was the whole place swept away, that, till very lately, it was impossible exactly to determine the spot on which the city stood. In this total desolation the prophecies of the Bible are awfully fulfilled. In the shapeless mounds which cover the ruins of mighty palaces and magnificent buildings, in which princes and great men once revelled in luxury and in sin, we see

how true are the words of the prophet-"Nineveh is a desolation, and dry like a wilderness;--the flocks lie down in the midst of her, all the beasts of the nations, both the cormorant and the bittern, do lodge in the upper lintels thereof, and their voice sings in the windows. Desolation is in the thresholds.

This is the rejoicing city that dwelt carelessly, that said in her heart—I am, and there is none beside me! How is she become a desolation-a place for beasts to lie down in! Every one that passeth by her shall hiss, and wag his hand."

And where is TYRE, which was known as "the queen of the sea?" This city of refinement and of luxury was situated on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, and stood about mid-way between Egypt and Asia Minor, near the north-western frontier of Palestine, and, which, as the tide of her prosperity rose and flowed along, extended to a rocky isle which lay immediately opposite, less than half a mile distant from the shore. Nothing can exceed the description given by the prophet of the beauty and the glory, the commerce and the wealth, the arts and the elegancies, the refinement and the luxury of this city, with its sea-girt rock, and perched in pride and security among the deep blue waters of the sea. Thus does Heaven's inspired messenger describe it :

"O thou that art situate at the entry of the sea, which art a merchant for the people of many isles-O Tyrus! thou hast said I am of perfect beauty. Thy borders are in the midst of the seas, thy builders have perfected thy beauty. They have made all thy ship-boards of fir-trees of Senir: they have taken cedars from Lebanon to make masts for thee. Of the oaks of Bashan have they made thine oars; the company of the Ashurites have made thy benches of ivory, brought out of the isles of Chittem. Fine linen with broidered work from Egypt was that which thou spreadest forth to be thy sail; blue and purple from the isles of Elishah was that which covered thee. The inhabitans of Zidon and Arvad were thy mariners:-thy wise men, O Tyrus, that were in thee, were thy pilots. The ancients of Gebal and the wise men thereof were in thee thy calkers: all the ships of the sea with their mariners were in thee to occupy thy merchandise. They of Persia and of Lud and of Phut were in thine army, thy men of war; they hanged the shield and the helmet in thee; they set forth thy comeliness. The men of Arvad with their army were upon thy walls round about, and the Gammadims were in thy towers: they hanged their shields upon thy walls round about; they have made thy beauty perfect. Tarshish was thy merchant by reason of the multitude of all kind of riches; with silver, iron, tin, and lead, they traded in thy fairs. Javan, Tubal, and Meshech, they were thy merchants; they traded the persons of men and vessels of brass in thy market. They of the house of Togarmah traded in thy

* Zephaniah ii. 13-–15.

fairs with horses and horsemen and mules. The men of Dedan were thy merchants; many isles were the merchandise of thine hand; they brought thee for a present horns of ivory and ebony. Syria was thy merchant by reason of the multitude of the wares of thy making; they occupied in thy fairs with emeralds, purple, and broidered work, and fine linen, and coral, and agate. Judah, and the land of Israel, they were thy merchants:-they traded in thy market wheat of Minnith and Pannag, and honey, and oil, and balm. Damascus was thy merchant in the multitude of the wares of thy making, for the multitude of all riches; in the wine of Helbon, and white wool. Dan also and Javan going to and fro occupied in thy fairs :-bright iron, cassia, and calamus, were in thy market. Dedan was thy merchant in precious clothes for chariots. Arabia, and all the princes of Kedar, they occupied with thee in lambs, and rams, and goats:-in these were they thy merchants. The merchants of Sheba and Raamah, they were thy merchants:-they occupied in thy fairs with chief of all spices, and with all precious stones and gold. Haran, and Canneh, and Eden, the merchants of Sheba, Asshur, and Chilmad, were thy merchants. These were thy merchants in all sorts of things, in blue clothes, and broidered work, and in chests of rich apparel, bound with cords, and made of cedar among thy merchandise. The ships of Tarshish did sing of thee in thy market; and thou wast replenished, and made very glorious in the midst of the seas." *

Tyre having exulted over the fate of Jerusalem, her own ruin is foretold in words of solemn grandeur, and not to be misunderstood. Having first dwelt on her riches, her beauty, and her extended commerce, the prophet then describes her downfall so strikingly, that when Nebuchadnezzar approaches to take it, we think that we see his mighty host on their march, then raising the mounds, and setting the engines, and shaking the walls:-that we hear the noise of the horsemen, and the sound of their cars:-that we see the clouds of smoke and dust which arise in mighty volumes:-that we really see the sword bathed in the blood of her children, and that we hear the groans of the dying. At her fall, the islands and all the regions round shake and tremble, as if moved by a mighty earthquake. The groans of the dying fall upon the ear of the people who are afar off; their princes, alarmed for themselves, and grieved for Tyre, descend from their thrones, lay aside their royal robes, and clothe themselves with sackcloth, and thus arrayed, they appear as a chorus of mourners singing the funeral dirge of the fallen city. She is brought forth from her place in solemn pomp; the pit is dug deep for her, and she is buried

Ezekiel xxvii. 3-25.

to rise no more. Her strong towers having sunk down into the earth, and her very dust being entombed in the sea, nothing now remains but the bare rock. Listen to the prophet:-" Thy rowers have brought thee into great waters; the east wind hath broken thee in the midst of the seas. Thy riches, and thy fairs, thy merchandise, thy mariners, and thy pilots, thy calkers, and the occupiers of thy merchandise, and all thy men of war, that are in thee, and in all thy company which is in the midst of thee, shall fall into the midst of the seas in the day of thy ruin. The suburbs shall shake at the sound of the cry of thy pilots. All that handle the oar, the mariners, and all the pilots of the sea, shall come down from their ships; they shall stand upon the land, and shall cause their voice to be heard against thee, and shall cry bitterly, and shall cast up dust upon their heads, they shall wallow themselves in the ashes, and they shall make themselves utterly bald for thee, and gird them with sackcloth, and they shall weep for thee with bitterness of heart and bitter wailing. And in their wailing they shall take up a lamentation for thee, and lament over thee, saying-What city is like Tyrus, like the destroyed in the midst of the sea! When thy wares went forth out of the seas thou filledst many people; thou didst enrich the kings of the earth with the multitude of thy riches and of thy merchandise. In the time when thou shalt be broken by the seas in the depths of the waters, thy merchandise and all thy company in the midst of thee shall fall. All the inhabitants of the isles shall be astonished at thee, and their kings shall be sore afraid, they shall be troubled in their countenance. The merchants among the people shall hiss at thee; thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt be any more." *

"Thus saith the Lord God to Tyrus:-Shall not the isles shake at the sound of thy fall, when the wounded cry, when the slaughter is made in the midst of thee? Then all the princes of the sea shall come down from their thrones, and lay away their robes, and put off their broidered garments; they shall clothe themselves with trembling; they shall sit upon the ground, and shall tremble at every moment, and be astonished at thee. And they shall take up a lamentation for thee, and say to thee-How art thou destroyed, that wast inhabited of seafaring men, the renowned city, which wast strong in the sea, she and her inhabitants, which cause their terror to be on all that haunt it! Now shall the isles tremble in the day of thy fall; yea, the isles that are in the sea shall be troubled at thy departure. For thus saith the Lord God; When I shall make thee a desolate city, like the cities that are not inhabited; when I shall bring up the deep upon thee, and great waters shall cover thee;

Ezekiel xxvii. 26-36.

when I shall bring thee down with them that descend into the pit, with the people of old time, and shall set thee in the low parts of the earth, in places desolate of old, with them that go down to the pit, that thou be not inhabited; and when I shall set glory in the land of the living, then I will make thee a terror, and thou shalt be no more; though thou be sought for, yet shalt thou never be found again, saith the Lord God." *

Of the utter ruin of Tyre, we are informed by enlightened and impartial travellers. One tells us that nothing is now to be seen but a mere Babel of broken walls, pillars, vaults, and such like, while not so much as one entire house is left. Another, in passing by the ancient city, came to be a mournful witness of the truth of the prophecy, that Tyre, the queen of nations, should be a rock for fishers to dry their nets on. A third, walking along the shore of the Peninsula, musing upon the pride and the fall of the ancient city, informs us that Tyre has indeed become like the top of a rock. The sole tokens of her more ancient splendour-columns of red and gray granite, sometimes forty or fifty of them heaped together, or it might be pillars of marble-he saw lying broken and strewed beneath the waves in the sea; and the hovels that now nestle upon her present site, are a solemn fulfilment of the divine decree-that she should be no more!

But it is not with Tyre nor yet with Babylon that we have to do. Nineveh is our subject. And how interesting is the history of this famous city, now that its ruins have been discovered, and many of those ruins have been brought home to our own country. Everything carries us into the past. Is it true that the light from some of the more distant fixed stars takes ages multiplied by ages to reach this our earth, and that what we see are not the bodies as they now exist, but as they existed some thousands of years ago? Is it true that what was thought to be nothing more than so much star-dust scattered over the back-ground of the heavens, has been resolved by our more advanced astronomy into fields of suns and systems, whose mingled light goes to make up so many beautiful clusters and burning constellations, and the date of whose existence is to be found far down in the depth of a past eternity? Is it true that geology has made us acquainted with the conditions of our earth before the creation of man, and with various forms of organised being as peculiar to that earlier period? Then the late discoveries of the sites and the ruins of ancient cities, enable us, even at this distance of time, to walk their streets, and leisurely to view those gorgeous palaces, in which lived and luxuriated some of the mightiest princes that ever trod this green and lovely earth, the temples

* Ezekiel xxvi. 15–21.