56 
may be urged against the supposition of such an 
event taking place, during the residence of the Jews 
in the land of Canaan. That was the land of pro¬ 
mise, to the possession of which their expectations 
were directed for near five hundred years, with an 
intenseness and ardour which amounted to enthusiasm. 
And after they had, with much toil and difficulty, 
taken possession of it, the happiness they enjoyed 
there, and the importance they attached to a residence 
in it, as the appointed theatre for the future fulfilment 
of prophecy, inspired them with the most enthusiastic 
patriotism, which was further strengthened, and a 
charm thrown over the whole, by the influence of a 
dispensation of religion peculiarly their own : and it 
is difficult to believe that any of them would abandon 
such a country, and such expectations, to saiipn quest 
of an unknown land. 
Neither is there any similarity between the religious 
or civil habits of the Madegasses and those of the Jews, 
except in the practice of circumcision;—they have 
neither customs, traditions, rites, nor ceremonies 
sufficiently analogous to justify us in assigning their 
origin to that people. It is well known that the 
Jews were greatly addicted to idolatry, notwithstand¬ 
ing the theocratic government under which they long 
lived. The splendour of the Mosaic dispensation 
held them in awful reverence only until something 
more pompous and splendid presented itself in the 
idolatrous rites and ceremonies of the heathen nations 
around them, which were presently adopted and mixed 
