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progress. *At first, we see it established in a part of 

 the world, then the centre of civilization, knowledge, 

 and power. We perceive a race selected for its pre- 

 sei'vation separated by peculiar religious tenets and 

 singular nationality from the rest of mankind. We 

 see it preserved through various ages; and every 

 eminent guardian or head of this race, devoting him- 

 self to a propagation of its sentiments. The Jews, the 

 depositories of this system, seem in all their history up 

 to the time of Christ, to be the singular object of God^s 

 providence and guard. If the Phoenicians threaten 

 Palestine ; a Joseph rises in Egypt to give them an 

 asylum; if subjected to persecution and oppression and 

 change of religion there; a Moses comes to lead them 

 to the sight of the promised land. If intercourse with 

 strangers pollute the race, another descendant of the 

 house of Israel appears to rebuild the temple on the 

 simple basis of reason and faith. When, after a series 

 of years, its guardians become corrupt and treacher- 

 ous, again in the centre of population and civilization 

 of that age, a new reformation occurs in Europe ; and 

 when again Europe in her turn, becomes, by reason of 

 her tyrannies, her civil wars, and her crimes, an unsafe 

 depository, translated across the seas by a few deter- 

 mined men, we see it spreading over a western conti- 

 nent, and blessing millions in its progress. 



Here we may see, rising from the earliest ages, like 

 noble granite formations, primitive truth ; which, 

 through successive generations of men, and events of 

 time, amidst the destruction of millions of human be- 

 ings, the ruin of magnificent empires, aqd the changes 

 of the face of nature herself, has overturned dynasties, 

 outlived persecutions, stood firm over oceans of blood, 



