Belus, which was