their writings, those especially of Isaiah, have been designated as 66 bombastical rant, full of extravagant metaphor, without application, and destitute of meaning." But, as every reader must see on comparing the predictions with their respective events, our enemies being witnesses, that which so far surpassed all conjecture as to be deemed extravagant metaphor, is uniformly made manifest to be the literal truth; and words could not have a clearer meaning or more precise application than those prophecies, of which, after the lapse of many ages, we now see the fulfilment.

In a guilty world, where his laws are transgressed and his word is disregarded, the Lord is known by the judgment which he executes. In the development of them, so great a change in manifold instances has passed on human things, that these have become the reverse of what they were; and, in token that mercy rejoiceth against judgment, they shall yet again, as predicted, be the reverse of what they are. From one extreme to another, their changeful forms are ever shaped, in their appointed time, according to the prophetic word. And, while past history is a corroboration of that word, when the desolations of many generations shall be raised up, all flesh shall know that He, who hath spoken it and caused it to be done, is the Lord. But, restricting our view to existing facts, the inspiration of the prophets of Israel may be visibly and vividly demonstrated. In the latter days we may consider it perfectly. And we may come and see the desolations which, because of iniquity, the Lord hath wrought in the earth. Ancient cities and kingdoms have borne "the burden" of his word. Before it, all the nations which in ancient times were the enemies of Israel, have been utterly destroyed, the Arabs excepted, who still dwell in the presence of their brethren. The Jews have been scattered among all nations, are yet dispersed in all countries, and distinct from every people; and their unparalleled fate is a perfect parallel of the prophecies. Judea, Ammon, Moab, Edom, and Philistia, bear their brand in every feature. A plain, whereon fishers spread their nets, is the prophetic representative of princely Tyre. Cottages of shepherds have supplanted the palaces of the lords of the Philistines; and wherever the rest of the land has not been given up to the desert, folds for flocks occupy the places of the hosts of the enemies of Israel. The chief city of Ammon is a stable for camels; that of Moab is a ruinous heap; flocks lie down in the empty cities, and the wandering tenants of the desolate land flee for a refuge to the rocks. The temples of Petra are courts for owls; and the word of the Lord against the capital of Edom, amid perpetual monuments of its ancient glory, is written with a pen of iron on the rock for ever. Babylon the great has been converted

into heaps; and its walls, utterly broken, have been swept from off the face of the earth; and not a phantom evoked by vain fancy, but the spirit of prophecy, sits on every ruin, and each, as addressed, is an echo of its voice; and the whole diversified and yet discriminated scene is one of the rolls of its literal testimony spread forth before the world at this hour, although all the combined intelligence of Europe was unequal to the task, at the beginning of the present century, of depicting the ruins of Babylon with half the accuracy with which the prophets of Israel delineated the grave, as now it lies, of "the greatest city," as Pliny termed it, on which the sun ever shone."

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While the multiplicity of predictions respecting JUDEA AND THE ADJACENT REGIONS OF SYRIA demands our primary consideration, Volney, from the copiousness of his details and the discriminating nature of his descriptions, as well as from his inveterate hostility to the Christian cause, has a right to be a leading witness. The prophecies are so luminous and apposite, that a word to point out their meaning or application would be superfluous. They are so numerous that, when viewed collectively, they in a great measure disclaim the aid of farther argument to elucidate the inspiration of which they testify. And in regard to the facts which render their fulfilment obvious, they are so striking and abundant as to render complete the triumph of truth over error. And as no man has contributed to this triumph so greatly as an enemy of the faith has unconsciously done, it is only needful to prefix a remark or two respecting the validity of his testimony, before we bring those FACTS which he himself has stated to refute the arguments which he and all others have urged against the inspiration of the Old Testament prophets.

The name of Volney is too well known as that of a most zealous partisan and successful promoter of infidelity for the possibility of his testimony ever being objected to as partial to the Christian cause. It assuredly was no intention of his to elucidate Scripture prophecy. And, whatever his theoretical tenets may have been, his character is now universally established—and he stands indisputably in the very first rank-as an accurate and intelligent delineator of the various features of the countries which he visited, and the character, condition, and manners of the inhabitants. His Travels in Syria and Egypt are justly characterized as 66 a treatise on the country which he visited;" "an admirable book," and of "extraordinary merit."* And the following testimony of great value" is given by the Hon. Mountstuart Elphinstone, late Governor of Bombay, in his "Account of

* Edinburgh Review, No. 50, p. 417.

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the Kingdom of Caubul.” Among many other talents, M. Volney possesses, in a remarkable degree, the merit of pointing out what is peculiar in the manners and institutions of the East, by comparing and contrasting them with those of Europe. So far does he excel all other writers in this respect, that if one wishes thoroughly to understand other travellers in Mohammedan countries, it is necessary to have read Volney first."* And in reference to the fulness and accuracy of his descriptions, it must suffice to quote the following testimony of high and unqualified approbation, with which Malte-Brun, the first authority in geography, introduces his description of Syria and Palestine:

"The countries belonging to Asiatic Turkey which remain to be described have so frequently attracted the attention of travellers, that a large library might be formed of the accounts of them which have been published. Two or three volumes could scarce contain the names of the pilgrims who have left journals of their travels in the Holy Land; works full of repetition and puerility, yet claiming the examination of the enlightened critic. From these, compared with the writings of Abulfeda and Josephus, the learned Busching has formed an excellent geographical treatise. In modern times we have judicious missionaries, such as Dandini; antiquaries, as Wood; and naturalists, as Maundrel and Hasselquist, who have ably elucidated particular parts of these countries. It was reserved for the genius of Volney to combine their detached accounts with the fruits of his own observation and study, so

as to PRESENT THE WORLD WITH A COMPLETE DESCRIPTION OF SYRIA."+

The description of Syria and Palestine given by Volney has not, therefore, to be considered as only that of a single eyewitness, but as the collation and combination of many accounts. But though he sojourned long in the land, and saw what he described; though he might have searched into journals of travels so numerous that it would require a volume to contain their names; although the substance of these was made ready to his hand, and although his description of Syria be justly esteemed "a model," and accounted complete; yet even he, after all his observation and study, however satisfactory may be the result to the geographer, presents not information sufficiently discriminating and copious to satisfy the inquirer who seeks, but seeks in vain, for any description of Syria so full and complete as to supply of itself every predicted fact, or to cope with the vision of the prophets. To the evidence of Volney that of other and more recent travellers must therefore be superadded.

* Edinburgh Review, No. 50, Elphinstone's Account of Caubul, p. 232. † Malte-Brun's Geography, vol. ii., p. 126.

It needs not a syllable to tell how clearly his 'description, which was written towards the close of the 18th century, and those of others, written in the present, accord with those prophecies, the latest of which were indisputably delivered at least several centuries before the Christian era, seeing that the perfect parallelism between the predictions and the events, in reference to Palestine and many countries besides, may be thus set before the sight.

THE generation to come of "I JOURNEYED in the empire your children that shall rise of the Ottomans, and traversed up after you, and THE STRAN- the provinces, which formerly GER THAT SHALL COME FROM A were kingdoms of Egypt and FAR LAND, when they see the Syria." "I wandered over the plagues of that land, and the country"-"I enumerated the sicknesses which the Lord kingdoms of Damascus and hath laid upon it, shall say, Idumea, of Jerusalem and SaDeut. xxix., 22.

Wherefore hath the Lord done this unto this land? What meaneth the heat of this great anger? Ib. 24.

maria. This Syria, said I to myself, now almost depopulated, then contained a hundred flourishing cities, and abounded with towns, villages, and hamlets. What are become of so many productions of the hand of man? What are become of these ages of abundance and of life ?" &c.Volney's Ruins, c. i., 11, p. 1, 2,7.

"Great God! from whence proceed such melancholy revolutions? For what cause is the fortune of these countries so strikingly changed? Why are so many cities destroyed? Why is not that ancient population reproduced and perpetuated?"-Ib., c. ii., p. 8.

I will scatter you among the The Jews, as all know, have heathen, and will draw out a been scattered among the heasword after you: and your land then. "I have traversed this shall be desolate, Levit. xxxvi., desolate country," says Volney, Ruins, c. ii., p. 7.

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Every day I found in my

Then shall the land enjoy her Sabbaths (or rest, or be route fields abandoned by the

untilled).

plough.”—Ib., c. i. "The art of cultivation is in the most deplorable state."-Volney's Travels, v. ii., p. 413.

As long as it lieth desolate,

"Why do these lands no

and ye be in your enemies' land; longer boast their former temeven then shall the land rest, v. perature and fertility? Why 34. The land also shall be left have these favours been transof them, and shall enjoy her ferred, as it were, for so many Sabbaths, or rest, while she ages, to other nations and diflieth desolate without them, v. ferent climes ?"-Volney's Ru43. They (the Jews on their ins, c. xi., p. 9. final return) shall raise up the former desolations, the desolations of many generations, Isa. lxi., 4. See, also, Isa. xxxiii., 15; lviii., 12. Ezek. xxxvi., 24, 25, 33-36; xxxviii., 8. ix., 27. Hosea, iii., 4.

Dan.

Your land, strangers devour

"Within two thousand five

it in your presence, and it is hundred years we may reckon desolate, as overthrown by ten invasions which have instrangers, Isa. i., 7.

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troduced into Syria a succession of foreign nations."-Volney's Travels, vol. i., p. 356. Destruction upon destruc- 'Syria became a province tion is cried, Jer. iv., 20. Mis- of the Roman empire. In the chief shall come upon mischief, year 622 (636) the Arabian Ezek. vii., 21, 26. Tell your tribes, collected under the banchildren of it, and let your chil- ners of Mohammed, seized, or dren tell their children, and rather laid it waste. Since their children another genera- that period, torn to pieces by tion. For a nation is come up the civil wars of the Fatimites upon my land, strong and without number, &c., Joel i.

I will give it into the hands of strangers for a prey,

And into the wicked of the

and the Ommiades, wrested from the califs by their rebellious governors, taken from them by the Turkmen soldiery, invaded by the European crusaders, retaken by the Mamelukes of Egypt, and ravaged by Tamerlane and his Tartars, it has at length fallen into the hands of the Ottoman Turks." -Volney's Travels, p. 357.

Judea has been the scene of frequent invasions "which have introduced a succession of foreign nations (des peuples etrangers)."-Ib., p. 365.

"When the Ottomans took

earth for a spoil, Ezek. vii., 21. Syria from the Mamelukes,

they considered it only as the spoil of a vanquished enemy. According to the law, the life