468 [Assembly 



choice and nutritious fruit which now thrives, ripens and glows in 

 English gardens, with all the splendor of tropical productions, 



Fortunate for the human species, that the first germ of civilization 

 sprouted in Egypt, here without doubt was the cradle of the arts and 

 agriculture. The swelling waters of the Nile teemed with fatness; 

 and a genial climate and protective laws evoked into existance a 

 caste, or hereditary class of men, who from their childhood were fa- 

 miliarized with the practice of cultivating the soil with dexterity and 

 success. Though the early history of her inhabitants is lost in the 

 shades of darkness, yet her venerable monuments of architectural 

 taste and magnificence are co-assistant and truthful witnesses, that 

 she was the mother of the arts, and a granary for corn, feeding for 

 ages her own immense population and her famishing neighbors. How 

 mysterious are the plans of that great superintending mind, who by 

 his unerring wisdon\ brought his chosen pople in contact with these 

 great civilizers of the human race ! The nomades left the plains and 

 mountain ranges and were content to live in fixed habitations, and 

 learn all the arts and cunning devices of their hard task-masters. 



This school was thorny and beset with heavy burthens, but it was 

 the very school to teach those who were to ahide alone, how to grap- 

 ple with the diflSculties and hardships which accompany an irregular 

 and wandering life. It is evident, that long before Moses the foun- 

 der of the Repub ic of the Jews, had expounded his scheme of gov- 

 ernment, and enforced it by such terrible sanctions, this isolated peo- 

 ple were not only acquainted with the various handicrafts essential 

 to domestic comforts, but also were carefully trained to those occu- 

 pations which minister to the demands of the more opulent classes of 

 society. And when the leader of Israel stood on the glorious heights 

 of Pisgah, the very topographical aspect of the country was well 

 calculated to inspire his soul with impressions of the highest sub- 

 limity. 



There rolled the limpid waves of Jordan, flowing through a basin 

 whose calcareous rocks oozed honey, and filling the eye with green 

 pastures over which countless herds wandered, and fed frugal man 

 with their foaming milk. Here stood Libanus, whose splintered 

 sides in deep and hideous rents are wrapped in snows that never melt 

 under a fierce Syrian sun, and its aerial pathways lay among terraces 

 belting round its base; broad acres covered with a rich soil, and grad- 

 ually receding till lost in the fleecy clouds. 



