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but it is supposed to have been founded by Ashur,* the son of Shem and grandson of Noah. Tho doubtless small in its beginning, it evidently became, in time, a very rich and populous country, mighty in war, and famous for its military operations. Its capital or chief city was Nineveh, which stood on the eastern banks of the Tigris.

This city, according to the accounts of historians, was one of the most famous ever known in the world. Rollin makes it eighteen miles and three quarters in length, and eleven and a quarter in width; of course it must have been sixty miles in circumference. The height of its walls are said to have been two hundred feet, and sufficiently broad to admit three chariots to go abreast upon them with ease. They were also fortified and adorned with fifteen hundred towers, two hundred feet higher than the walls.

It is also said that the Assyrian empire was so populous, that the king of Nineveh, after having finished this great city, engaged in a war, in which he raised an army of seventeen hundred thousand foot, two hundred thousand horse, and about sixteen thousand chariots, armed with scythes. How correct this statement is, we are not able to say; but it is beyond all doubt that Assyria was a very populous country, and able to raise immense armies. They carried war and destruction into other nations, and rendered themselves famous by their numerous conquests, which so inflated their pride that they considered themselves invincible to gods and men.† But they finally sunk into ruin and infamy, by the very means which they had taken to raise their fame and extend their power. What then availed all these numerous armies, military power, and warlike preparations of Assyria? They served only to exalt her pride and ambition, corrupt her moral principles, and fit her for destruction.

After running her race of glory, she was visited by avenging armies, and compelled, in her turn, to drink deeply of the cup of calamity which she had so often dealt out to other nations. Notwithstanding her abundant riches and mighty power, and her boasted confidence in her own strength, her great city Nineveh was taken and destroyed, and her name blotted out of the land she once inhabited. And thus was fulfilled upon her the testimony of the prophet Nahum.

*Rollin ascribes the foundation of this empire to Nimrod, but it evidently took its name from Ashur, and we read, Gen. x, 11, that "Ashur, builded Nineveh." † See Isaiah xxxvi. 18 to 21.

"Wo to the bloody city! it is all full of lies and robbery.The horseman lifteth up the bright sword and the glittering spear; and there is a multitude of slain, and a great number of carcases; and there is no end of their corpses; they stumble upon their corpses; because of the whoredoms of the well favored harlot, the mistress of witchcrafts, that selleth the nations through her whoredoms, and families through her witchcrafts. Behold I am against thee, saith the Lord of hosts; and I will cast abominable filth upon thee; and make thee vile, and will set thee as a gazing stock. And it shall come to pass, that all they that look upon thee shall flee from thee, and say, Nineveh is laid waste; who will bemoan her? whence shall I seek comforters for thee ?"

"Behold the gates of thy land shall be set wide open unto thine enemies: The fire shall devour thy bars; there shall the fire devour thee; the sword shall cut thee off; it shall eat thee up like the canker worm. Thy shepherds slumber, O king of Assyria! thy nobles shall dwell in the dust: thy people are scattered upon the mountains, and no man gathereth them."

The same prophet also foretold the manner of her fall. "With an overflowing flood he will make an utter end of the place thereof. The gates of the rivers shall be opened, and the palace shall be dissolved." Accordingly, when the time of her destruction came, a conspiracy of the nations was formed against her, and laid siege to the city. But the inhabitants, relying on the strength of their walls and fortifications, shut themselves in.

But during the siege, which had been long maintained, there arose a violent inundation of the river Tigris, which suddenly undermined her walls, and threw down an extent of twenty furlongs, or two miles and a half; and by that means opened a passage into the city, through which the enemy rushed in upon them, and massacred the inhabitants, who lay buried in drunkenness, occasioned by a recent victory.* The king finding himself exposed, and seeing no way of escape, shut himself up in his palace, and setting fire to it, burnt himself, his eunuchs, his women and his immense treasures. It is said that the fire continued to burn fifteen days before it was extinguished.

Thus was the city taken and the palace dissolved, agreeable to prophetic inspiration. With all her great riches,

*So ancient pagan warriors celebrated their victories, and modern Christian warriors still follow their example.

† Some writers have estimated these treasures at 1,400 million sterling; others make them amount to 25,000 millions, which is incredible; but they were doubtless immense.

her military power, her warlike preparations and defences, she was utterly unable to withstand the judgments of Divine Providence, or to defend herself against her enemies in the day of trial. As the Assyrian empire had risen to a great height in military power, and gloried much in her extensive conquests and horrid devastations; so her fall was equally great, and her destruction and disgrace equally humiliating and terrible.

THE BABYLONIAN EMPIRE.

The Babylonian empire or empire of the Chaldeans, of which Babylon was the capital, is supposed to have been founded not long after the flood. Its location was in the land of Shinar, where the builders of Babel undertook to immortalize themselves by a lofty tower of that name. The city of Babylon is supposed to have included the spot of ground where this mighty tower was attempted.

This empire is said to have been founded by Nimrod, the mighty hunter; and it appears to have been an empire of hunters and warriors for many ages, by the many conquests which they made to enlarge their empire, and extend their power and authority. In the height of their glory they were evidently a haughty, ambitious and warlike people. Of this the city of Babylon itself was a striking proof. Whoever may have been its first founder, it was undoubtedly completed by Nebuchadnezzar, who was the great military hero of this nation, and whose impious pride and warlike ravages, gave him an ignominious fame, and marked him as a mighty madman of renown. With his mighty armies he ravaged many of the fairest portions of the earth. No nation could stand before him; and wherever he turned his arms, destruction and desolation followed his steps. With the treasures and spoils of conquered countries, and the labor of his captives, he raised the city of Babylon to the zenith of human glory and military power. Its powerful fortifications, and wonderful defences, seem to have been carried to the utmost stretch of art which that age had acquired.

The city was built on the banks of the Euphrates, and, as represented by historians, was laid out in a square form, on a large plain, extending fifteen miles each way. Its walls were of brick, and are said to have been three hundred and fifty feet high and eighty-seven broad. On each side were twenty-five gates of solid brass, amounting to one hundred in all. Opposite to these gates were twenty-five

streets, which ran thro the city each way, making fifty streets, each fifteen miles in length. The walls were surmounted by a vast number of towers; these, it appears, were designed both for ornament and defence. The city was surrounded on the outside with a vast ditch, lined with bricks and filled with water. The clay for the bricks, of which the city walls were built, was taken from this ditch; of course the ditch must have been very broad and deep. A branch of the river Euphrates was carried through the middle of the city, from north to south, dividing it into two parts. On each side of the river, within the walls of the city, was a high wall of the same thickness with those of the city. In these walls, opposite to every street that led to the river, were gates of brass, with steps descending from them to the river.

We have given but a sketch of the vast strength and magnificence of this great city; and this we have done merely to show how weak and futile are all human attempts for military defence, against a power seemingly very insignificant, when Divine Providence has determined to bring about the destruction of a wicked nation.

When Cyrus, king of Persia, laid siege to this city, it had twenty years provisions within its walls. These, with the vast strength and fortifications of the city, and the immense number of people within, prepared for its defence, gave the Babylonians great confidence. They insulted Cyrus from the top of their walls, and laughed at all his attempts to conquer them. The apparent impossibility of his taking the city, lulled them into perfect security. But that haughty nation, who had acquired great military renown by conquering many nations, who had risen to the height of military power, through blood and slaughter, whose great success in arms had exalted her pride and vain glory to the very skies, whose sacrilegious robberies and heaven-daring impiety had almost bid defiance to the throne of God, and whose shameful scenes of debauchery, obscenity, iniquity and violence, had sunk her to the lowest depths of wickedness, had yet to feel the frowns of Divine justice, and learn the impotence of her boasted power, and the vanity of all her imaginary greatness and military glory.

As the taking of Babylon, and its subsequent destruction, were remarkable events in history, and as these events were predicted by the Jewish prophets, many years before they took place, it may be proper to quote a few of the remarkable passages in the predictions of these prophets, and see how exactly they were accomplished.

I

The following extracts are from the fiftieth chapter of Jeremiah. "Put yourselves in array against Babylon round about: all ye that bend the bow, shoot at her, spare no arrows; for she hath sinned against the Lord.-Behold, will punish the king of Babylon and his land, as I have punished the king of Assyria.-I have laid a snare for thee, and thou art also taken, O Babylon, and thou wast not aware: thou art found, and also caught, because thou hast striven against the Lord.-Behold I am against thee, O thou most proud, saith the Lord God of hosts: for thy day is come, the time that I will visit thee.-A sword is upon the Chaldeans, saith the Lord, and upon the inhabitants of Babylon, and upon her princes, and upon her wise men.- -A sword is upon their horses and upon their chariots, and upon all the mingled people that are in the midst of her; and they shall become as women: a sword is upon her treasures, and they shall be robbed. A drought shall be upon her waters, and they shall be dried up: for it is the land of graven images, and they are mad upon their idols.”

The following are from the thirteenth and forty-seventh chapters of Isaiah. "Come down and sit in the dust, O daughter of Babylon; sit on the ground;-O daughter of the Chaldeans: for thou shalt no more be called the lady of kingdoms. For thou hast trusted in thy wickedness: thou hast said, none seeth me. Thy wisdom and thy knowledge hath perverted thee.-Therefore shall evil come upon thee; thou shall not know from whence it riseth; and mischief shall fall upon thee; thou shalt not be able to put it off; and desolation shall come upon thee suddenly, which thou shalt not know.-Behold, I will stir up the Medes against them, and 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.-But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and owls shall dwell there. And the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses and dragons in their pleasant palaces."

These Divine predictions were delivered many years before the events to which they alluded took place; and according to the accounts given by historians of the taking of Babylon by Cyrus, and the subsequent calamities which came upon it, we find that they were fully accomplished, in the conquest and final destruction and desolation of that famous, but ill-fated city and empire. Her destructive ravages of

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