11 



Ganges, and probably to the ocean bounds of China ; and con- 

 siderable portions of that immense region had become eminent 

 for improvements in tillage, anterior to the expedition of the 

 Macedonian conqueror. 



But all those once powerful kingdoms of antiquity were des- 

 tined to experience a tremendous reverse of fortune. By slow 

 advances, each had reached the loftiest point of national gran- 

 deur, from whence their decadence was rapid and irremediable. 

 Neither wisdom, numbers, wealth or valor could arrest their dis- 

 astrous fate ; and they were successively, either subjugated or 

 impoverished by some ambitious chieftain of a rival power, or over- 

 whelmed by those tribes of barbarians, which in all ages have 

 come down like a furious tempest from the northern wilds of 

 Asia and Europe, spreading fire, slaughter and devastation in 

 their terrific course. The whole human race was thus thrown 

 back into such a degraded condition, that the moral firmament 

 was obscured like a perpetual night, by the dark and lurid clouds 

 of ignorance, superstition and wretchedness. Entire nations were 

 so thoroughly exterminated, or so blended in the population of 

 their savage conquerors, as to have lost their distinctiveness of 

 character. Egyptians and Carthagenians have disappeared from 

 the earth, leaving no traces of their existence, but in the stupen- 

 dous ruins of their cities, pyramids, temples, aqueducts and tombs ; 

 and even the inscriptions on those of the farmer are now unin- 

 telligible, while not a single book, or page of the language no, 

 not so much as the alphabet of the other has survived so com- 

 plete has been the work of destruction. Had it not been for 

 the sacred volume of the Jews, and a few of the Greek and Ro- 

 man authors, which have reached us, the history of the world, 

 from the creation, to the revival of letters, would have been as 

 unknown as that of the American continent, before the voyage 

 of Columbus. By his transcendent genius, a way was opened 

 over the ocean to this western hemisphere, and by the aid of 

 those precious repositories of learning, an arch has been thrown 

 across that immense gulf of oblivion, which separated the far dis- 

 tant past from the present. 



Amidst the universal gloom, which so long enveloped the earth, 

 a few but widely separated beacon-lights faintly glimmered in 

 the distant horizon. They arose in the midst of the wide extend- 



