From the Fall of Rome to the Hegira. From the Hegira to the Fall of the Heptarchy. 476 TO 622 A. D. EMPERORS OF THE EAST. 622 TO 828 A. D. ANCIENT HISTORY. PERIOD THE FIRST. From the Creation to the Delivery of the Israelites by Moses. 4004 TO 1491 B. C.-2513 YEARS. EVENTS. The Creation began 4004 years before Christ, and occupied six days. On the first, light was made; on the second, the air and clouds, or firmament; on the third, the land was divided from the water, and trees and herbs were made to grow; on the fourth, were made the sun, moon, and stars; on the fifth, birds and fishes; on the sixth, creeping things and beasts :-and lastly, Man. The seventh day was appointed a Sabbath, or day of rest from toil, to all generations of men, for the purpose of giving time to contemplate the mysteries of creation, and to thank and praise the Almighty Originator for them. Man was created in Chaldea, in Asia, to the north-west of the Persian gulf, and near to the ancient Babylon; and it should seem that the garden of Eden lay on the confluent stream of the rivers Euphrates and Tigris, but principally on the eastern bank; which divided into two branches above the garden, and two more below it. Of the descendants of the two sons of Adam, Cain and Seth, we find that the former were the fathers of the arts, and the latter the promulgators of religion. Of the events connected with Adam's history and that of his family, we record, from the Holy Scriptures, that his temptation and Fall, whereby he brought death upon all his kind, occurred in the same year with his creation; and that his sons, Cain and Abel, disputed about the acceptance of their sacrifices in Adam's one hundred and twentyninth year. The genealogical line of father and son, from Adam to Noah, consists of ten persons; viz., 1. Adam, who lived to the year 930 of the world; 2. Seth, his righteons son; 3. Enos; 4. Cainan; 5. Mahaleel; 6. Jared; 7. Enoch, who was translated without dying to heaven for his righteousness; 8. Methuselah, who lived nine hundred and sixty-nine years, and was the oldest person of whom we read, his decease occurring in the year of the deluge; 9. Lamech, who prophesied that, although the earth lay under a curse for the sin of Adam, his own son, Noah, would be appointed to bless it, by becoming the second great parent of the human race; 10. Noah, who, for his righteousness, and that of his fathers from Seth, was, with his family, alone saved out of all the descendants of Adam, when the earth was overwhelmed; and from his son Shem came Elam, the father of the Elamites, or Persians; Aram of the Syrians; Eber of the Hebrews, and especially the Jews. From his son Ham, came the Canaanites, Philistines, and Egyptians, and other Africans. From his son Japheth came Gomer father of the Germans; Javan of the Greeks; and Meshech of the Muscovites, and northern Europeans B The Deluge, 2348, took place, in consequence of the general depravity of mankind, in the year 1656 of the world. The rain continued forty days and nights, and remained on the earth three hundred and seventy-seven days, the ark of Noah alone being saved, with its contents; viz., Noah, his wife, and three sons, and their wives-eight souls together; with seven pair of every clean, and one pair of every unclean animal. and sixty millions, and the territory is greatly increased by the addition of a large portion of Tartary. The present royal family are Tartars, that people having (as will be hereafter shown) subdued the original Chinese. The religion is pagan; and the people are violently opposed to Christianity. Idols are worshipped by the lower classes; but the more enlightened follow the creed of Confucius. Assyria, 2218. Ashur, the son of Tower of Babel, 2247. This nu- Shem, was sent from the plain of cleus of the city of Babylon and nation Shinar, by Nimrod, to found a city, of Chaldea was to be built as high as to which he gave his name; this city the heavens, in the vain hope of af- became the capital of the famous emfording an escape, should another pire of Assyria, the city's appellation flood visit the earth; but, because the being changed by Ninus, the successor descendants of Noah were thus forget- of Ashur, to Nineveh. Ninus, on the ful of God's covenant, sealed with the death of Nimrod, king of Chaldea, rainbow, their language became unin- added that country to his own, but telligible to each other, and they were was soon after murdered by his own forced to separate into tribes, and to queen Semiramis, that she might enjoy settle in different parts of the earth. undivided dominion. She improved Noah himself is supposed to have the country by constructing roads and commenced a government in China; aqueducts, and by bringing vast deShem, with his posterity, overspread serts into cultivation; and was not the rest of Asia; Ham, Syria and less distinguished as a warrior. She Africa; and Japheth, Europe, and conquered many of the neighbouring probably America by the north. Nim-nations; and when told, while dressrod, great grandson of Noah, the ing her hair, that Babylon had remighty hunter of Scripture, is sup- volted, she left her apartment with posed to have declared himself monarch precipitation, refusing to complete her of Chaldea thirty years after the dis- toilet until the sedition should be persion; at which period his relative, quelled. Ashur, founded the Assyrian empire. Ninus, who succeeded Ashur, seized upón Chaldea immediately upon the death of Nimrod, and added it to Assyria; and in this united form the two countries remained till the death of Sardanapalus. Egypt, 2218, was founded by Misraim or Menes, son of Ham, and from the latter, called the land of Ham. The people themselves were termed Copts, meaning black, because the soil, the water, and the people, are all of a dingy hue. Egypt was the nurse China, 2247, was founded, it is sup- of the arts, and of the science of astroposed, by Noah. It is the only re-nomy; but its people were gross pamaining primeval kingdom of the gans. Their pyramids were for the world, having already existed more burial of the dead, and dedicated to than 4000 years; and probably owes the god Bel, whose fire (pur) taperits duration to the practice of abstaining from changes of every kind. The Chinese fix the dress of each grade of people, and never allow it to be altered; they also try to live without the assistance of other nations. The population is, at present, one hundred ing to a point, as in the flame, was represented by their shape. They embalmed all after death, believing in the metempsychosis; but the bodies of kings and nobles alone were placed in the pyramids. The early history of Egypt is much involved in mystery. people have been more famous than the Tyrians. The Greeks divided Phoenicia into Phoenicia proper, or the sea-coast, the inhabitants of which were sprung from Canaan; and SyroPhoenicia, or the inland portion, which had many Cherethites therein. Manetho, the Egyptian priest, states and lastly, the Holy Land, from its that a multitude of men, ignoble in having been the scene of our Saviour's race, poured from Arabia upon ministry. When the city of Tyre Egypt, and overpowered the inhabit-began to flourish, all Phoenicia was ants. They were called Hycsos, or called Tyre; and as merchants, navishepherd kings, and ruled two hun-gators, and planters of colonies, no dred and fifty-nine years; when Amosis, king of Upper Egypt, with an army of 400,000 men, so reduced them, that they agreed to depart with their families for Syria, amounting to 240,000 people, which they entered, and built Jerusalem. So great had been their cruelty, that the Egyptians Sicyon, 2089, was the first state of hated the sight of a shepherd whatever ancient Greece, and was founded by his degree, which account, if correct, Egialeus. Greece had its origin would explain the observation of Moses therefore in the modern Morea. At 'that every shepherd was an abomina-length, other portions of the same tion to the Egyptians.' The mode of peninsula were added to Sicyon, each writing of this people was singular: | having its own ruler, until the whole they had three kinds of character. The was included: the mainland north of hieratic letters were used by the the Morea, and the adjacent islands, priests, on sacred occasions; the de- were gradually taken in, until the motic in all civil and secular matters; south of modern Turkey in Europe and the hieroglyphic to describe actions was included. These states entered in a mysterious manner. The last into a league, resembling the present named consisted of pictures of every Germanic confederacy, to defend each description, of men, beasts, flowers, other in case of assault from without; and instruments. It is to be regretted and the generic terms Graian and Helthat no system approaching to accu-lenist, from two early rulers, were inracy, whereby Egyptian writing may discriminately applied to an inhabitant be deciphered, has been hit upon by The poets, modern inquirers. Egypt remained too, use the appellations Spartan, independent 1663 years; when Cam- Argive, Ionian, &c., to denote a byses made it a province of Persia. Greek of any state. We know little of the people of Sicyon, but that they were luxurious; and that Sicyonian shoes were considered long as marks of effeminacy. The origin of both Greeks and Romans was apparently Pelasgic. The Pelasgi (or sea-crossers) were probably the same as the Philistines of Syria, as the two names have nearly the same meaning: at all events they travelled westward from Asia, the cradle of mankind; and, as the northmen, colony after colony, emigrated to the British islands and France, so they at an early period strayed into Italy and Greece. In like manner, as the French northmen became sooner civilized in Normandy than their brethren in England, and in after times subdued the latter, so the Phænicia, 2200, was founded by Sidon, the grandson of Ham. From Canaan, the father of Sidon, the whole land of Syria where he settled derived its name. The northern portion was called Phoenicia, signifying a date or palm, that tree growing there in abundance. The Canaanites were called Philistines, or Cherethites by the Hebrews, meaning strangers or Cretans, because they had originally come from Crete, at that time Cherith; and hence the Greeks applied the term, with a little corruption, to the country itself, calling it Palestine. Canaan has also had the various titles of the land of promise, from God's promise to Abraham; of Israel from the conquest of it by the Israelites; Judæa from Judah; of any one of them. |