lowing passage relating to events seen in vision: "These are the ten tribes, which were carried away prisoners out of their own land in the time of Osea the king, whom Salmanasar king of Assyria led away captive; and he carried them over the waters, and so they came into another land. But they took this counsel among themselves, that they would leave the multitude of the heathen, and go forth into a further country, where never mankind dwelt, that they might keep their statutes, which they never kept in their own land. And they entered into Euphrates by the narrow passages of the river. For the Most High showed signs for them, and held still the flood, till they were passed over. For through that country there was a great way to go, namely, of a year and a half; and the same region is called Arsareth. Then dwelt they there until the latter time."* This is the famous passage, which serves as a foundation for the theory of those who still find the ten tribes upon the continent of America. It proves at least the point for which we have cited it, viz. that in the age of Josephus speculations and fables were already afloat respecting the ten tribes, showing that the historical facts of the case had already been forgotten.

Thus then, whatever sense we may assign to this isolated passage of Josephus, there is nothing in it of sufficient weight to counterbalance the direct and tolerably full testimony of the sacred writers.

In the beginning of the fifth century, Jerome also speaks of the ten tribes as "unto this day subject to the kings of Persia, and their captivity has never been loosed." This assertion may be explained like that of Josephus; and indeed was probably borrowed from the language of that writer; of whose works Jerome

* 4 Esdr. 13: 40-46. Dr. Grant has wholly misapprehended this passage, although he speaks of "a careful comparison of this account with the original;" p. 251. The original, by the way, is lost; the earliest copy extant is the Latin version. The idea of the writer doubtless was, that in going "forth into a further country," the tribes passed from Mesopotamia northwards along the narrow passages of the Euphrates. Of these we heard much in 1839, while they were occupied by the Turkish army before the battle of Nizib.

+ Hieron. Comm. in Hos. c. 1. Opp. ed. Mart. Tom. III. col. 1242.

made frequent use. It is also not impossible that, in his day, the learned and speculating Jews of Tiberias (whence Jerome had his teacher) may have been led, in their own self-complacency, to regard the Jews still living in those distant regions, as descended from the ten tribes, in order to make out for them a rank and ancestry inferior to their own. But how little ground there was for this assertion, we have already seen.

We rest therefore in the conclusion, that during and after the captivity, the twelve tribes had again become united into one people, both in Palestine and throughout the countries of their dispersion. They were now the later Jews.

The bearing of this discussion upon the theory of Dr. Grant is obvious. We have endeavored to show before, that neither from their customs, their language, their tradition, nor their country, can the Nestorians be proved to be of Hebrew lineage; and if we have now succeeded in showing, that in the age of Christ the ten tribes, as such, no longer had a separate existence, then a fortiori the Nestorians cannot well be the descendants and representatives of any lost tribes. We have entered into the discussion, not in reference to the position of Dr. Grant alone; but because the results to which we have come, if wellfounded, may serve to put an end to much useless speculation and bald hypothesis in respect to this whole subject.

In the age of the apostles, Mesopotamia and the countries further east were indeed full of Hebrews; but they were now all Jews. They had already lived together and been amalgamated for more than five hundred years; and it is in vain now to say, that in one part the element of the ten tribes predominated more, and in another part less. Even the Jews of the celebrated schools at Babylon in the fifth and sixth centuries, who boasted that they were of the purest and noblest blood of the captivity, of the lineage of David, purer and nobler than that which returned to Jerusalem, had doubtless no better ground for the assertion, than the self-complacency of an overweening vanity.*-Among this multitude of Jews in the apostolic age, as well as among their Gentile neighbors, very many were converted to Christianity, and many churches were gathered. The apostle Peter himself, and his beloved Mark, appear to have visited Babylon.† Among these churches, composed

Lightfoot Horae Hebr. in Ep. 1. ad Corinth. Addenda c. 2. Opp. II. p. 930. † 1 Pet. 5: 13.

of Jewish and Gentile converts speaking the Aramean tongue, grew up the Syriac alphabet and dialect, so far as the latter is a distinct idiom. The great oriental Syrian church spread itself over the east, undivided, until the fifth century; when the condemnation of Nestorius, then Patriarch of Constantinople, roused the more eastern churches in his favor; and the appellation of Nestorians came to designate a large portion of those who bore the Syrian name.

In all this progress of the church, are we to suppose, that Jewish converts and their descendants held themselves aloof from Gentile Christians, in separate communities or tribes? Have we the slightest hint, either in the New Testament or in ecclesiastical history, that such was the custom of converts from Judaism? If so we must expect to find the practice in its full strength among the Greek churches of Palestine in the first five centuries; when thousands and thousands of the Jews embraced Christianity, and there were comparatively few Gentiles round about to be mingled with them; or also in Asia Minor, where Paul himself preached and gathered churches from both Jews and Gentiles. Yet in all these regions we look in vain for churches composed exclusively of Jewish converts, or even laying special weight upon their Jewish descent. As members of a new dispensation, one in faith and hope and love, they laid aside former distinctions and prejudices, and became in the character of Christians one homogeneous people devoted to the Lord. "The middle wall of partition" was wholly broken down. What Christian in the fourth and fifth centuries, in Palestine or Asia Minor, ever thought or inquired whether he or his brethren were of Jewish or of Gentile descent? Still less, we apprehend, could such a distinction be traced, even in that early age, in the case of whole communities of the Syrian church; and it has been reserved for the nineteenth century to advance the claim at this late day, in behalf of the Nestorians of Kurdistan. We do not believe the hypothesis would ever have occurred to any one, not even to Dr. Grant, had it not been for the conceit current among the Nestorians themselves.

But if it were indeed possible to prove, that the Nestorians are of Jewish descent; of what importance could it be, except as a mere historical fact? All the evidence which can possibly be brought forward in their case, applies with a tenfold force to the Christians of modern Palestine; who must be, beyond

all question, through the churches of the fourth and fifth centuries, the descendants and representatives of the primitive churches of the Holy Land, gathered by the apostles themselves. True, that land has time and again been swept with desolation and bloodshed; but the native population has in the interval never been carried away, nor supplanted by another people. Yet who now ever thinks of their Jewish origin? or what difference would this make in the interest or amount of missionary effort in their behalf? Just so in regard to the Nestorians. The providence of God has rolled off the night of and revealed them to our eyes; a people of a comparaages tively pure faith, simple-hearted, confiding, intelligent, and eager for instruction; though still shrouded in the mists of ignorance. Our missionaries are among them. The Spirit of the Lord is at work; and has already set open a door far wider than the American churches are yet ready to enter and occupy. A day is dawning upon the Nestorians, brighter than they have seen for ages. Among them, as among other oriental nations, a revolution is impending, is even before the door, of which our western churches as yet have hardly a foreboding. The dead and stagnant pool of oriental mind begins to effervesce; the waves of occidental civilization and intellectual power are flowing in upon it with resistless might; it will soon be broken up. Soon the dreams of Muhammedan delusion, and the nothings of a nominal Christianity, will no longer satisfy their votaries; and the dread question will speedily be forced upon the conscience of all Christendom, whether the blessings of the pel, or the curse of infidelity and crime, shall come up in their place. For this question, for this dread responsibility, neither the churches of England, nor of Germany, nor of America, are now ready. Yet the time rushes on. Let them awake and be prepared.

ARTICLE III.

THE INFLUENCE OF PERSONAL PIETY ON PULPIT ELOQUENCE.

By Rev. William Adams, Pastor of the Central Presbyterian Church, New-York.

THE great design of the Christian ministry is to persuade alienated man to become reconciled to God. This result cannot be accomplished without producing many incidental effects on the social and intellectual nature;-the whole man feeling the influence of this greatest of changes, as the whole body of the sea obeys the attraction of the heavenly orb. These subordinate influences, although inseparable from the main design of the pulpit, are never to be mistaken for it or confounded with it; and that mode of preaching we shall be allowed to consider as essentially defective, which, however it may inform the understanding, excite the sensibilities, or regale the taste, uniformly fails of that grand result, for which the ministry was appointed-making men wise unto salvation.

In demonstrating the influence of eminent piety, on the part of the preacher, in aid of this object, we shall not be understood as decrying any intellectual qualification, or subtracting in the least from the power of that motive which impels to great diligence in disciplining the mind and manner. One of the very first influences of a high-toned and intelligent piety is to promote the highest degree of intellectual activity. It puts the mind in a glow. It gives a quicker and healthier motion to all the pulses of life. That piety is suspicious and spurious which claims affinity with sloth; and never can we hold sympathy with the notion, that, in the high province of the Christian ministry, mere goodness of heart supersedes the endowments of nature and the accomplishments of education. It implies a radical defect both of intelligence and piety for one, at this period of time, to apply in his own case the direction of our Lord to his immediate disciples ;-" take no thought what ye shall say, for in that same hour it shall be given you." Many, listening to this temptation of the devil, have ventured to the pinnacle of the temple, and actually thrown themselves

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