the air is laden with incense richer than Arabian-the landscape is alive with all the aspects and attributes of earthly grace and heavenly sublimity.

CHRONOLOGY.-No. III.

THE following tables will be found useful to the students of THE WORD; therefore, without any preface, I submit them to the readers of the Gospel Banner, that they may hold them fast if they find them good.

TABLE I.

The first temple founded in the 4th of Solomon, and dedicated to Jehovah in the 11th of his reign.

The Ten Tribes rebelled against the House of David when Rehoboam became King; and they followed Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who caused them to sin.

In the 4th year of his reign, and 40 years after the foundation of the Temple, "Rehoboam and all Israel with him forsook the Law of the Lord.

In the 6th year of Hezekiah, 248 years after the revolt, the Ten Tribes went into captivity.

When Jeroboam caused Israel to sin, "the priests and the Levites that were in all Israel resorted to Rehoboam out of all their coasts. And after them out of all the Tribes of Israel such as set their hearts to seek the Lord God of Israel came to Jerusalem to sacrifice to the Lord God of their Fathers." 2 Chron. xi. 13, 16.

From the Apostacy of all Israel with Rehoboam to the Destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, was 390 years.

"A SIGN TO THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL."
EZEKIEL iv. 3.

This sign was given in the fifth of Jehoiakin's captivity, and six years before the destruction, which happened in the eleventh of Zedekiah.

The sign signified the coming siege of Jerusalem by the Chaldees, as the epoch of the commencement of the consuming of "all the House of Israel," and the execution of judgments upon them, for their iniquity committed since the Foundation of the Temple.

Ezekiel was to lie on his left side 390 days, and on his right side 40 days the whole number being 430 days, the representative numerical sign of the 430 years previous iniquity of the whole House of Israel.

"I have appointed thee," said the Lord, "each day for a year." Hence his forbearance towards Israel and Judah having extended

over 430 years, he determined, seeing that their iniquity had become full, to punish them for the same length of time.

Though the Ten Tribes had been deported from their Land over 140 years before, the brotherhood of Israel and Judah was not yet broken; many of the Ten Tribes commingled with Judah, and continued to dwell in the Land till the destruction of the City and Temple by the Romans, as appears from the epistle of James "to the Twelve Tribes."

History furnishes the details of those 430 years, judgments upon Israel. They began with the Siege, B.C. 595. This period of punishment as it affected them in the Land, after their Restoration under Ezra and Nehemiah, is thus detailed in Dan. xi. 32. “And such as do wickedly shall he (Antiochus) corrupt by flatteries; but the people that do know their God shall be strong and do exploits (under the Maccabees.) And they that understand among the people shall instruct many; yet they shall fall by the sword, and by flame, and by captivity, and by spoil, days. Now when they shall fall, they shall be holpen with a little help."

This Antiochus was the greatest enemy Israel had after their restoration. "Arms stood up on his part, and they (his troops) polluted the Sanctuary of Strength, and took away the Daily, and established an abomination that made desolate" as did the Romans in future times. He determined to destroy the whole Jewish Nation and to settle other people in their land. But Judas Maccabeus having defeated 47,000 of his troops at Emmaus, and 65,000 at Bethsura, he marched to Jerusalem, where he recovered the Temple from the Heathens. He threw down their altars and idols, and purified and dedicated it to the service of God, whose ancient worship he restored. At this news the fury of Antiochus became boundless. He threatened to make Jerusalem the burying place of the whole Jewish Nation, and not to leave a single inhabitant in it. But, he had scarcely uttered these words when he was struck by the hand of God. He was seized with incredible pains in his bowels, and worms crawled from every part of him; his flesh fell away piecemeal, and the stench was so great, that it became intolerable to his troops. At length he acknowledged that it was the God of Israel by whom he was smitten. "Thus the murderer and blasphemer having suffered most grievously, as he treated other men, so died he a miserble death."

By these events, the Israelites regained their independence B.C. 165, which was the end of the 430 day-years of Ezekiel's sign. The Asmonean Kingdom of Judea succeeded the expiration of this period of Judgment, and continued 129 years, after which it came under the sovereignty of the Roman Senate, B.C. 37; by which Herod the Idumean was appointed to the throne.

TABLE II.

28.

The 4th year of Jehoiachim was the first of Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar reigned 45 years-2 Kings xxiv. 12; xxv. 27. Jehoiakim taken captive in the 7th of Nebuchadnezzar Jer. 52

Jeconiah taken captive in the 8th of Nebuchadnezzar-2 Kings χχίν. 12.

Jehoiakim reigned 11 years.

Zedekiah began to reign in the fourth year of Jehoiakim's independent reign-Jer. xxviii. 1.

DIVISION OF JEHOIAKIM'S, REIGN.

Yrs.

Jeremiah's prophecy in the 4th of Jehoiakim... 4 Jer. xxv. 1. From that year to beginning of Jehoiakim's

servitude to Nebuchadnezzar

Period of service to Nebuchadnezzar

Duration of Jehoiakim's independent reign

1 Jer. xxxvi. 9.

3 2 Ki. xxiv. 1.

3 Dan. i. 1.

Whole years in Jehoiakim's reign 11

TABLE III.

The 18th of Josiah the Jubilee before the Destruction of the Temple.

The fifth year of Jehoichin's Captivity the 30th from the Jubilee -Ezek. i. 42.

The five and twentieth year of Jehoiachin's Captivity, the first Jubilee after the Destruction of the Temple-Ezek. xl. 1.

In this latter Jubilee there was to be no rejoicing to the buyer, or mourning to the seller. The seller, although living, should not return to that which he had sold. The sword was to be without, and the pestilence and famine within, and great wrath upon the whole multitude of the people Israel.

The year of this sorrowful Jubilee came on the tenth of the month (Lev. xxv. 9,) in the fourteenth year after that the City was smitten. Ezek. xl. 1. On that "self same day" of national sorrow, when the City and Temple where in ruins, and Israel's Kingdom prostrated in the dust under "the worst of the Heathen," "the visions of God brought Ezekiel into the Land of Israel, and set him upon a very high mountain" (as was John by the Angel, Rev. xxi. 10)-where he was shown the Glorious King; Jerusalem; the Temple, the repopu lated Land, the Twelve Tribes, &c., &c., &c., when the Tabernacle of David, which is fallen down, shall have been built again, and its

66

ruins set up in the Glorious Jubilee of the "Restoration of the
Kingdom again to Israel," and Jerusalem shall be named "Yehowah-
Shammah,' THE LORD IS THERE,"
JOHN THOMAS.

London, March, 1849.

THE BIBLE.

LET the Bible be studied in its original, as we study the Iliad of Homer, or the history of Livy, and giants in intellect will rise to surpass the loftiest geniuses of past ages. Let the student study the incomparable histories of Moses and Luke, and the sententious writings of Solomon-men of wonderful grasp of mind, of strong, massive style, of deep reflection-also the writings of Paul, another name for the perfection of condensed eloquence-the unrivalled poetry of David, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Habakkuk; and he will find such a discipline adapted to indurate his mental constitution; to give it muscle and energy; to gird the intellect with power; and to aid him in concentrating its energies so as to bring vast regions at once to the mind; to comprehend almost the infinite in the finite, as the "cope of heaven is imagined in the dew-drop."

Such is the literature of the Scriptures. Written by its numerous authors during the space of fifteen hundred years, in the sands of Arabia, in the deserts of Judah, in the rustic schools of the Prophets, in the sumptuous palaces of Babylon, in the bosom of Pantheism and its sad philosophy. The Bible comes to us the oldest offspring of scantified intellect, the highest effort of genius, the effusions of truth and nature, the overflowings of genuine feeling, the utterance of undisguised sentiments. It is essential truth, the thoughts of heaven. This volume was conceived in the councils of eternal mercy. It contains the wondrous story of redeeming love. It blazes with the lustre of Jehovah's glory. It is calculated to soften the heart; to sanctify the affections; to elevate the soul. It is adapted to pour the balm of heaven into the wounded heart; to cheer the dying hour; and to shed the light of immortality upon the darkness of the tomb. The force of its truth compelled the highly gifted but infidel Byron to testify, that

"Within this awful volume lies

The mystery of mysteries.

O happy they of human race
To whom our God has given grace
To hear, to read, to fear, to pray,
To lift the latch, and force the way:
But better had they ne'er been born,
Who read to doubt, or read to scorn."

THE MORMON BIBLE.

THE Boston Recorder of last week contains the following singular development of the origin and history of the Mormon Bible. It accounts most satisfactorily for the existence of the book, a fact which heretofore it has been difficult to explain. It was difficult to imagine how a work containing so many indications of being the production of a cultivated mind, should be connected with a kuavery so impudent and a superstition so gross as that which must have characterized the founders of this pretended religious sect. The present narrative, which, independently of the attestations annexed, appears to be by no means improbable, was procured from the writer by the Rev. Mr. Stow, of Holliston, who remarks that he has "had occasion to come in contact with Mormonism in its grossest forms." It was communicated by him for publication in the Recorder.—Boston Daily Advertiser.

ORIGIN OF THE "BOOK OF MORMON," OR GOLDEN BIBLE."

As this book has excited much attention, and has been put, by a certain new sect, in the place of the Sacred Scriptures, I deem it a duty which I owe to the public to state what I know touching its origin. That its claims to a divine origin are wholly unfounded, needs no proof to a mind unperverted by the grossest delusions. That any sane person should rank it higher than any other merely human composition, is a matter of the greatest astonishment; yet it is received as divine by some who dwell in enlightened New England, and even by those who have sustained the character of devoted Christians. Learning recently that Mormonism had found its way into a church in Massachusetts, and has impregnated some of its members with its gross delusions, so that excommunication had become necessary, I am determined to delay no longer doing what I can to strip the mask from this monster of sin, and to lay open this pit of abominations.

Rev. Solomon Spaulding, to whom I was united in marriage in early life, was a graduate of Dartmouth College, and was distinguished for a lively imagination and a great fondness for history. At the time of our marriage he resided in Cherry Valley, New York. From this place we removed to New Salem, Ashtabula county, Ohio; sometimes called Conneaut, as it is situated upon Conneaut creek. Shortly after our removal to this place his health sunk, and he was laid aside from active labours. In the town of New Salem there are numerous mounds and forts, supposed by many to be the dilapidated dwellings and fortifications of a race now extinct. These ancient relics arrest the attention of the new settlers and become objects of research for the curious. Numerous implements were found and other articles, evincing great skill in the arts. Mr.