Cave of Machpelah-Valley of Jehoshaphat-Jewish tombs- Grave of Lazarus-Sepulchre of Christ-Opening of the graves-Tombs of the judges-Tombs of the kings-Egypt -Burial-place of Thebes-Belzoni-Mummies - Canary islands-Funereal cave at Teneriffe-Cave of Ataruipe- Views of the Egyptians-Petræa-Sepulchres-Greece- Telmessus -Mountain of tombs - Inscriptions-Regula- CAVES OF THE EARTH. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. THE "earth, given to the children of men" by the Divine Author of all being, according to revealed announcement, is a lofty and beneficent grant, viewed in itself, and in connexion with the purposes for which the donation has been bestowed. To be the scene of their pilgrimage in an incipient state of existence, intended to be introductory to a more advanced condition, and preparatory for it by a cultivated subjection to religious discipline; to be the spot in which a transient life is passed, in exercises of devotion, usefulness to each other, and self-furniture with knowledge improving to the heart and gratifying to the mind; these are the prime designs of Providence in making over to the human race their terrestrial inheritance. The grant involves proprietorship on the part of the Donor. This is founded upon the original creation of material nature by the Almighty fiat, upon its preservance by his ceaseless agency, and its government by the medium of laws which he has impressed upon it. Ancient piety reverently recognised these truths, and the voice. of Inspiration recurred to them, when delivering its farewell accents to the world, in the closing book of Scripture:" The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein." 11 "The sea is his, and he made it: and his hands formed the dry land."-" Fear God, and give glory to him; . . . and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters." ... It is in harmony with these views to study the constitution and mark the aspects of the material world, while subordinating such pursuits to the truth according to godliness disclosed in the inspired pages, which demands supreme attention on the ground of its superior importance, as adapted to liberate our minds from sin and wretchedness, and elevate them *Psa. xxiv. 1. + Psa. xcv. 5. Rev. xiv 7, to immortal purity, activity, and joy. The former engagement, indeed, has valuable relations to the latter, and may be prosecuted, not only without infringement upon it, but in a way that shall strengthen the homage of the intellect, and the obedience of the heart to it. Natural truth is, in many particulars, in clear and striking alliance with revealed truth. It illustrates the unity of the Divine nature, and the universality of the Divine presence and providence, by manifesting the universal action of fundamental laws, apparent as far as the regions of the creation can be examined by us. It testifies of all that infinitude of power and wisdom, which the Scriptures, in majestic language, ascribe to the "blessed and only Potentate." It proclaims the dependence of man, supplies him with motives to thankful devotion and to filial fear, by the display of benign adaptations and awful attributes, while it offers a rebuke to self-degradation and complacency by the vastness of that scheme of existence which he is able to apprehend, and its boundless amplitude beyond the grasp of his powers. It declares, likewise, his present subjection to a government which mingles in its dispensations painful discipline, and ap parently disastrous events, yet conserving the general good, a natural arrangement harmonizing with the view taken of the moral condition of men in the Scriptures, as subject to a sad peculiarity which merits chastisement, yet still the objects of mercy as well as judgment. It also brings before us in operation at present, instruments of change, modifying and altering the surface of the globe, and occasionally originating great catastrophes of a kindred nature to those recorded in the inspired history of man, when "all the fountains of the great deep were broken up," and still farther back, when "the waters under the heaven" were "gathered together unto one place," and the dry land appeared. These instruments now lie close at hand, and only wait the Divine mandate to act with the intensity formerly displayed, inducing that momentous physical change anticipated on the sacred page, "in which the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up." Such are some of the important relations between that which the natural world reveals to our senses, and that which is proposed to faith "by the word of God, which |