had come into contact with the culture and religion of Babylon, and the seat of empire had passed from Babel to Nineveh, the Assyrians came forward as the conquerors of the world, and not only made conquests on every side, but also left traces of their influence in countless monuments. The researches of later times have confirmed what these legends teach us. An incredible amount of labour has been expended upon the examination of a number of Babylonian and Assyrian ruins; and many scholars, of whom Botta, Place, Layard, Rawlinson, Oppert, and recently Schrader, are the best known, have devoted their powers to the difficult task of deciphering the inscriptions which have been found in great numbers. Much obscurity still hangs round this ancient history, but some facts at least have been disclosed; and so far they agree with what the legends tell us. The scholars who are engaged in these studies think it probable that the population of Babylonia and Assyria was made up of two different races, and that the original inhabitants were subjugated by an Ethiopian immigration, whose language gained the supremacy over theirs. Perhaps the Chaldees, a tribe of priests in Babylonia, after whom the whole nation is commonly called that of the Chaldees, were the remains of these ancient inhabitants. About the year 2300, the kingdom of Nimrod, as we might call the old Chaldean monarchy, according to the story in Genesis x., was already established in the plain of Shinear. The chief god was the same Oannes with whom we met in the legends of Semiramis. Amongst the other gods, of whom we shall have more to say hereafter, were Bel, Mylitta, and Dagan, and their worship was often of a very immoral character In the eighteenth century before Christ, the old Chaldear. monarchy had fallen into decay, and in the seventeenth it was conquered by the Egyptians, under whose supremacy Assyria gradually arose, until its monarchs, during the same I period as that in which the Israelites came out of Egypt, made themselves masters of Babel, and ruled the whole "land of the two rivers" from Nineveh. Thus "Nimrod went to Assyria." We shall come upon this Assyrian empire again in the course of the history of the Israelites, and shall see how great an influence it exercised upon them, both by its religion and its arms. Once more let the figure of Nimrod rise before us, as it is here described. He is not an attractive figure-this mighty hunter, this despotic ruler! Conscious strength and courage are seated on his brow. He rescues the flock from the claws of the dreaded lion. He enables the industrious to cultivate their land, and equip their fishing boats in peace. He promulgates laws and preserves order. Woe to the man who seizes his neighbour's wife or who slays his brother! The ruler's grasp is upon him, he has hurled him to the ground, he has struck him dead! Woe to the man who attacks him himself! He leaves no injury unavenged. It needs but little provocation to make him slay the offender. So a heavy price is paid for safety, since freedom is thrown into fetters. The rule of the wild beasts is changed for that of a man, and a man may be more terrible than a wild beast, in his rage. But the maintenance of order and justice, even after a rude fashion, paves the way to development in every direction. It is the first step towards the formation of a healthy society; and the second step is soon made by the people, and this is followed by others yet. Let no one despise the day of small things! Nimrod, a tyrant and a mighty hunter! Yes, but before Yahweh's face. God, who created all that is good, makes use even of tyrants to realise his ends. They may be the forerunners of better and gentler times. ON CHAPTER IX. THE TOWER OF BABEL. GEN. XI. 1-9. N the western bank of the Euphrates, a little to the south of Babylon proper, on the spot marked Borsippa on our map, the traveller may still see a mighty ruin which rears itself above the naked plain around, and serves as a land-mark to the wandering shepherds. It is the basis, one hundred and ninety-eight feet in height, of a colossal building, a small part of the first story of which still crowns it. This ruin is known amongst the people of the country as "the mountain of Nimrod." It is all that remains of the Temple of Bel, formerly one of the most enormous buildings of the magnificent Babylon. Ancient writers vie with each other in describing its glories. It was a four-cornered building of baked clay bricks cemented with asphalt, in which the surrounding plain is very rich. This gigantic basis measured a hundred and fifty yards each way; and a tower rose from it in eight stories, each smaller than the one below it, to a height that far exceeded that of the great Egyptian pyramids. The building was for the most part solid right through, and a sloping passage that swept in wide circles round it conducted those who desired to ascend the tower, to its upper portions. In the top story, however, there was a chamber where stood a golden altar, and a bed prepared for the god Bel. In the bottom story, too, there was a chamber, in which was a golden image of the same or another god in a sitting posture, with a throne and foot-stool also made of gold. Before this image stood an altar upon which, when the yearly feast of Bel came round, thousands of pounds of incense were consumed. The idea of the architects in raising the temple of their god to such an enormous height, and preparing a residence for him at its summit, appears to have been that Bel only visited the high places of the earth, and could therefore stay upon the cool heights of this artificial mountain, but not in the warmer air at its foot. As soon as the Israelites had any communications with Babel, as they certainly had in the time of Hezekiah, and probably still earlier, they would of course become acquainted, amongst other things, with this colossal building. As usual, they gave free play to their imagination in connection with it, and clothed their ideas on the subject in the form of a narrative. One of them borrowed the material for his story, to some extent, from the name Babel, which seems really to mean god's gate," but which he translated "confusion." The following legend accordingly came into existence. 66 In primeval times people all spoke the same language; and were therefore able to live together. Accordingly they all went from the land of Ararat towards the east, and so came to the plain of Shinear. When they had settled there they discovered the art of baking clay into bricks, and using asphalt for cement. Delighted with their discovery, they said to one another, "Come! Let us build a city, and a tower, the top of which shall reach to heaven! So will our fame be known, and we shall not be scattered all over the earth." Then they set to work at once. But Yahweh came down from heaven to see what this city and tower really were, that mankind was so busy building, and when he had seen what they were doing, he said, "See now! All mankind are but one nation, and they all speak the same language. This is only the beginning of what they will undertake; and unless a stop is put to it, it will be impossible to keep them back, in future, from anything they take it into their heads to do. Come, then! let us go down and throw their language into confusion, that they may no longer understand each other!" So Yahweh scattered them thence over all the earth, and they stopped building the city; and it received the name of Babel (confusion), because it was there that Yahweh had confused the languages of men, and scattered them over the earth. The chief point in this story is the writer's explanation of the difference between the languages of the various peoples. The subject is certainly well worth thinking about, and endeavouring to understand. "How is it," we ask, "that we speak English, and our neighbours German, French, or Dutch? How is it that such an enormous number of languages are spoken in different parts of the world? How are we to explain the fact that the natives of every part of the same country even, and we might almost say of every town or village, speak different dialects, so that their pronunciation or way of speaking often shows us where they come from?" The students of the science of philology are attempting to answer these questions, and many others on the same subject, and they have already bestowed a vast amount of labour upon them. This science, like so many others, has made rapid progress during the last half century, and such scholars as Grimm, Bopp, Rénan, and Max Müller, only to mention a few of the greatest, have already done much towards bringing this mysterious question somewhat nearer a solution. It is an excessively complicated subject, and scholars are not yet agreed even upon some of the fundamental points. For instance, while some believe that one original language lies at the root of all the languages of the world, or at all events that several hundred roots of words are common to them all, there are others who declare that languages having nothing in common with each other have risen among the various races of men. The most interesting question of all, that, namely, of the origin of language in general, is as yet entirely unanswered, |