I will exalt my throne above the stars of God;
And I will sit upon the mount of congregation,
In the uttermost parts of the north;

I will ascend above the heights of the clouds;
I will be like the Most High.

Yet thou shalt be brought down to Sheol,
To the uttermost parts of the pit.

They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee,
They shall consider thee, saying,

Is this the man that made the earth to tremble,
That did shake kingdoms,

That made the world as a wilderness,

And overthrew the cities thereof;

That let not loose his prisoners to their home?

All the kings of the nations,
All of them, sleep in glory,

Every one in his own house.

But thou art cast forth away from thy sepulchre,
Like an abominable branch,

As the raiment of those that are slain,

That are thrust through with the sword,
That go down to the stones of the pit;
As a carcass trodden under foot.

Thou shalt not be joined with them in burial,
Because thou hast destroyed thy land,
Thou hast slain thy people;

The seed of evil-doers shall not be named forever.
Prepare ye slaughter for his children.

For the iniquity of their fathers;

That they rise not up, and possess the earth,
And fill the face of the world with cities.

I will rise up against them, saith the LORD of hosts,
And cut off from Babylon name and remnant,
And son and son's son, saith Jehovah.

I will sweep it with the besom of destruction,
Saith the LORD of hosts.

9

THE FUTURE GLORY OF JERUSALEM.

(ISAIAH LX. 1-14.)

Arise, shine; for thy light is come,

And the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee.
For, behold, darkness shall cover the earth,

And gross darkness the peoples;

But the LORD shall arise upon thee,
And his glory shall be seen upon thee.

And nations shall come to thy light,

And kings to the brightness of thy rising.

Lift up thine eyes round about and see;

They all gather themselves together, they come to thee:
Thy sons shall come from far,

Thy daughters shall be carried in the arms.

Then thou shalt see and be lightened,

And thine heart shall tremble and be enlarged;

Because the abundance of the sea shall be turned unto thee,

The wealth of the nations shall come unto thee.

The multitude of camels shall cover thee,
The dromedaries of Midian and Ephah;
All they from Sheba shall come;

They shall bring gold and frankincense,

And shall proclaim the praises of the LORD.

All the flocks of Kedar shall be gathered together unto thee,

The rams of Nebaioth shall minister unto thee;

They shall come up with acceptance on mine altar,

And I will beautify the house of my glory.

Who are these that fly as a cloud,
And as the doves to their windows?
Surely the isles shall wait for me,
And the ships of Tarshish first,
To bring thy sons from afar,

Their silver and their gold with them,
For the name of the LORD thy God,
And for the Holy One of Israel,

Because he hath beautified thee.

And strangers shall build up thy walls,
And their kings shall minister unto thee;

For in my wrath I smote thee,

But in my favor have I had mercy on thee. Thy gates also shall be open continually;

They shall not be shut day nor night;

That men may bring unto thee the wealth of the nations, And their kings led with them.

For that nation that will not serve thee shall perish;

Yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted.

The glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee,

The fir tree, the pine, and the box tree together,

To beautify the place of my sanctuary,

And I will make the place of my feet glorious.
And the sons of them that afflicted thee

Shall come bending unto thee;

And all they that despised thee

Shall bow themselves down at the soles of thy feet;
And they shall call thee the City of the LORD,
The Zion of the Holy One of Israel.

NTHUSIASM of Chinese annalists prompts them to outdo rivalry at a blow by asserting for their country an antiquity of from 80,000 to 100,000 years before Christ. Except in this direction, few traces of imagination are discovered in the Chinese nature or literature.

We may perhaps go so far as to assign the date 2500 B.C. as that of the foundation of the Celestial Empire. There are traditions of a ruler named Fohi, or Fuhsi, by some surmised to be identical with Noah, who is said to have reigned at a period variously estimated at from 3320 to 2240 B.C. The documents of the Shu King begin with the reign of Yao, about 2450 B.C. This date, as we have already noticed in the case of the Babylonians, the Hindus and the Persians, seems to mark roughly the dawn of some important movement or development in the nations of the Asiatic continent.

But the first era to which we can refer with any assurance of accuracy is 650 B.C. That is the first date mentioned by the native historian Se-ma-tsien. A hundred years later, 550 B.C., occurred the birth of the great philosopher Confucius (Kung-fu-tzu). From that time downward the chronology is trustworthy and continuous. There is a record of twenty-two consecutive Chinese dynasties.

The Chinese have had three distinct religious systems. Concerning the first of these, indeed, little is known; but it seems to have been a species of monotheism combined with

ancestral worship. At the epoch of Confucius this had degenerated into general religious indifference. His influence restored the traditional practices, but did not tend to the revival of faith in Divine Revelation. He laid the deep foundation of a moral and philosophical creed which for many centuries has remained indelibly marked upon the Chinese character. Taoism was a similar system proposed by the rival teacher Lao-tse.

Buddhism was the third religion. It was introduced under the name of the Religion of Fo, about 68 A.D., and now commands a large number of adherents. There have been no considerable modifications in the Chinese mind since that time; though the influence of the Western nations is beginning at the present day to become perceptible, and the end of their long-continued conservatism and exclusiveness seems to be within sight.

In the 7th and 8th centuries there are records of the preaching and persecution of Nestorian Christians; in the 9th and 11th centuries occurred the invasions of the Tartars. Kublai Khan established the great Mongol empire about 1268 A. D. The first news of China received by Western Europe was delivered by the traveler Marco Polo, in 1300 A.D. His story of adventure in Eastern Asia astonished the world, and was not accepted as veracious. Time vindicated his substantial accuracy, and until quite recent times little of importance was added to his report. Europeans first arrived at Canton in 1517. It was about a century and a half after this that trade with the British East India Company began, and thenceforward the history of China, so far as it is known, may be read in connection with that of Britain.

The Chinese language, unique in itself, is a monument at once of the intelligence and of the limitations of the Chinese character. It is composed entirely of monosyllabic roots, is devoid of inflections, and practically grammarless. By the manner of its use in a given sentence, each root becomes at need any required part of speech. So formless a condition of the instrument of human intercommunication would indicate an almost savage state of the people making use of it; but the Chinese were comparatively civilized while Europe was