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tion before the commodity mentioned by the Hebrew legislator could have become an object of merchandise or of foreign commerce . How much skill , too , in the art of tempering metals was necessary to prepare tools for the workmen who carved the hardest granite , and covered with sculptures the walls and ceilings of the most ancient
temples ! Even the improvements of modern Europe supply not means for equalling the ingenious labours of the Egyptian artists . What a series of efforts must have preceded the excellence which is preserved for our admiration in the temples of Karnac and Luxor , in the tombs of Gornoo , and
even in the grottos of Eleithias 1 How many generations must have contributed their share to this perfection ! The contemplative mind seeks refuge in a remoter antiquity than is allowed by the annals of the neighbouring tribes of Syria and of Greece ; some of whom , instead of imitating the arts which would at once have secured to . them the
comforts and dignity of social life , derived nothing from their intercourse with Egypt except the absurd ceremonies of a gross superstition , which degraded the understanding while it polluted the heart . " P . 280 . " There is nothing more remarkable in the history of Egypt than that the same people who distinguished themselves by an early progress in civilization , and who erected works which have survived the
conquests of Persia , the triumphs of Roman art , and all the architectural labours of Christianity , should have degraded their fine genius by the worship of four-footed beasts , and even of disgusting reptiles . The world does not present a more humbling contrast between the natural powers of intellect and the debasing effect of superstition . Among the Jews , on the other hand , —a people much less elevated by science and
mechanical knowledge , —we find a sublime system of theology , and a ritual which , if not strictly entitled to the appellation of a reasonable service , was yet comparatively pure in its ordinances , and still farther refined by a lofty and spiritual import . It has been said of the Hebrews , that they were men iu religion and children in every thing else . This observation may be reversed in thet case of the Egyptians ; for while in the greater number of those pursuits which
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give dignity to the human mind , and perpetuate the glories of civilized life , they made a progress which set all rivalry at defiance , —iu their notions and adorations of the iu visible Powers who preside over the destinies of man , they manifested the imbecility , the ignorance , and the credulity of childhood . " —Egypt , p . 28 . " A scene of marked solitude and
desolation surrounds the steps of the traveller as he pursues his journey in what is so simply described in the gospel as the * hill country of Jndea . ' He finds himself amidst a labyrinth of mountains of a conical figure , all nearly alike , and connected with each other at their base .
A naked rock presents strata or beds , resembling the seats of a Roman amphitheatre , or the walls which support the vineyards in the valleys of Savoy-Every recess is filled with dwarf oaks , box , and rose-laurels . From the bottom of the ravines olive trees rear their heads , sometimes forming continuous woods on the sides of the hills . On
reaching the most elevated summit of this chain , he looks down towards the south-west on the beautiful Valley of Sharon , bounded by the Great Sea : before him opens the Vale of St . Jeremiah : and in the same direction , on the top of a rock , appears in the distance an ancientr fortress called the Castle of the Maccabees , It is conjectured that the author of the
Lamentations came into the world in the village which has retained his name amidst these mountains ; so much is certain , at least , that the melancholy of this desolate scene appears to pervade the compositions' of the prophet of sorrows . The unvarying manners of the East exhibit to the view of the stranger , at the
present day , the same picture of rural innocence and simplicity which might have met the eye of the mother of the Redeemer when she came into this pastoral country to salute her cousin Elizabeth . Herds of goats with pendant ears , sheep with large tails , and asses ,
which remind you by their beauty of the onagra of Scripture , issue from the villages at the dawn of day . Arab women are seen bringing grapes to dry in the vineyards ; others , with their faces veiled , carrying pitchers of water on heir heads , like the daughters of Midian . "—Palestine , p . 162 .
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Critical Notices . —Miscellaneous . 785
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1831, page 785, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2603/page/61/
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