Volume II Part 35 (1/2)
DISCOURSE ON THE EVIDENCES OF THE AMERICAN INDIANS BEING THE DESCENDANTS OF THE LOST TRIBES OF ISRAEL.
Those who study the Scriptures, either as a matter of duty or pleasure-- who seek in them divine revelations, or search for the records of history, cannot be ignorant of the fact that the Jewish nation, at an early period, was divided into twelve tribes, and occupied their ancient heritage under geographical divisions, during the most splendid periods under the kingdoms of Judah and of Israel.
Their early history--the rise, progress, and downfall of the nation--the proud distinction of being the chosen people--their laws, government, and wars--their sovereigns, judges, and temples--their sufferings, dispersions, and the various prophecies concerning this ancient and extraordinary people, cannot be unknown to you all. For their history is the foundation of religion, their vicissitudes the result of prophecy, their restoration the fulfilment of that great promise made to the Patriarch Abraham, almost I may say in the infancy of nature.
It is also known to you that the Jewish nation was finally overpowered, and nine and a half of the tribes were carried captives to Samaria; two and a half, to wit: Judah, Benjamin, and half Mena.s.sah, remained in Judea or in the transjordani cities.
The question before us for consideration is, what has become of the missing or dispersed tribes--to what quarter of the world did they direct their footsteps, and what are the evidences of their existence at this day?
An earthquake may shake and overturn the foundations of a city--the avalanche may overwhelm the hamlet--and the crater of a volcano may pour its lava over fertile plains and populous villages--but a whole nation cannot vanish from the sight of the world, without leaving some traces of its existence, some marks of habits and customs.
It is a singular fact that history is exceedingly confused, or rather, I may say, _dark_, respecting the ultimate dispersion of the tribes among the cities of the Medes. The last notice we have of them is from the second Book of Esdras, which runs thus:
”Whereas thou sawest another peaceable mult.i.tude: these are the ten tribes which were carried away prisoners out of their own land in the time of Osea, whom Salmanazar, king of a.s.syria, led away captive, and he carried them over the waters, so they came unto another land.
”They took this counsel among themselves that they would leave the mult.i.tude of the _heathen_, and go into a further country wherein _never mankind dwelt_, that they might there keep their statutes, which they never kept in their own land (a.s.syria), and there was a great way to go, namely, a year and a half.”
Esdras, however, has been deemed apocryphal. Much has been said concerning the doubtful character of that writer. He wrote in the first century of the Christian church, and Tertullian, St Ereneus, Clemens Alexandrius, Pico di Mirandola, and many learned and pious men, had great confidence in his writings. Part of them have been adopted by Protestants, and all considered orthodox by Catholics. With all his old Jewish attachments to the prophecies and traditions, Esdras was nevertheless a convert to Christianity. He was not an inspired writer or a prophet, although he a.s.sumed to be one, and followed the course as well as the manner of Daniel.
The Book of Esdras, however, is of great antiquity, and as an historical record is doubtless ent.i.tled to great respect.
The precise number which left Babylon and other cities, and took to the desert, cannot be accurately known; but they were exceedingly numerous, for the edict of Ahasherus, which decreed their destruction, embraced 127 provinces, and reached from Ethiopia to the Indies. Benjamin of Tudela, who travelled in the eleventh century through Persia, mentions that in some of the provinces, at the time of that decree, the Jews occupied forty cities, two hundred boroughs, one hundred castles, which contained 300,000 people. I incline to the opinion that 300,000 of the tribes left Persia.
There is no doubt that, in the march from the Euphrates to the north-east coast of Asia, many of the tribes hesitated in pursuing the journey: some remained in Tartary, many went into China. Alverez states in his History of China, that the Jews had been living in that kingdom for more than six hundred years. He might with great probability have said 1,600 years. He speaks of their being very numerous in some of the provinces, and having synagogues in many of the great cities, especially in that of Hinan and in its metropolis Kai-tong-fu, where he represents them to have a magnificent place of wors.h.i.+p, and a repository, the Holy Volume, adorned with richly embroidered curtains, in which they preserve an ancient Hebrew ma.n.u.script roll.
They know but little of the Mosaic law, and only repeat the names of David, Abraham, Isaiah, and Jacob. In a Hebrew letter written by the Jews of Cochin-China to their brethren at Amsterdam, they give as the date of their retiring into India, the period when the Romans conquered the Holy Land.
It is clearly evident, therefore, that the tribes, in their progress to a new and undiscovered country, left many of their numbers in China and Tartary, and finally reached the Straits of Behring, where no difficulty prevented their crossing to the north-west coast of America, a distance less than thirty miles, interspersed with the Copper Islands, probably frozen over; and reaching our continent, spread themselves in the course of two thousand years to Cape Horn, the more hardy keeping to the north, to Labrador, Hudson's Bay, and Greenland; the more cultivated fixing their residence in the beautiful climate and rich possessions of Central America, Mexico, and Peru.
But it may here be asked, could the scattered remnants of Israel have had the courage to penetrate through unknown regions, and encounter the hards.h.i.+ps and privations of that inhospitable country? Could they have had the fort.i.tude, the decision, the power, to venture on a dreary pilgrimage of eighteen months, the time mentioned by Esdras as the period of their journey? Could they not? What obstacles had hitherto impeded their progress, that had broken down their energies, or impaired their constancy and fidelity?
They knew that their brethren had severed the chains of Egyptian bondage; had crossed in safety the arm of the Red Sea; had sojourned for years in the wilderness; had encamped near Mount Sinai, and had possessed themselves of the Holy Land.
They remembered the kingdoms of Judah and Israel in all their glory; they had witnessed the erection and destruction of their Temple; they had fought and conquered with the Medes, the a.s.syrians, the Persians, the Greeks, and the Romans. They had encountered sufferings upon sufferings unmoved; had bowed their necks submissively to the yoke.
Kings, conquerors, nations, Christians, Mahometans, and Heathens, all had united in the design of destroying the nation; but they never despaired--they knew they were the elect and chosen of the Lord. The oath, that He never would abandon his people, had been fulfilled 3,500 years, and, therefore, with the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, they abandoned the Heathens and the Persian territory, pa.s.sed the confines of Tartary and China, and, no doubt, through great sufferings, reached the north-eastern coast of Asia, and came in sight of that continent, wherein, as they had reason to believe, ”mankind never before had dwelt.”
On the discovery of America by Columbus, and the discoveries subsequent to his time, various tribes of Indians or savages were found to inhabit this our continent, whose origin was unknown.
It is, perhaps, difficult for the human mind to decide on the character and condition of an extreme savage state. We can readily believe that children abandoned in infancy in a savage country, and surviving this abandonment, to grow up in a state of nature, living on herbs and fruits, and sustaining existence as other wild animals, would be stupid, without language, without intellect, and with no greater instinct than that which governs the brute creation. We can conceive nothing reduced to a more savage condition; with cannibal propensities, an ungovernable ferocity, or a timid apprehension, there can be but a link that separates them from other cla.s.ses of animal creation. So with herds of men in a savage state, like herds of buffalo or wild horses on our prairies, they are kept together by sounds common amongst themselves, and are utterly unacquainted with the landmarks of civilisation.
This, however, was not the condition of the American Indians when first discovered. They were a singular race of men, with enlarged views of life, religion, courage, constancy, humanity, policy, eloquence, love of their families; with a proud and gallant bearing, fierce in war, and, like the ancients, relentless in victory. Their hospitality might be quoted as examples among the most liberal of the present day. These were not wild men--these were a different cla.s.s from those found on the Sandwich and Feegee Islands. The red men of America, bearing as they do the strongest marks of Asiatic origin, have, for more than two thousand years (and divided as they are in upwards of three hundred different nations) been remarkable for their intellectual superiority, their bravery in war, their good faith in peace, and all the simplicity and virtues of their patriarchal fathers, until civilisation, as it is called, had rendered them familiar with all the vices which distinguish the present era, without being able to enforce any of the virtues which are the boast of our present enlightened times.
It is, however, in the religious belief and ceremonies of the Indians that I propose showing some of the evidences of their being, as it is believed, the descendants of the dispersed tribes. The opinion is founded--
1st. In their belief in one G.o.d.
2nd. In the computation of time by their ceremonies of the new moon.
3rd. In their divisions of the year in four seasons, answering to the Jewish festivals of the feast of flowers, the day of atonement, the feast of the tabernacle, and other religious holidays.