into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills; a land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of oil olive and honey; a land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack anything in it; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass."

How far these promises of unparalleled fertility were realized, we learn from the teeming millions of inhabitants which the land sustained when the nation had full and undisturbed possession of it. But multitudes are not always strength, and we have but to glance at the descriptions given of it, in order to see how peculiarly the distinguishing features of the country were adapted to elicit those powers and faculties of body and mind which are the best strength and glory of a nation.

Productive labor, and especially labor which draws from the earth her abundant stores, is not only the great source of national wealth, but also a great means of spreading physical and moral health through the mass of a people. The land of the Hebrews yielded comparatively little as spontaneous growth; but responded most bountifully to the labor of industry, especially the industry of the husbandman. It was not like the plains of other climes where

the earth of its own accord does so much that the inhabitants need do nothing; and where every power of the man becomes torpid and feeble through inaction. But to render it fruitful, it was to be tilled and cultivated, the abundance of its returns depending on the abundance and faithfulness of the labor bestowed, a land best of all others adapted to impart a spirit of activity, vigor, sagacity and independence to the inhabitants.

Still more; no observer of human nature can question the influence of surrounding scenery on the intellect of a people, especially of the more intellectual classes. This was not overlooked by the Most High when he removed the Hebrews to their new home. It was then a part of his design to enlarge the boundaries of human knowledge, to give new revelations of wisdom through his prophets; and he kindled within them the soul of eloquence and song, that the truths which they were sent to teach might be clothed in the rich and glowing language, and illustrated by the splendid and expressive imagery, which all future ages might feel and understand. Accordingly he planted the Hebrews amid scenery of such mingled beauty and sublimity as might well impart a higher elevation and tone to every faculty of the mind. Judging from the very face of the chosen land, it was just the place in

which the writers of the Bible ought to have lived; for it furnished those materials of thought and promptings of the heart that could have been found no where else. Even when its palmy days were past, a heathen writer calls it, "a land of charms and graces;" and long as it has been trodden down and defaced by Saracen and Turk, travellers tell us that in its rich and varied beauties, though like beauty in a shroud, it is still what the Prophet has called it, "the glory of all lands."

As another advantage, we might allude to the natural barriers which surrounded it as a protection. against hostile invasion. On every side it was enclosed by seas, by mountains, or by deserts. But we hasten to look at

Its geographical position in reference to the other countries of the whole eastern hemisphere, and to observe how admirable were its local advantages for becoming the central point of illumination to them all; a fountain whence streams of knowledge might flnow, with most ease and rapidity, to a benighted world. "From the wilderness and this Lebanon, even unto the great river, the river Euphrates, and unto the great sea toward the going down of the sun, shall be your coast," says God, when describing the boundaries of the Promised Land. Its western border was the head

waters of the Mediterranean, furnishing access to the whole southern coast of Europe, and the whole northern coast of Africa; on the eastern border was the Euphrates, which emptied into the Indian Ocean, and thus opened their way to the whole southern coast of Asia. The design of the Most High in giving the Hebrews this commanding position, rendering them so like "a city set upon a hill," is perhaps too much overlooked. They were far from being an insulated people, unknown and unfelt by other kingdoms of the world. So widely had their fame spread in the reign of Solomon, that not only the Queen of Sheba, "with a very great company," but "all the kings of the earth," as we are told, "sought his presence to hear his wisdom' and become instructed in the laws and ordinances which he so prosperously administered. Jerusalem was more than the Athens of its day. The richest store-house of knowledge for the world was then in the hands of the Hebrews, and from them other nations were ambitious to be learners. To accord with this design respecting them, God fixed their abode. As he set up their laws and institutions for the study of other nations, he planted them in a country so central, that all might have ready access to it, and that the wisdom they possessed from him, might be made to flow most readily to every people.

Here also we should add that a time had now come which rendered this influence most seasonable and needful. There are periods in the history of the world, when iniquity becomes so rife that earth can no longer bear it, nor will Heaven consent longer to behold it; and when it must either be wiped away by the unsparing destruction of those who have thus filled up the measure of their iniquity, as was done at the time of the deluge; or there must be some corrective applied which will lessen if not remedy the prevalence of crime. When the Hebrews were planted in Canaan, the iniquity of the Amorites "was now full ;" and so was it also with other kingdoms of that day. Corruption in every form reigned without control. Wrong and cruelty among men, and ignorance and impiety towards God, were everywhere spread abroad, until it might again have "repented God that he had made man ;" and had it not been for the healing and restraining waters that went forth from the Holy Land, another deluge might have been sent to "destroy man from the face of the earth," and all the inhabited globe been "made like unto Sodom and Gomorrah."

In what forms, and to what extent this reforming influence was felt among surrounding nations, both in that, and in succeeding ages, we will hereafter more fully show. I must, for the present, pass by