an unsteady footstep would have plunged all who approached. Through stream and morass, thicket and glade, over mountain and moor, roamed the reckless band of the daring Nimrod, the "mighty hunter before the Lord." Fainter and fainter, from month to month, became the fear and worship of God. The sun, the moon, and the stars, by which the hunters guided their course through the pathless wilderness, by day and night, came in process of time to be regarded as symbols of the Divinity, and to receive a portion of the adoration which ought to be paid to God alone. Fires were lighted upon the high hills to Baal, the sun; to Astoreth, the moon, and to the lesser lights of Heaven: and again idolatry was in the world.

Still the hunters, like the roving tribes of wild Indians at the present day, were wanderers, having no home, but the spot that for the time being was most convenient for the chace, for fishing, or for cultivating the small patches of corn or vegetables that served to flavour their repasts. The bows and arrows, the lines, and nets, and snares that were required for their avocations, were wrought in the tents of the tribe, by the women whom they had associated with them in the wild life which they led, or the aged or maimed of their men. It soon occurred to Nimrod that this might be turned to advantage, in creating a permanent dominion over his

fellow men; and the founding of a power which should not pass away with himself, but be perpetuated to his race, without subjecting his children to the toil of always being foremost in braving danger and death, and in teaching their followers to shun the ills themselves encountered. The maintenance of sovereignty at such a cost were worthless. The mighty hunter therefore conceived a plan to subject the lawless spirits that surrounded him more effectually, and at an infinitely less sacrifice of personal ease.

In the beautiful land of Shinar, where the fertile earth teemed with all that was necessary to sustain life or be pleasant to the senses, in a wide plain, stretching along the banks of the Euphrates, Nimrod for the first time substituted a hut for his hunter's tent, and traced the plan of a city, to serve as a fixed residence for the women and craftsmen to whom the increased number of his followers now gave constant employment. There were slime-pits in the pastures near the river; and as the builders proceeded in erecting the city, it was found that the slime, when hardened by the sun, but more especially when baked by fire, was equal, or nearly so, in strength and substance, to stone; and being at hand and easily moulded into form, bricks thus made began to be used, instead of the wood and turf of which previous towns and cities had been constructed. The discovery of this new material gave

an increased zest to the work itself; and the city proceeded with a celerity, and to an extent which had not been contemplated when the design for its erection was originally divulged. At first it had been regarded by the huntsmen as a sign of effeminacy that a man should seek to dwell within sheltering walls; but the goodly buildings of the city of Nimrod, the halls and palaces which arose like carved rocks from the plain of Shinar, seemed to have a seductive influence for all; and it became a matter of debate who should follow the chace and till the earth, to procure food for the labourers. Strife, dissension, and bloodshed sometimes occurred because of the city-each of the huntsmen claiming such of the buildings as he had a mind to; notwithstanding, that at first the houses were only designed to shelter the women and those whose health or occupations required a fixed abode.

Nimrod, the hunter before the Lord, assumed the office of judge and arbiter of the differences between his followers. This was the beginning of his kingdom: of a power over the minds of those whose suffrages he had first gained by his superior strength and skill in the exercises and pursuits in which all were alike engaged. The eloquence and reasoning of the chief, seldom failed to carry conviction to at least the majority of those who heard his decisions: and while he thus

gave satisfaction, none thought to question the right by which he had asserted his supremacy.

Meanwhile, the city grew, and became populous. Craftsmen of all kinds, in the various professions then known, found abundant occupation. Shops for the exchange of such necessaries, and even luxuries, as could be procured were established. Temples were erected for the heathen worship, which had almost entirely superseded that of the true God. Pomp and magnificence, with their train of voluptuous and enervating pleasures arose; and the empire of Nimrod was established. There is nothing which bows one man to the will of another so much as the depravity which springs from too great self-indulgence. This warps our judgment, and renders us unfit to decide on the nature or tendency of the actions of our neighbours, depriving us, at the same time, of the energy necessary to assert our own independence, when its integrity is threatened, either indirectly or by violence.

The city of Nimrod became the resort of strangers from the distant East, whence the hunters of Assyria had at first departed. It was the wonder of all the peopled earth, for its construction and the splendour and riches which were accumulated within its walls. Its inhabitants, by their pride and power, and the arrogance which they displayed at all

times and towards all persons, spread universal terror around them. And the people of this great city, when they saw the slavish submission of their neighbours, became exalted in their own conceit, and thought that they were little less than gods. A thought, a traditionary remembrance sometimes obtruded to humiliate them-that there was a Deity still greater than their Baal, and that He in his wrath had once destroyed the earth and its inhabitants. When the storm burst, as it sometimes would, above the embattled turrets of the Assyrian capital, they felt that Jehovah was the great God; but forgetting that He, the Creator, knew the thoughts of men's hearts as well as their actions, they said one to another, “Go to, let us build us a city, and a tower whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth."

And Nimrod, the chief of the city, laid the foundation of a tower close by the temple of Baal, and near his own palace. The design was to avoid the wrath of the Almighty, should he again be tempted to deluge the earth; for the covenant of the Lord, made with Noah when he came forth from the ark, that "the waters should no more become a flood to destroy all flesh," had been utterly forgotten, notwithstanding the frequent appearance of the sublime bow, which God had set in the clouds, as a sign of His remembered promise to man.