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sources, our view will be thereby still further confirmed, for the Deity most easily manifests itself to the pure and infantine mind.

Though the Egyptians appear to have advanced a step beyond the Hindoos, yet their history, as far as we know it, also bears the mark of childhood. Here, however, intellect has burst its fetters: contemplation is no longer confined to the fields of fancy, but thought gains a new life in Egyptian history; the calm and musing character, which delights in the mere contemplation of nature, having risen to a higher reflection. The Egyptian wants a medium, by which he may approach the Deity; and to satisfy this want, he endeavours to draw the Deity down to himself,he allegorizes it. In social life, Egyptian history presents great bustle and activity. Commerce and science, agriculture and industry, are all in a progressive state; and, though the institution of castes be preserved, still it has a practical signification, whereas among the Hindoos it served only for religious purposes. The buildings, monuments, &c. of the Egyptians, are as gigantic as those of the Hindoos, but they have a more distinct form and a more defined utility. The Egyptian priests are not devoted to the merely calm and passive contemplation of the Deity, as the Brahmins, who despise all wisdom, save the religious; but they strive for the acquirement of human knowledge and science. To them, the stars are not only the eyes of God, but useful guides, whose course they calculate for human

purposes, and in whom they behold the rulers of human destiny. In their forms of art, if we may so term their allegorical representations of various deities, emblematical either of the powers of nature or of the influence of the Deity itself, we often remark the distorted workings of fancy, observable in a grown child, who is delighted by animal forms.

In Israel, the long standing guest of the Egyptians, the rude and stubborn boy occurs to us. A great capability and tendency to reflection is evident in this people; and conscience, or the discernment between right and wrong, is in a great degree awakened among them. With the two just mentioned nations, this conscience was comparatively dormant, because they had not to struggle with life so harshly as Israel. Not only is the moral law indelibly impressed on the minds of the Jews, but we find them striving to form their social life according to it: yet the sensuality of the boy always oversounds the voice which is heard, as well from the depths of his own heart, as from the summits of Sinai; and vainly for him were the commandments of the Decade engraven on stone. It is an undeniable fact, that the Jewish people became, in the hands of Providence, the means of sustaining that pure and genuine creed of a single and omnipotent God, which had been gradually lost in the other nations of the earth amidst the increase of immorality. But, it is equally certain, that they soon fashioned their God after their own idea. In their rude stubbornness, their pride and profound contempt for other nations,

the Jews wanted a national god, and they formed one for themselves. The hierarchy of the Levites was gradually confirmed by laws, emanating from sacerdotal influence; and the Almighty Jehovah, strong, powerful, and severe in his punishments, seemed in the eyes of the priests a necessary authority, in order to bridle the stubborn and selfish people. I may here allude to the fact (as forming a characteristic feature of the boyhood of mankind), that all those nations of antiquity, which are mentioned in history, were distinguished by their disregard, or rather contempt for other nations. A child cannot estimate the worth of others. Reflection never leads it from self-appreciation; but, in consequence of the predominance of its sensual nature, it seeks for the exclusive possession of enjoyments, praises its received and self-acquired advantages, and longs for those appertaining to others. With the exception of the Romans, this egotism is more perceptible in the Jews than in any other people. They regarded the Pagans as the rejected children of Jehovah ; and it is remarkable how similar national feeling and mythology are upon this point.

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"As a man makes his bed, so he will rest," says an old adage; and the truth of the assertion is proved in the history of national vicissitudes. In the history of the Jews we find a series of unsuccessful combats, sufferings, and dismal events, unparalleled among any other people. The hand of the Lord rested heavily upon Israel; but Israel, herself, it was

that forged the iron scourge. Such is the tutoring hand of an all-wise Providence, that it suffers the merited calamity to fall, as well upon nations as individuals, in order that it may serve as a salutary warning, and contribute to improvement.

The Jewish people is important in an universally historical point of view, not only because the moral regenerator of mankind sprung from it, but also because the hierarchy, as artificially formed among the Jews, furnished a pattern for that spiritual power which gave so remarkable a direction to the middle ages. With regard to their literature and poetry, as it appears in the books of the Old Testament, it retains throughout the character of boyhood, though bordering more on the juvenile. Their history is related in the style employed by a child, when narrating what it has heard. Their poetry has always a lyrical shade, and is a faithful expression of the profoundest feeling, of a self-conscious dependence upon God, and of unfeigned contrition, as we find it in the chastised child, sensible of its fault. Passionate warmth is the foundation of this poetry.

Opposed to the daring boy just described, appears one, nearer youth, arrayed in the morning light of clear serenity. Intellect and fancy are his rich inheritance on his brief but bright career, which leads through ways bestrewed with flowers, by the Muses and the Graces. Wherever he roams, there is life and gladness; and his look, now bent to earth, now heavenward raised, throws light far onward to futurity. On the

stage of History, the Greeks appear as a wonderful and mysterious collective body. Sometimes, though rarely, in life, we meet with forms which, standing on the confines between boyhood and youth, have an indescribable charm of loveliness spread over their whole being, and appear to us, as heaven-descended seraphs, who have come to make but a brief abode on our terrestrial plains. A similar impression is caused by the Greeks on the impartial observer. With them, intellect and fancy exist in beautiful and mutual harmony. Their endeavours for the highest beauty in the form are corresponding to those first movements in the human soul, where the sense of the Exalted and the Beautiful is awakened, and develops itself in bright and clear activity. At this period in the history of mankind, the ideal no longer remains an unheeded treasure in the mind, but takes form, and lives before us. This is the golden age of early poetry. In their science, art, and political life, the tendency of the Greeks was ever towards the highest activity: their valour was that of the boy, who, thoughtless and unheedful of success, throws himself into danger from a sort of poetical enthusiasm, and thereby conquers it: yet moderation and sobriety of mind, expressed by the Greek word " sophrosyne," was a leading feature in the Grecian character; and, should this appear incompatible with the state of mind in a boy ripening into youth, I would remark, that, in eminent minds, this period of transition is so distinguished.

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