Bookshelf | Spalding Library | Mormon Classics | Newspapers | History Vault
|
Ethan Smith (1762-1849) A View of the Hebrews... (1st ed., Poultney, NY, 1823) additional Ethan Smith Info & Articles |
|
Special Note:
The host of this web-site does not in any way sympathize with nor support the
anti-Jewish sentiments of Ethan Smith, as expressed in his book. The text
of the book is presented here solely for historical documentary purposes.
1825 ed. | Dissertation on Prophecies (1811) | Key to Figurative Language (1814)
Pamphlets (1814-7) | Character of Christ (1814) | Key to Revelation (1833)
Note: The Contents pages (185-187) have been moved to the front of this e-text
and reformatted with internal links for the reader's convience.
|
CONTENTS.
|
|
CHAPTER IV. AN ADDRESS OF THE PROPHET ISAIAH, RELATIVE TO THE RESTORATION OF HIS PEOPLE An interesting addressis found in the 18th chapter of Isaiah to some people of the last days; calling them to have a special agency in the recovery and restoration of the ancient people of God. Many years ago, while writing my Dissertation on the Prophecies, I became much interested in this address of Isaiah; and in that dissertation, gave a paraphrase of it; conceiving then it was an address to the people of God in Great Britain. I have since become of a different opinion; and now apprehend it to be an address to the Christian people of the United States of America. To prepare the way for the contemplation of this address, let several things be considered. 1. In the prophetic writings, many addresses are made to nations, or concerning them. Would it not be strange, if no mention were found in the prophecies of this new western world; which was destined by propitious Heaven to make so distinguishing a figure both in the political and religious world, in the last days? It certainly would seem unaccountable, and the thought can hardly be admitted. 2. The address in the eighteenth of Isaiah to be contemplated, is clearly an address to some people of these last days; and concerning events intimately connected with the battle of that great day of God, which is now future and not far distant, and is to introduce the Millennium. This event in verses 5 and 6; which will be noted. 3. The address then cannot have been to any ancient nation or people; as some expositors have inconsiderately supposed. But it must be to a nation of the last days; a nation now on earth; a nation to be peculiarly instrumental in the restoration of the Hebrews in the last days. For this is the very object of the address, as will appear. The demand in the address is, to go and restore that ancient people of God in the last days; or at a time intimately connected with the tremendous scenes [of judgment] on antichristian Europe, and on the hostile wicked world, which shall sweep antichristian nations from the earth, and prepare the way for the millennial kingdom of Jesus Christ. This will clearly appear. 4. The address then, is to a nation, that may seem to have leisure for the important business assigned; when the old and eastern parts of the world are in the effervescence of revolution, and in those struggles which precede dissolution. -- This consideration fixes the address to a people distinct and distant from the those old lands; and hence probably to our 5. If it be a fact, as is apprehended, that the aborigines of our continent are indeed descended from the ten tribes of Israel; our nation, no doubt, must be the people addressed to restore them; to bring them to the knowledge of the gospel, and to do with them whatever the God of Abraham designs shall be done. The great and generous Christian people, who occupy much of the land of those natives, and who are on the ground of their continent, and hence are the best prepared to meliorate their condition, and bring them to the knowledge and order of the God of Israel, must of course be the people to whom this work is assigned. The one consideration would do much toward the decision of our question, Who is the nation addressed? 6. Various things are found in the predictions of the restoration of God's ancient people, which strikingly accord with the idea of a great branch of them being recovered from this land, and by the agency of the people of our States. A few of these shall be noted. In the thirtieth and thirty-first chapters of Jeremiah, the prophet treats of the united restoration of Judah and Israel. These chapters were written about one hundred and twenty years after the expulsion of the ten tribes. And in relation to the ten tribes, they have never yet had even a primary accomplishment, or any degree of fulfilment. The restoration there predicted is to be in "the latter days;" chap. xxx. 24: and at the time near the battle of the great day; see verses 6-8, 23, 24. Much of the substance of these chapters is appropriated to the ten tribes of Israel; though Judah is expressly to be restored with them. Of the former (having then been outcast for an hundred and twenty years.) God says; chap.xxxi. 20; "Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he a pleasant child? For since I spake against him, (or expelled him from Canaan,) I do earnestly remember him still; therefore my bowels are troubled for him; I will surely have mercy upon him, saith the Lord." The next verse invites and predicts his final restoration. These yearnings of the divine compassion for Ephraim (one noted name of the ten tribes) are the immediate precursor of his restoration. "I will surely have mercy upon him, saith the Lord." Set thee up way-marks, make thee high heaps, set thine heart toward the high way -- turn again, O virgin of Israel; turn again to these thy cities." "I will again be the God of all the families of Israel; and they shall be my people." "For lo, the days come. saith the Lord, that I will bring again the captivity of my people Israel and Judah; and I will cause them to return to the land that I gave their fathers, and they shall possess it." "Fear thou not, O my servant Jacob, saith the Lord; neither be dismayed, O Israel; for lo I will save thee from afar." "Behold, I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the coasts of the earth." In this country "afar" off, these "coasts of the earth," they had been in an outcast state. "Because they called thee an outcast, saying; "This is Zion, whom no man seeketh after." (For more than 2000 years none sought after the ten tribes.) These ideas striking accord with their having been outcasts from the known world, in America. This might with singular propriety be called the land afar off, and the coasts of the earth. In the same connexion, when God promises to gather them "from the coasts of the earth," and says, "they shall come with weeping and with supplication; for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my first born;" he adds; "Hear the word of the Lord, O ye nations, and declare it in the isles afar off, and say, He that scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him as the shepherd doth his flock." "Isles afar off!" "Isles in the Hebrew language, signify any lands ever so extensive, away over great waters. Where can these "isles afar off," (these "coasts of the earth," here addressed by God in relation to the restoration of his outcast; yet beloved Ephraim,) where can they be so naturally found as in America? In other prophets the same things are found. In Isai.xliii. God promises this same restoration of Israel. "But now, thus saith the Lord, that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, Oh Israel; Fear not, for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine. When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee. I have loved thee with an everlasting love; therefore will I give men for thee, and people for thy life. Fear not, for I am with thee. I will bring thy seed from the east, and gather thee from the west; I will say to the north, Give up; and to the south, Keep not back; bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the ends of the earth." "Thus saith the Lord, who maketh a way in the sea, and a path in the mighty waters; Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the deserts." In Isai. xi. is this wonderful restoration. Ephraim and Judah are both restored; the one from his "dispersed." the other from his "outcast" state; and their mutual envies are forever healed. And the places from which they are recovered are noted; among which are "the isles of the sea;" or lands away over the sea, and "the four corners of the earth." Certainly then, from America! This surely is one of the four corners of the earth. Of such a land away over the sea, it is predicted, Isai. lx. 9; "Surely the isles shall wait for me, and the ships of Tarnish first, (or a power expert in navigation,) to bring my sons from far." In Zech. viii. 7, is the same event. "Thus saith the Lord of hosts; Behold I will save my people from the east country, and from the west country; and I will bring them, and they shall dwell in Jerusalem; and they shall be my people, and I will be their God." Here they are saved from the west country; or as it may be rendered, from the going down of the sun, The going down of the sun from Jerusalem, would be over America. In Zech. x. 8, 9, is this same restoration of Ephraim by name; meaning the ten tribes. "I will hiss for them, (or call them,) and gather them; for I have redeemed them; and they shall remember me from far countries; and they shall live, and their children, and turn again." Such promises of the restoration of Israel from far countries, from the west or the going down of the sun, from the coasts of the earth, from the ends of the earth, from isles afar, their being brought in ships from far, making their way in the sea, their path in the mighty waters; these expressions certainly well accord with the ten tribes being brought from America. And such passages imply an agency by which such a restoration shall be effected. Where shall such an agency be so naturally found, as among a great Christian people, providentially planted on the very ground occupied by the outcast tribes of Israel in their long exilement; and who are so happily remote from the bloody scenes of Europe in the last days, as to have leisure for the important business assigned? Surely then this business would be assigned, either tacitly or expressly, to our nation. At this conclusion we safely arrive, reasoning a priori. The circumstances of the case enforce it. And we might expect so interesting a duty, relative to an event on which the prophecies so abundantly rest, would not be left to uncertain deductions, but would be expressly enjoined. We may then open the prophetic scriptures with some good degree of confidence, that the assignment of such a task is somewhere to be found. And where so natural to be found as in the prophecy of Isaiah? He is the most evangelical prophet; and treats largely upon the restoration of his brethren. He lived to behold the expulsion of the ten tribes; and must have been deeply affected with the event. The expulsion of the ten tribes took place 725 years before Christ. Isaiah is supposed to have begun his ministry about the year 760 before Christ; 35 years before that expulsion; and to have continued it about 27 years after that event. It is then very natural, to consider his mind as deeply affected with this event; with the place of the long exilement of his brethren of Israel; and as delighted with a view of their final restoration, which he was inspired to foretel. Behold this man of God then, wrapt in the visions of the Almighty, casting an eye of faith down the lapse of time to the days of the final restoration of his long rejected brethren. He finds presented in vision, away over the Mediterranean, and the Atlantic, far in the west, or going down of the sun, the continent of their long banishment. He also beholds in vision a great nation arising there in the last days; a land of freedom and religion. He hears the whisper of the Spirit of inspiration, directing him to address that far sequestered and happy land; and call their attention to the final restoration of his people. Isaiah xviii. verse 1; "Ho, land shadowing with wings, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia." Our translators render this address, "Wo to the land." But this is manifestly incorrect, as the best expositors agree. The Hebrew particle here translated Wo to, is a particle of friendly calling, as well as of denouncing. And the connexion in any given place must decide which rendering shall be given. In this place, the whole connexion and sense decide, that the word is here a friendly call, or address; as in this passage; "Ho every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters." The land addressed, lies "beyond the rivers of Ethiopia." It is agreed that these rivers mean the mouths of the Nile, which enter from Egypt into the south side of the Mediterranean. It is as though the prophet had said; Thou land beheld in vision away over the mouths of the Nile. Where would such a line strike? It would glance over the northern edge of the States of Barbary. But could the friendly address to a people of the last days, light on those barbarous Mohammedan shores? Surely not. No land "shadowing with wings," or that would aid the restoration of the Hebrews, is found in those horrid regions. No; the point of the compass and the address must have been designed for a new world, seen in that direction. This address of Heaven must be to our western continent; or to a hospitable people found here. Our southern boundary is not far from the latitude of the mouths of the Nile. The prophetic eye glanced beyond all lands then known; and hence no land is named. It must have been a land over the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. Thou land "shadowing with wings." The above direction lands the prophetic vision at the point of the western continent, where the two great wings of North and South America meet; as the body of a great Eagle. This at first might furnish the prophetic imagery of a land "shadowing with wings." As though the inspiring Spirit had whispered; The continent of those two great wings shall be found at last most interesting in relation to your Hebrew brethren. And those two great wings shall prove but an emblem of a great nation then on that continent; far sequestered from the seat of antichrist, and of tyranny and blood; and whose asylum for equal rights, liberty and religion, shall be well represented by such a national coat of arms, -- the protecting wings of a great eagle; which nation in yonder setting of the sun, (when in the last days, judgments shall be thundering through the nations of the eastern continent,) shall be found a realm of peaceful protection to all, who fly from the abodes of despotism to its peaceful retreat; even as an eagle protects her nest from all harm. Yea, a land that, when all other lands shall be found to have trampled on the Jews, shall be found to have protecting wings for them, free from such cruelty, and ready to aid them. Verse 2; "Who sendeth ambassadors by the sea, even in vessels of bulrushes upon the face of the waters." It is to be supposed that a great difficulty would at once present itself to the prophet's view, when beholding in vision this western continent, over the mighty waters of the Mediterranean, and the Atlantic, and about to be called to restore his people. What could be done across such mighty waters? The difficulty at once vanishes, by the prophet's being ascertained of this characteristic of the people addressed. They would be most expert in navigation. They could traverse the Atlantic and Mediterranean, and be able to send missionaries to Jerusalem, or to the ends of the earth, in those last days, or convey the Hebrews from one continent to another, with an expedition similar to that with which the Nile (beyond which this new world is beheld) used to be navigated with the skiffs made of the bulrush, or the rind of the papyrus. * Verse 2, concluded. "Saying, go ye swift messengers, to a nation scattered and pealed, to a people terrible from the beginning hitherto; a nation meted out and trodden down, whose land the rivers have spoiled." 'Saying,' before the command Go, is interpolated in our translation, and destroys the sense; as though the nation said this to her swift messengers; whereas it is what God says to the nation addressed. q. d. Come thou protecting nation; I have a great business for you. Collect and restore my ancient people; that nation whose ancient history has been so remarkable and terrible; that nation so long dispersed, robbed, and insulted, in the people of the __________ * Our states may claim the characteristic of expert navigation, equal at least to any people on earth. Consider our steam-boat navigation, and such accounts as the following; found in Niles' Register, of March 22, 1823. "Baltimore vessels. -- The brig Thessulian arrived at Baltimore on Saturday evening last, in 79 days from Lima, and 24 from the sight of the city of Pernambuco, in Brazil; a distance of 12,000 miles; averaging six and a quarter miles every hour of her passage. This vessel was, less than eight months ago, on the stocks in this city." Jews; and so long outcast in the ten tribes. -- That people of line, line, (as in the Hebrew, and in the margin of the great Bible;) or, whose only hope to find their ancient inheritance must be in the line of divine promise, or the entail of the covenant. As the land addressed is described as away over the mouths of the Nile; so various characteristics in the address are suggested from thoughts associated with that river, and the people on its banks; as the bulrush vessel just noted; and here the measuring line. The river Nile periodically overflowed its banks, and swept away the boundaries of every man's inheritance on its interval. Every man then, had to depend on a noted line, to measure anew and find his land. So the Hebrews, having by their sins, and expulsion from Canaan, and from the covenant of Abraham, lost all the visible boundaries of their inheritance, having no ground of hope of regaining their standing either in Palestine, or in the covenant of grace, but the line of the mere and sovereign promise of God, for their restoration The word is doubled, line, line; a mere Hebraism. to form a superlative. As peace, peace, means perfect peace, -- Isai. xxvi. 3; and as good, good, means the best; so line, line, means superlatively of line, or altogether dependent on the mere promise of God. That the allusion is to the event noted is evident from what follows: -- "Whose land the rivers have spoiled." Whose inheritance (in the Holy Land) has been torn from them, and overrun by neighbouring hostile nations, often symbolized by rivers, even as the lands by the sides of the Nile often had their boundaries swept away by the overflowings of that river. Thus the Romans first, then the Persians, the Saracens, the Egyptians, and the Turks, have overflowed and possessed the Holy Land. But the line of divine promise will restore it to the Hebrews. * Go thou protecting people; shadow with thy wings my ancient family, as though the Most High should say. For thus it is written; "Surely the isles shall wait for me, (or lands away over the sea from Palestine,) and the ships of Tarshish first, (a people expert in navigation,) to bring my sons from far." A far distant land over sea shall be engaged in this work. Verse 3. "All ye inhabitants of the world, and dwellers on the earth, see ye when he lifteth up the ensign on the mountains, and when he bloweth a trumpet, hear ye." After the land shadowing with wings is under way in fulfilment of the divine requirement; an apostrophe is made by the Most High to all nations, to stand and behold the banner of salvation now erected for his ancient people; and to hear the great gospel trumpet, the blessed Jubilee, now to be blown for their collection and their freedom. The ancient silver trumpets in Israel collected their solemn assemblies. And the same trumpets, with joyful and peculiar blasts, ushered in the Jubilee morn, and loosed every bond slave of the Hebrews. -- And the antitype of the event shall now be accomplished. This standard of salvation at that period, is a notable event in the prophets. See Isai. xi. 12, where God sets his hand a second time to gather his Hebrew family from all nations and regions __________ * Much perplexity had rested on the passage, a nation of line, line, till the above solution occurred to mind. With this I am fully satisfied. It is natural, as is the bulrush navigation. It agrees with facts, and is confirmed by the clause following; "whose land the rivers have spoiled." beyond sea; doubtless from America, as well as other nations; and it is promised, "He shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth." If from the four corners of the earth, then surely from America! In this passage are the descriptive situations from which the two great branches of the Hebrews are recovered; Judah from being dispersed among the nations; and Israel from being outcast from the nations; thrown out of sight of the social world; precisely as they have been in the wilds of America for more than two thousand years, provided our natives are of Israel. Verse 4. "For so the Lord said unto me, I will take my rest, and I will consider my dwelling place like a clear heat upon herbs, and like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest." The event and the figures in this passage are best explained by those found in synchronical passages, or prophecies alluding to the same event. And according to them, it is as though the Most High should say; I am now about to renew my ancient dwelling place. I will again have fixed habitation in Canaan; as Zech. i. 16: "Thus saith the Lord, I am again returned to Jerusalem with mercies; my house shall be built in it;" and viii. 3; "Thus saith the Lord, I am returned unto Zion, and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem." And the event shall be as "life from the dead" to the nations; Rom.xi. 15. Therefore, ye Gentile lands, now behold. I will now be to my ancient heritage like the genial heat of the sun to promote vegetation after the death of winter; as Isai. xxvi. 19, "Thy dew is the dew of herbs," which in the spring shall vegetate. "And I will be like the fertile cooling cloud in the sultry heat of harvest." The Hebrews shall now become "as the tender grass springing out of the earth, by the clear shining after rain;" 2 Sam. xxiii. 4. Yes, "I will be as the dew unto Israel; he shall grow as the lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon. His branches shall spread, and his beauty shall be as the olive tree, and his smell as Lebanon; Hos. xvi. 5, 6. The nations shall behold this fulfilment of divine grace to Israel, and shall find instruments raised up adequate to the work. But a tremendous scene to the antichristian world shall be found intimately connected. Verse 5. "For afore the harvest, when the bud is perfect, and the sour grape is ripening in the flower, he shall both cut off the sprigs with pruning hooks, and take away and cut down the branches." Or near the fulfilment of this even of the last days, a vast scene is to be accomplished, Prophetic notice is ever given relative to that period, that the salvation of the friends of Zion shall be ushered in with a proportionable destruction to her enemies. The harvest and the vintage of divine wrath, called "the battle of that great day of God Almighty," must be accomplished; and at the time of the restoration of the Hebrews, that tremendous event shall be at the doors. As in the natural vineyard, when the blossom is succeeded by the swelled pulp, which soon reaches the size of the full grape, indicating that the vintage is near; so at the time of the service here divinely demanded, wickedness shall have blossomed; pride shall have budded in antichristian realms. The sour grapes of their tyranny, violence, and licentiousness, will be found to be arriving at their growth; indicating that the time for the casting of the vine of the earth into the wine press of the wrath of God, is just at hand. Verse 6. "They shall be left together unto the fowls of the mountains, and the beasts of the earth; and the fowls shall summer upon them, and the beasts of the earth shall winter upon them." Soon the most prominent branches of the antichristian vine of the earth, shall be collected and trodden upon the mountains of Israel, in the noted scene of Armageddon; Rev. xxi. 16. The passage noted in Ezek. xxxix. 17-20, (at the time of the slaughter of Gog and his bands, and which is given as an illustration of the text,) shall then be accomplished. "And thou son of man, thus saith the Lord God, speak unto every feathered fowl, and to every beasts of the field, Assemble yourselves, and come; gather yourselves on every side to my sacrifice that I do sacrifice for you, even a great sacrifice upon the mountains of Israel, that ye may eat flesh, and drink blood. Ye shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink the blood of the princes of the earth; of rams, of lambs, and of goats, of bullocks, all of them fatlings of Bashan. And ye shall eat fat till ye be full, and drink blood till ye be drunken, of my sacrifice which I have sacrificed for you. Thus ye shall be filled at my table with horses and chariots, with mighty men, and with all men of war, saith the Lord God." Also the further illustration of the same, Rev. xix. 17, 18; "And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of Heaven, Come and gather yourselves unto the supper of the great God; That ye may eat the flesh of kings and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great." Verse 7. "At that time shall the present be brought unto the Lord of hosts of a people scattered and pealed, and from a people terrible from the beginning hitherto; a nation meted out and trodden under foot; whose land the rivers have spoiled, to the place of the name of the Lord of hosts, to Mount Zion." Just at that period of the world, the present which I claim of you shall be brought to the Lord of hosts, of that scattered and outcast people; of that people so terrible in ancient times to their enemies by the presence and power of their God with them; that people of "line, line," or depending solely on the measuring line of promise, or the entail of the covenant, found in the sacred oracles, for their restoration to their ancient inheritance in the church of God, and in the promised land; inasmuch as the boundaries of their inheritance in both these respects have long since been swept away. A present of this people must be brought by you, sequestered land shadowing with wings, unto the place of the name of the Lord of hosts, the Mount Zion. Ye friends of God in the land addressed; can you read this prophetic direction of the ancient prophet Isaiah, without having your hearts burn within you? Surely you cannot, if you can view it as an address of the Most High to you. God here exalts you, in the last days, the age of terror and blood, as high as the standard to be raised for the collection of the seed of Abraham; "on the mountains." Nor is this the only passage, in which this your exaltation is recognized. See the same honor alluded to, in Zeph iii. 10. -- There nearly connected with the battle of the great day of God, in which he there asserts he "will gather the nations, and assemble the kingdoms, to pour upon them his indignation, even all his fierce anger, and all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of his jealousy;" and that he will then "turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the Lord, and serve him with one consent;" he informs, as in the address in Isaiah; "From beyond the rivers of Ethiopia, my suppliants (or a people who are my worshippers,) shall bring mine offering, even the daughter of my dispersed." (as the verse should be read.) Here is the same people, away in the same direction, over the mouths of the Nile, who are called God's suppliants, and who, in those days of vengeance, are to bring their offerings to God, consisting of the descendants of his ancient people. If these views be correct. Christians in our land may well bless God that it is their happy lot to live in this land shadowing with wings; this protecting realm, an asylum of liberty and religion; a land so distant from the seat of antichrist and of the judgments to be thundered down on old corrupt establishments in the last days. And their devout gratitude to Heaven ought to rise, for the blessing of having their existence so near the period alluded to in this sublime prediction, when this land of liberty is beginning to feel her distinguishing immunities compared with the establishments of tyranny and corruption in the old continent. We may rejoice to have our earthly lot with a people of whom such honourable mention is made by the prophetic spirit of old; and to whom so noble a work is assigned. Our children coming upon the stage may live to see the meaning and fulfilment of this prophetic chapter, which is most rich in sentiment, and when will not fail of accomplishment. The great argument found in this sacred address, to induce to a compliance with the duty demanded, is the terrors of the days of vengeance on eastern corrupt nations; which seems to imply some good degree of exemption in our own case, and our happy leisure for the business assigned. Heaven will show despotic nations, and old corrupt empires, the difference between them, and a land shadowing with wings;" a happy asylum of liberty and religion in the west. Can a motive be wanting to induce us to maintain the character implied in this address, and to obey the injunction of Heaven here urged upon us? Should and say, what can be done? Let this be the reply; be devoutly disposed and prepared to obey; and Heaven will, in due time, make the duty plain. By prayer, contributions, and your influence, be prepared to aid every attempt for the conversion of the Jews and Israel; and God will be his own interpreter, and will make the duty plain. A leading step has already been taken in a Jerusalem mission. This may prove, in relation to a fulfilment of our text, a cloud like a man's hand, which shall afford a sound of great rain; and shall water the hills of ancient Zion. How great effects spring from little causes! A purling stream from the threshold of the sanctuary, soon rises to the ankles, to the knees, to the loins, and to an unfordable river, which heals the Dead sea; Ezek. xlvii. Already has the bulrush vessel slipped from the "land shadowing with wings," across the mighty waters, over the prophetic eye glanced; over the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, by the mouths of the "rivers of Ethiopia," and has landed her "ambassadors," for a Jerusalem mission! Bless the Lord, O children of Abraham, for this ray of light from the land of the going down of the sun. This may shed an incipient lustre on the noted passage in our evangelical prophet. It may prove to the children of Abraham, in these days of signal phenomena, a morning rising in the west! Let us, dear country men, second this attempt with our intercessions, our contributions, and our influence. May all societies formed in behalf of the Jews, and all solicitations in their favour, meet our most fervent patronage. And God will not fail of fulfiling by us his gracious designs. The blessed business will be brought within our reach, and will be accomplished. The ten tribes, as well as the Jews, belong to the "nation scattered and peeled, and terrible from the beginning." Yes, the stick of Ephraim is to become one in the hand of the prophet, with the stick of the Jews; Ezek. xxxvii. 15. -- If it is a fact, that the aborigines of this "land shadowing with wings," are the tribes of Israel; we perceive at once what can be done to fulfil the noted demand of God, as it relates to them. -- And all who fear God will leap for joy, that as the Jerusalem mission is already under way; so missions to these tribes of Israel are already under way! Let us then, in view of the evidence providentially afforded, that we have found the long banished tribes of Israel, seat ourselves as at the feet of Isaiah; hear him sighing with deep affliction at the long exilement of his brethren of Israel, and in vision beholding this land of their banishment, Hear the Spirit of Inspiration suggesting to his anxious mind; There is the land, the long exilement of your brethren of Israel. There for 2500 years shall they be an outcast race, till about the time of the Messiah's kingdom, that darling promised title to their fair inheritance shall take effect. A great nation shall there be found, at that period, whose sequestered realm and peaceful national character, shall afford a retreat for liberty and religion; and shall entitle them to the appellation of a "land shadowing with wings," as the form of their continent suggests, Here is the people to aid the restoration both of your dispersed, and especially your outcast brethren. Address them therefore, and from me assign them their business. Ho thou nation of the last days, pity, instruct, and save my ancient people and brethren; especially that outcast branch of them, who were the natives of your soil. Pity that degraded remnant of a nation so terrible in ancient times, but who have been now so long wretched. Bring a present of them, ye worshippers of Jehovah, to the God of Abraham. Give not sleep to your eyes, till a house be builded to your God, from those ancient and venerable materials. -- Were not your fathers sent into that far distant world, not only to be (in their posterity) built up a great protecting nation; but also to be the instruments of gathering, or recovering the miserable remnant of my outcasts there, in the last days? Rejoice, then, ye distinguished people in your birthright, and engage in the work by Heaven assigned. Let not those tribes of my ancient people, whom I have borne as on eagles' wings for so many ages; let them not become extinct before your eyes; let them no longer roam in savage barbarism and death! My bowels yearn for Ephraim, my first born. "For since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still." "I have seen his ways, and will heal him. I will restore peace to him, and to his mourners; peace in the renewal of my covenant. I will again hear him on eagles wings, and bring him to myself. For you, (my suppliants in the west.) this honour is received;" Zeph. iii. 10. The wings of your continent have long borne him in his banishment. Let now the wings of your liberty, compassion, and blessed retreat, bear him from his dreary wild to the temple of God. Look at the origin of those degraded natives of your continent, and fly to their relief. -- Send them the heralds of salvation. Send them the word, the bread of life. You received that book from the seed of Abraham. Restore it to them, and thus double your own rich inheritance in its blessings. Learn them to read the book of grace. Learn them its history and their own. Teach them the story of their ancestors; the economy of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Sublimate their views above the savage pursuits of the forests. Elevate them above the wilds of barbarism and death, by showing them what has been done for their nation; and what is yet to be done by the God of their fathers, in the line of his promise. Teach them their ancient history; their former blessings; their being cast away; the occasion of it, and the promise of their return. Tell them the time draws near, and they must now return to God of their salvation. Tell them their return is to be as life from the dead to the gentile nations. Tell them what their ancient fathers the prophets were inspired to predict in their behalf; and the charge here given for their restoration. Assure them this talk of an ancient brother, is for them, and they must listen to it and obey it. That the Great Spirit above the clouds now calls them by you to come and receive his grace by Christ the true star from Jacob, the Shiloh who has come, and to whom the people must be gathered. Inform them that by embracing this true seed of Abraham, you and multitudes of other gentiles, have become the children of the ancient patriarch; and now they must come back as your brothers in the Lord. Unfold to them their superlative line of the entail of the covenant; that "as touching this election, they are beloved for their fathers' sakes;" that they were for their sins excluded for this long period, until the fulness of the gentiles be come in, so all Israel shall be saved. God, thou nation highly distinguished in the last days; save the remnant of my people. -- Bring me a present of them "to the place of the name of the Lord of hosts, the Mount Zion." __________ Note. -- I have lately been informed that a Dr. M'Dounald has published something on this chapter similar to what I have written. What his ideas particularly are, I know not, as I have never been favoured with a sight of the book, nor seen any one who could give any particular account of his scheme. |
|
CONCLUSION. 1. It becomes us to be deeply affected with the excommunication of the ancient people of God. In the temporary rejection of those two branches of the Hebrew nation, the truth is solemnly enforced, that the God of Zion is a God of government; and that he will be known by the judgments that he executeth. The casting out of the ten tribes for their impious idolatries, is full of instruction. The wonders God had done for them, and all their privileges in the land of promise, could not save, when they rejected the stated place of his worship, and united in the abominations of the open enemies of God. They should be hurled from the promised land, and abandoned to a state of savage wretchedness, for two and a half millenaries. Their sin in those dark ages of the old dispensation was no trifle. Its consequence is held up as an awful warning to the world. It impresses the following language; "Know thou and see that it is an evil thing and bitter that thou hast forsaken the Lord." To that event people under evangelical privileges ought to turn their eye, and take the solemn warning. The God of Abraham is a God of judgment; while blessed are all they that put their trust in him. The judgments of Heaven on the Jews were still more dreadful. The Lord of that vineyard did indeed come in the day when they looked not for him, and in an hour when they were not aware; and did cut them asunder. He came and miserably destroyed those husbandmen, and burned up their cities, as he foretold. Upon their turning him off with hypocrisy and will-worship, and rejecting the Saviour, the denunciation, "Cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground?" was fulfilled with unprecedented decision. Let all rejectors of Christ, behold and tremble. The Jews were confident in a fancied security, to the last. But an impious confidence can never save. It is but a dead calm before a fatal catastrophe. Such presumptuous leaning upon the Lord, and saying, "Is not the Lord among us? no evil shall come upon us;" was so far from saving, that it was a sure precursor of perdition, and of the coming of wrath upon them to the uttermost. Let gospel rejectors beware. "Behold, ye despisers, and wonder, and perish." "Let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall." 2. How evident and rich is the entail of the covenant which will recover the two branches of the house of Israel! Truly they are "a nation of line, line;" (Isai. xviii. 2. in the Hebrew, and margin of the great Bible.) Though they be infidels, and rejected, and as touching the gospel are enemies for our sakes; yet as touching the election, (the entail of the covenant,) they are beloved for the fathers' sakes; Rom. xi. 28. -- This entail insures their ingrafting again into their own olive tree, which shall be as life from the dead to the nations. This is the infallible hold upon them, which shall finally recover them again to Palestine, and to the covenant of their God. It is upon this covenant-hold upon them, that the God of Abraham promises to take away their stony heart out of their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh; to sprinkle them with clean water, and to make them clean; to put his Spirit within them and cause them to walk in his statutes, and make them keep his judgments and do them; Ezek.xxxvi. 24-27. It is upon this entail, that God thus engages to bring them in under his new covenant, or the Christian dispensation; that their children shall be as aforetimes, and their congregations established before him; and "that all who see them acknowledge they are the seed which the Lord hath blessed;" "that they are the seed of the blessed of the Lord, and their offspring with them." It will then be understood, that though blindness in part had happened to Israel, it was that the gentiles might take their place, and only till the fulness of the gentiles be come in; and then all Israel shall be saved. The Jewish church will thence be a kind of capital and model of the Christian world; see Isai. lx. 1-5; and many other promises of the same tenor. The entail of the covenant may be expected thenceforth to have its proper and perfect effect in the fulfillment of such promises as the following, which relate to that period; "I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring; and they shall spring up as among the grass, as willows by the water courses;" Isai. xliv. 3, 4. "As for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the Lord. My Spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth and forever;" Isai. lix. 21. This will indeed bring a season of salvation to man. 3. On reading the prophetic scriptures relative to the restoration of the Hebrews, and the calls of Heaven to aid in the event; the question becomes interesting, What is the first to be done relative to this restoration? The first object, no doubt, must be, to christianize them, and wait the leadings of Providence relative to any further event. God will in due time, be (to all who are willing to wait on him) his own interpreter; and to such he will make the path of duty plain. In his own time and way, after his ancient people shall be duly instructed, and taught the Christian religion. God will open the door for the fulfilment of his designs relative to any local restoration; and will bring that part of them, whom he designs, to their ancient home. All the Jews did not return to Palestine from their seventy years captivity. Many chose to continue where they were planted in the east. Something of the same may be realized in the final restoration of Judah and Israel. God will take one of a family and two of a city, and will bring them to Zion! A proportion of that nation will in due time be offered, to return to the land of their fathers, where they may form a kind of centre or capital to the cause of Christ on earth. Relative to many particulars of the event, the holy oracles are not express. They have strongly marked the outlines or leading facts of the restoration; and the unrevealed particulars, the events of Providence must unfold. That great number will return, there seems not room to doubt. But the actual propostion to return, will doubtless be a free-will offering of those hearts God shall incline. The first duty must be to recover them to the visible kingdom of Christ. To this our prayers, alms, and all due exertions must be devoutly tend. [4.] Viewing the aborigines of America as the outcast tribes of Israel; an interesting view is given of some prophetic passages, which appear nearly connected with their restoration. In Isai. xl. 3, relative to this restoration of the ancient people of God, we read; "The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness; Prepare ye the way of the Lord; make straight in the desart a highway for our God." This received a primary and typical fulfillment in the ministry of John the Baptist, in the wilderness of Judea, to introduce Christ. Hence the passage was applied to him. But it was to receive its ultimate and most interesting fulfillment at a period connected with the commencement of the Millennium, when "the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together;" as the subsequent text decides. It is intimately connected with the restoration of the Hebrews; as appears in its context. "Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, (a name here put for all the Hebrew family, as it was their capital in the days of David and Solomon,) and cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned; for she hath received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins." Here is the final Hebrew restoration, after the time of their doubly long corrective rejection for their sins shall have expired. The voice in the wilderness then follows, as the great means of this restoration. A wilderness has justly been considered as a symbol of a region of moral darkness and spiritual death. It has been considered as a symbol of the heathen world; and it is a striking emblem of it. And the emblem receives strength from the consideration, that it is in a sense literally true. The voice, which restores Israel, is heard in the vast wilderness of America, a literal wilderness of thousands of miles, where the dry bones of the outcasts of Israel have for thousands of years been scattered. The voice crying in the wilderness has a special appropriation to these Hebrews. As it had a kind of literal fulfilment in the preaching of the forerunner John, for a short time in the wilderness of Judea; so it is to have a kind of literal fulfillment, upon a much greater scale, in the missions, which shall recover the ten tribes from the vast wilderness of America. Of the same period and event, the same evangelical prophet says, Isai. xxxv. 1. "The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose; it shall blossom abundantly and rejoice even with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it, and the excellency of Carmel and Sharon; they shall see the glory of the Lord and the excellency of our God." In such passages, while the prediction is to have its mystical and full accomplishment in the conversion of the heathen world to God, the prophetic eye evidently rested with signal pleasure, on a literal restoration of his long lost brethren, as involved in the event, and as furnishing the ground of the figure. They will be literally, and the fulness of the Gentiles mystically, restored and brought to Zion. As the wilderness of Judea in a small degree rejoiced and blossomed as the rose, when John the Baptist performed his ministry in it; so the wilderness and solitary place of our vast continent, containing the lost tribes of the house of Israel, will, on a most enlarged scale, rejoice and blossom as the rose, when the long lost tribes shall be found there, and shall be gathered to Zion. The event in relation to these ancient heirs of the covenant, stated in the last verse of this chapter, will then receive a signal fulfilment; "And the redeemed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." Upon this final restoration of his brethren, this prophet exalts in lofty strains. Several of the many of these strains shall be here inserted. Isai. xlix. :Listen O isles, unto me; (or ye lands away over the sea) hearken ye people from afar. I will make all my mountains a way; and my high way shall be exalted. Behold, these shall come from far; and lo, these from the north, and from the west; and these from the land of Sinim. -- Sing, O heavens; and be joyful, O earth; and break forth into singing, O mountains; for the Lord hath comforted his people, and will have mercy upon his afflicted." Such texts have a special allusion to the lost tribes of the house of Israel. And their being called over mountains, and over seas, from the west, and from afar, receives an emphasis from the consideration of their being gathered from the vast wilds of America. With the prophet Hosea, the rejection and recovery of the ten tribes are a great object. In chapter 2d, their rejection, and the cause of it, are stated, and also a promise of their return. God threatens to strip them naked, and "make them as a wilderness." "And I will visit upon her the days of Baalim, wherein she burned incense to them;" i. e. to Baalim, her false gods. The visiting upon her her idolatries, was to be done in her subsequent outcast state, in which God there says; "she is not my wife, neither am I her husband." But he says, v.14 -- "Therefore behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her. -- And I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope; and she shall sing there as in the days of her youth, and as in the days she came up out of the land of Egypt." Here is Israel's restoration; and it is from the wilderness, where long they had been planted during the period of their outcast state. In this wilderness God eventually speaks comfortably to them, and restores them, as he restored from Egypt. Here God gives them "the valley of Achor for a door of hope." The first encampment of the Hebrews in the valley of Achor, was to them a pledge in their eventual possession of the promised land, after the Lord had there turned from the fierceness of his wrath; Josh. vii. 26. Upon the same event God says; Isai. xlii. 19, 20; "Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. The beasts of the field shall honour me; the dragons and the owls; because I give water in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people, to my chosen." If such texts have a glorious, general, mystical fulfilment in the conversion of pagan lands; yet this does not preclude, but rather implies the fact, that the people whose restoration is in them particularly foretold, shall be recovered from a vast wilderness; and their conversion shall be almost like a conversion of dragons and owls of the desert. Rivers of knowledge and grace shall in such wilds be open for God's chosen. It will then truly be fulfilled that God in comforting Zion, will "make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord;" Isai. li. 3. Such passage will have a degree of both literal and mystical fulfilment. A signal beauty will then be discovered in such passages as the following; Isai. xli. 14. "Fear not, thou worm Jacob, and ye men of Israel; I will help thee, saith the Lord God, thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. I will open rivers in the high places, and fountains in the midst of vallies: I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water. I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the shittah tree, and the myrtle, and the olive tree; and I will set in the desert the fir tree, the pine, and the box tree together, that they may see and know and understand together, that the hand of the Lord hath done this, and the Holy One of Israel hath created it." The view given of the place of the long banishment of the ten tribes, gives a lustre to such predictions of their restoration. -- These will have a striking fulfilment in the vast wilds of our continent, when the glad tidings of salvation shall be carried to the natives of these extensive dreary forests and those regions of wretchedness and death shall become vocal with the high praises of God, sung by his ancient Israel. 5. If it be a fact that the native Americans are the tribes of Israel, new evidence is hence furnished of the divinity of our holy scriptures. A new field of evidence is here opened from a race of men, "outcast" from all civil society for a long course of centuries. Impressed on these wild tenants of the forest, (these children of nature, without books or letters, or any thing but savage tradition,) striking characters are found of the truth of ancient revelation. The intelligent vindicator of the word of God has never feared to meet the infidel on fair ground. His triumph has not been less certain than that of David against Goliah. But in the view taken of the natives of our continent, the believer will find additional arguments, in which to triumph. He will find more than "five smooth stones taken out of the brook," (1 Sam. xvi. 40,) each one of which is sufficient to sink into the head of an impious Goliah, challenging the God of Israel. Let the unbeliever in revelations undertake to answer the following questions. Whence have the greater part of the American natives been taught the being of one and only one God; when all other heathen nations have lost all such knowledge, and believe in many false gods? Whence have the Indians, or most of them, been kept from gross idolatry, which has covered the rest of the heathen world? and to which all men have been so prone? Whence have many of them been taught that the name of the one God, the Great Spirit above, is Yohewah, Ale, Yah, (Hebrew names of God,) who made all things, and to whom alone worship is due? Who taught any of them that God, at first, made one man from earth; formed him well; and breathed him into life? and that God made good and bad spirits; the latter of whom have a prince over them? Whence came the idea among these untutored savages, that Yohewah was once the covenant God of their nation; and the rest of the world were out of covenant with him, -- the accursed people? Whence their ideas that their ancestors once had the book of God; and then were happy; but that they lost it; and then became miserable; but that they will have this book again at some time? Whence their notion that their fathers once had the Spirit of God to work miracles, and to fortel future events? Who taught the untutored savage to have a temple of Yohewah; a holy of holies in it, into which no common people may enter or look? Who taught him a succession of high priests? that this priest must be inducted into office by purifications, and anointing? that he must appear in an appropriate habiliment, the form of which descended from their fathers of remote antiquity? Whence their custom of this priest's making a yearly atonement, in or near the holy apartment of their temple? Whence their three annual feasts, which well accord to the three great feasts in Israel? Whence came their peculiar feast, in which a bone of the sacrifice may not be broken; and all that is prepared must be eaten; or burned before the next morning sun? Whence a custom of their males appearing three times annually before God at the temple? Who taught wild savages of the desert to maintain places of refuge from the avenger of blood; "old, beloved, white towns?" Who taught them to keep and venerate a sacred ark, containing their most sacred things; to be borne against their enemies by one purified by strict rites? -- That no one but the sanctified keeper might look into this ark; and the enemy feeling the same reverence for it, as the friends? Whence came the deep and extensive impression among these savage tribes, that the hollow of the thigh of no animal may be eaten? Let the infidel inform how these savages (so long excluded from all intercourse with the religious or civilized world) came by the right of circumcision? and some idea of them an idea of a Jubilee? Whence their idea of an old divine speech; that they must imitate their virtuous ancestors, enforced by "flourishing upon a land flowing with milk and honey?" Whence their notion of the ancient flood? and of the longevity of the ancients? also of the confusion of the language of man at building a high place? evidently meaning the scene of Babel. How came these wild human herds of the desert by various Hebrew words and phrases; and such phrases as accord with no other language on earth? See the table furnished, page 90. Who taught them to sing, Halleluyah, Yohewah, Yah, Shilu Yohewah; and to make the sacred use they do of the syllables, which compose the names of God? singing them in their religious dances, and in their customs; thus ascribing all the praise to Yohewah? I ask not, who taught them the spirit of holiness of such religious forms? For probably they have little or no intelligent meaning. But whence have they brought down these traditional forms? How came their reckoning of time so well to accord with that of ancient Israel? Whence their tradition of twelve men, in preparing for a feast similar to the ancient feast of tabernacles; taking twelve poles, forming their booths; and their altar of twelve stones, on which no tool may pass; and here offering their twelve sacrifices? and some tribes preceding by the number ten instead of twelve? indicating their tradition of the twelve tribes; and their subsequent ten, after the revolt. Whence came their tradition of purifying themselves with bitter vegetables? also fasting, and purifying themselves when going to war?. Who taught them that at death their beloved people sleep, and go to their fathers? Whence their custom of washing and anointing their dead; and some of them of hiring mourners to bewail them; and of singing round the corpse (before they bury it) the syllables of Yah, Yohewah? How came they by their tradition answering to the ancient Jewish separations of women? -- also of a tradition taking their shoes from their feet, on solemn occasions? Whence were some of them taught in deep mourning to lay their hands on their mouth, and their mouth in the dust? And whence came their tradition of their ancient father with his twelve sons, ruling over others? and the mal-conduct of these twelve sons, till they lost their pre-eminence? Let it be remembered, it is not pretended that all the savages are in the practice of all these traditions. They are not. But it is contended that the whole of these things have been found among their different tribes in our continent, within a hundred years. A fragment of these Hebrew traditions has been found among one tribe; and another fragment among another; and some of the most striking of these traditions have been found among various and very distant tribes; as has appeared in the recital from various authors, traders and travellers. Let the unbeliever in revelation set himself to account for these events. No account can be given of them, but that they were derived from ancient revelation in Israel. And hence in the outcast state of the ten tribes of Israel, (in their huge valley of dry bones, in this vast new world.) we find presented a volume of new evidence of the divinity of the Old Testament; and hence of the New; for the latter rests on the former, as a building rests on its foundation. If the one is divine, the other is divine; for both form a perfect whole. We are assured by the chief apostle to the gentiles, that the restoration of the ancient people of God in the last days, when "all Israel shall be saved," shall be to the nations "as life from the dead;" Rom. xi. 15. Its new and demonstrative evidence of the glorious truth of revelation, will confound infidelity itself; and fill the world with light and glory. These Indian traditions may be viewed as beginning to exhibit to the world their quota of this new evidence. The earthquake, at the time of our Savior's giving up of the ghost, which rent the rocks, may be said thus to have opened many mouths (perhaps over the face of the earth) tacitly to proclaim the event. It may be said in figure; -- "The stones cried out!" (Luke xix. 40.) In our subject, we find a powerful corresponding evidence of the truth of revelation, extending through a wild continent, in savage traditions; which traditions must have been brought down from 725 years before the Christian era. The preservation of the Jews, as a distinct people, for eighteen centuries, has been justly viewed as a kind of standing miracle in support of the truth of revelation. But the arguments furnished from the preservation and traditions of the ten tribes, in the wilds of America from a much longer period, must be viewed as furnishing, if possible, a more commanding testimony. And it is precisely such evidence as must have been expected in the long outcast tribes of Israel, whenever they should come to light; and just such evidence as must rationally be expected to bring them to the knowledge of the civilized world. The evidence discovered among the various tribes of Indians, of the truth of their Hebrew extraction, and of the divinity of the Old Testament, seems almost like finding, in the various regions of the wilds of America, various scraps of an ancient Hebrew Old Testament; --one in one wild; another in another; inscribed on some durable substance in evident Hebrew language and character, though much defaced by the lapse of ages. Surely such an event, when attended with concomitant evidence that it could be no imposition, must silence the unbeliever in ancient revelation; and add a new and powerful item to the evidences already furnished upon so interesting a subject. The evidence, actually furnished in the traditions of the savages of America, suggest the suppositions just made; but are of a far more substantial character. It is contended that they furnish the very evidence, long desired, of the existence, and present state of the ten tribes of Israel. [blank] |
|
APPENDIX. The Rev. Dr. Morse, in his report of his tour among the Indians at the west, made under commission from our government, in 1820, to ascertain the actual state of the Indians in our country, says; "It is matter of surprise, that the Indians, situated as they have been for so many successive ages and generations, without books or knowledge of letters, or of the art of reading or writing, should have preserved their various languages in the manner they have done. Many of them are copious, capable of regular grammatical analysis, possess great strength, gracefulness, and beauty of expression. They are highly metaphorical in their character; and in this and other respects resemble the Hebrew. This resemblance in the language, and the similarity of many of their religious customs, &c. to those of the Jews, certainly give plausibility to the ingenious theory of Dr. Boudinot, exhibited in his interesting work, entitled "Star in the West." A faithful and thorough examination of the various languages of the Indian tribes, would probably show that there are very few of them that are throughout radically different. -- The differences of these languages are mostly differences of dialect." The various Indian tribes, visited by Dr. Morse, had their Great Spirit. Speaking of the manners and customs of the Sauks, Fox tribe, Pattowattamies, and others, he says;"Other feasts to the Great Spirit are frequently made by these Indians." Of one of these feasts, he says;"They seat themselves in a circle on the ground; -- when one of the guests places before each person a wooden bowl with his portion of the feast, and they commence eating. When each man's portion is eaten, the bones are collected, and put into a wooden bowl, and thrown into the river, or burnt. The whole of the feast must be eaten. If any one cannot eat his part of it, he passes his dish, with a piece of tobacco to his neighbour, and he eats it; and the guests then retire. Those who make the feast never eat any part of it themselves. They say they give their part of it to the Great Spirit." Here seems manifestly the same feast noted by other authors among other and different tribes in the different parts of the continent, and probably answering to the passover in ancient Israel. The different and distant tribes have their circumstantial differences; while yet certain things indicate that the feast is a broken tradition of the passover. Another tradition from a Hebrew rite the Doctor states. He says; "The women of these nations are very particular to remove from their lodges to one erected for that particular purpose, at such a seasons as were customarily observed by Jewish women, according to the law of Moses. No article of furniture ever used in this lodge, is ever used in any other; not even the steel and flint with which they strike fire. No man approaches this lodge, while a woman occupies it." The existence of this extensive Indian rite is fully ascertained. And of its origin there appears but very little room to doubt. This writer says;"The belief of these Indians relative to their creation is not very unlike our own. Masco, one of the chiefs of the Sauks, informed me that they believed that the Great Spirit in the first place created from the dust of the earth two men; but finding that these alone would not answer his purpose, he took from each man a rib, and made two women." Of the descendants of these two pair, they say, "that they were all one nation, until they behaved so badly, that the Great Spirit came among them, and talked different languages to them; which caused them to separate and form different nations." Here are manifest broken fragments of Moses' history of creation, and of the confusion of language at Babel. "I asked (says Dr. M.) how they supposed white men were made? He replied that Indians supposed the Great Spirit made them of the fine dust of the earth, as they know more than Indians." Dr. M. gives an account of their holding to a future state; and to some kinds of reward for the good, and of punishments for the wicked. He informs from a Major Cummings, that the Indians are very suspicious of some evil intent, when questioned by the Americans; and that there is no way to obtain a full knowledge of their traditions and ways, but by a long residence in their country. This may account for the fact that their traditions (which seem manifestly Hebrew) were kept so long and to so great a degree from the knowledge of our people. Relative to their manner of transacting public business. they informed Dr. M.; "We open our council by smoking a pipe selected for the occasion; and we address the audience through a speaker chosen for the purpose; first invoking the Great Spirit to inspire us with wisdom. We open our council in the name of the Great Spirit, and close with the same." He informs that the Indians "before attending on treaties, great councils, or any other important national business, always sacrifice in order to obtain the good will of the Great Spirit. And adds; "There are no people more frequent or fervent in their aknowledgements of gratitude to God. Their belief in him is universal; and their confidence astonishingly strong. Speaking of their feasts he says; "The principal festival is celebrated in the month of August; sooner or later, as the forwardness of the corn will admit. It is called the Green Corn Dance; or more properly speaking, the ceremony of thanksgiving for the first fruits of the earth." The question continually recurs, whence came things like these among the natives of our continent, or the American savages, unless these savages are the very tribes of Israel? No evidence is furnished that such a variety of Hebrew rites is found among any other people on earth, except the Jews. And it seems morally impossible they should have derived them from any other source than the ancient Hebrew religion. Mr. Schoolcraft, a member of the New-York Historical Society, (in his journals of travels among the western Indians, round and beyond the western lakes, and to the mouth of the Mississippi, in 1820.) gives some accounts, which confirm some of the Indian traditions already exhibited. He speaks of attending a feast among the Sioux Indians; a feast of the first green corn. He says; "Our attention was now drawn off by sound of Indian music which proceeded from another large cabin at no great distance; but we found the doors closed, and were informed that they were celebrating an annual feast, at which only certain persons in the village were allowed to be present; and that it was not customary to admit strangers. Our curiosity being excited, we applied to the governor, Cass, to intercede for us; and were by that means admitted. The first striking object presented was, two large kettles full of green corn, cut from the cob and boiled. They hung over a moderate fire in the midst of the cabin; and the Indians, both men and women, were seated in a large circle around them. They were singing a doleful song in a savage manner. The utmost solemnity was depicted upon every countenance. When the music ceased, as it frequently did for a few seconds, there was a full and mysterious pause, during which certain pantomimic signs were made; and it appeared as if they pretended to hold communion with invisible spirits. Suddenly the music struck up -- but as we did not understand their language, it is impossible to say what they uttered, or to whom their supplications or responses were addressed. When the ceremony ceased, one of the older Indians divided out all the boiled corn into separated dishes for as many heads of families as there were present, putting an equal number of ladles full into each dish. -- Then while the music continued, they one by one took up their dishes, and retiring from the cabin by a backward step, so that they still faced the kettles, they separated to their respective lodges; and thus the ceremony ceased." This writer says, "The Indians believed in the existence of a great invisible Spirit, who resides in the regions of the clouds, and by means of inferior spirits throughout every part of the earth." Their word for spirit, is manito, which he observes, "from the Arkansaw to the sources of the Mississippi; and according to M'Kenzie, throughout the arctic regions." This word, Mr. S. remarks, with many others, strengthens the opinion "of which (he says) there appears ample grounds, that the erratic tribes of the north-western region, and of the vallies of the Mississippi are all descended from one stock, which is presumed to have progressed from the north toward the south, scattering into different tribes, and falling from the purity of a language, which may originally have been rich and copious." Here is good testimony to some of the points, adduced in this work, viz. that all the Indians are from one origin; all originally of one language; all from the north- west, the straits of Beering, leading from the north-east of Asia to the north-west of America. These Indians, Mr. S. informs, "have their good and bad minitoes," or spirits. The Old Testament informs of holy and of fallen angels. Mr. S. speaks of the best authors allowing that great corruptions have crept into the Indian language; and that the remarks of some upon the supposed poverty of the language of these Americans, are very incorrect. He speaks of some of the Indians as looking to the people of our state for aid, and says, a council which (meaning the United States) are a great people. Can it be possible they will allow us to suffer?" The Rev.Lemuel Haynes informs that about 60 years ago, he was living in Granville, Mass. A minister by the name of Ashley, called on an old deacon, with whom he was living, being on his way from a mission among the Indians in the west, where he had been a considerable time. Mr. Ashley stated his confident belief that the Indians were the Israelites; for he said there were many things in their manners and customs, which were like those of ancient Israel. Various of these he stated. Mr. Haynes being then a boy, does not now recollect them. But the people he mentions as being impressed with the accounts; and the good old deacon long spake of them with much interest. A brother minister informs me that his father was a lieutenant in the revolutionary war, and was long among the Indians; and that he became a firm believer that the Indians were the ten tribes of Israel from their traditions and rites; various of which he used to state; but which the minister does not now remember. The most important evidence in relation to the Indians beinf the descendants of Israel, the reader will perceive, is James Adair, Esqr. Recollect he had lived among them as an intelligent trader, 40 years. -- That his character was well established; and his accounts well authenticated by collateral evidence, by a gentleman, member of congress, who had resided a number of years as an agent of our government among those Indians where Mr. Adair resided. Dr. Boudinot assures us that he examined this congress member, without letting him know his design; and that from him, he found all the leading facts mentioned in Mr. Adair's history fully confirmed from his own personal knowledge. [See page 83d of this book.] I think it therefore desirable, that the reader should see more fully Mr. Adair's arguments, as found in his book; and a few additional extracts from his work in support of them. He states his sentiment on the subject thus: "From the most exact observation that I could make in the long time I traded among the Indian Americans, I was forced to believe them lineally descended from the Israelites." He argues that those of the ten tribes from whom the American Indians descended must soon have removed from that part of Assyria, where they were lodged, and probably reached this continent previous to the Babylonian captivity of the Jews. His arguments that the natives of this continent are of the ten tribes are as follows. 1. Their division into tribes. 2. Their worship of Jehovah. 3. Their notion of a theocracy. 4. Their belief in the ministration of angels. 5. Their language and dialects. 6. Their manner of counting time. 7. Their prophets and high priests. 8. Their festivals, fasts, and religious rites. 9. Their daily sacrifice. 10. Their ablutions and anointings. 11. Their laws of uncleanness. 12. Their abstinence from unclean things. 13. Their marriages, divorces and punishments of adultery. 14. Their several punishments. 15. Their cities of refuge. 16. Their purifications and preparatory ceremonies. 17. Their ornaments. 18. Their manner of curing the sick. 19. Their burial of their dead. 20. Their mourning for their dead. 21. Their raising seed to a deceased brother. 22. Their change of names adapted to their circumstances and times. 23. Their own traditions; the accounts of English writers; and the testimonies given by Spanish and other writers of the primitive inhabitants of Mexico and Peru. Some of his illustrations of these arguments will be subjoined in his own words. Under the 1st argument. "As the nation hath its particular symbol, so each tribe, the badge from which it is denominated. The sachem of each tribe is a necessary party in conveyances. and treaties, to which he affixes the mark of his tribe. If we go from nation to nation among them, we shall not find one, who doth not lineally distinguish himself by his respective family. The genealogical names, which they assume, are derived either from the name of those animals, whereof the cherubims are said in revelation to be compounded, or from such creatures as are most familiar to them. The Indians, however, bear no religious respect to the animals from whence they derive their names. On the contrary, they kill them when opportunity serves. When we consider that these savages have been above twenty centuries without the use of letters to carry down their traditions, it cannot reasonably be expected that they should still retain the identical names of their primogenial tribes. Their main customs corresponding with those of the Israelites, sufficiently clears the subject. Besides, as hath been hinted, they call some of their tribes by the names of cherubinical figures that were carried on the four principal standards of Israel." His illustrations of the second argument, blended with those of many others, have been sufficiently given in the third chapter of this work. Under the 3d argument, he says: "Agreeably to the theocracy or divine government of Israel, the Indians think the Deity to be the immediate head of their state. All the nations of Indians are exceedingly intoxicated with religious pride, and have an inexpressible contempt of the white people. * They used to call us in their war orations, the accursed people. But they flatter themselves with the name of the beloved people; because their supposed ancestors, as they affirm, were under the immediate government of the Deity, who was present with them in a very peculiar manner, and directed them by prophets, while the rest of the world were aliens and outlaws to the covenant. -- When the old Archimagus, or any one of their magi, is persuading the people at any one of their religious solemnities to a strict observance of the old beloved or divine speech, he always calls them the beloved or holy people, agreeably to the Hebrew epithet, Ammi (my people) during the theocracy of Israel. -- It is their opinion of the theocracy, that God chose them out of all the rest of mankind as his peculiar and beloved people; which alike animates both the white Jew and the red American with that steady __________ * Within 20 years this trait of Indian character is much meliorated. hatred against all the world except themselves; and renders them (in their opinion) hated and despised by all." His illustrations of the 4th and 5th arguments have been given with those of other authors. Under the 6th argument he says: "They count time after the manner of the Hebrews. They divide the year into spring, summer, autumn, and winter. They number their year from any of those four periods, for they have no name for a year, and they subdivide these, and count the year by lunar months, like the Israelites, who counted by moons. The number and regular periods of the Indians' religious feasts is a good historical proof (Mr. Adair adds) that they counted time by, and observed, a weekly Sabbath long after their arrival on the American continent. They begin a year at the first appearance of the first new moon of the vernal equinox, according to the ecclesiastical year of Moses. Till the 70 years captivity, the Israelites had only numeral names for the solar and lunar months, except Abib and Ethamin; the former signifying a green ear of corn; and the latter robust or valiant. And by the first of these, the Indians (as an explicative) term their passover, which the trading people call the green corn dance." Mr. Adair then proceeds to show more fully the similarity between the ancient Israelites and the Indians in their counting time, as has been noted. Under the 7th agreement he says: "In conformity to, or after the manner of the Jews, the Indian Americans have their prophets, high priests, and others of a religious order. As the Jews had a sanctum sanctorum, (holy of holies) so have all the Indian nations. There they deposit their consecrated vessels; -- none of the laity daring to approach that sacred place. The Indian tradition says, that their fathers were possessed of an extraordinary divine spirit, by which they foretold things future, and controlled the common course of nature: and this they transmitted to their offspring, provided they obeyed the sacred laws annexed to it. Ishtoallo, (Mr. Adair says of those Indians) is the name of all their priestly order: and their pontifical office descends by inheritance to the eldest. There are some traces of agreement, though chiefly lost, in their pontifical dress. Before the Indian Archimagus officiates in making the supposed holy fire for the yearly atonement for sin, the sagan (waiter of the high priest) clothes him with a white ephod, which is a waistcoat without sleeves. In resemblance of the Urim and Thummim, the American Archimagus wears a breast plate made of a white conch-shell with two holes bored in the middle of it, through which he puts the ends of an otter skin strap, and fastens a buck horn white button to the outside of each, as if in imitation of the precious stones of the Urim." In this statement Mr. Adair exhibits evidence of which himself seems unconscious. He says the general name of all their priestly order is Ishtoallo. And the name of the high priest's waiter is Sagan. Mr. Faber (remarking upon this) thinks the former word is a corruption of Ish-da-eloah, a man of God; see original of 2 Kings, iv. 21, 22, 25, 27, 40, and other places. And of the latter word he says, "Sagan is the very name by which the Hebrews called the deputy of the high priest, who supplied his office, and who performed the functions of it in the absence of the high priest. See Calmet's Dict. vox Sagan." Here then is evidence to our purpose, that those Indians should call their order of priests, and the high priest's waiter, by those ancient Hebrew names of a man of God, and a deputy of the high priest. How could these events have occurred, had not those natives been Hebrew, and brought down these names by Hebrew tradition? Under the 8th argument Mr. Adair says; "The ceremonies of the Indians in their religious worship are more after the Mosaic institutions, than of pagan imitation; which could not be, if the majority of the old nation were of heathenish descent. They are utter strangers to all the gestures practised by the pagans in their religious rites. They have another appellative which with them is the mysterious essential name of God; the tetragrammaton, or great four lettered name, which they never name in common speech. Of the time and place when and where they mention it, they are very particular, and always with a solemn air. It is well known what sacred regard the Jews had to the four lettered divine name, so as scarcely ever to mention it, but once a year, when the high priest went into the sanctuary at the expiation of sins. Might not the Indians copy from them this sacred invocation, Yo-he- wah? Their method of invoking God in a solemn hymn with that reverend deportment, and spending a full breath on each of the two first syllables of the awful divine name, hath a surprising analogy to the Jewish custom, and such as no other nation or people, even with the advantage of written records, have retained. It may be worthy of notice that they never prostrate themselves, nor bow their bodies to each other by way of salute or homage, though usual with the eastern nations; except when they are making or renewing peace with strangers, who come in the name of Yah," Mr. Adair proceeds to speak of the sacred adjuration of the Indians by the great and awful name of God; the question being asked, and the answer given. Yah, with a profound reverence in a bowing posture of body immediately before the invocation of Yo-he-wah; this he considers to be Hebrew, adjuring their witnesses to give true evidence. He says, "It seems exactly to coincide with the conduct of the Hebrew witnesses even now on like occasions." Mr. Adair's other illustration under this agreement, in various feasts, fastings, their ark, and their ever refusing to eat the hollow of the thigh of their game, have been sufficiently given, in connexion with the testimonies of others to the same points. Enough has also been exhibited under the 9th, 10th and 11th arguments. Under the 12th he says; "Eagles of every kind they esteem unclean food; likewise ravens, crows, bats, buzzards, swallows, and every species of owl." This he considers as precisely Hebrew; as also their purifications of their priests; and purification for having touched a dead body, or any other unclean thing. Under most of his subsequent arguments the quotations before given have been sufficient. Under the 16th he says; "Before the Indians go to war, they have many preparatory ceremonies of purification and fasting like what is recorded of the Israelites." Under the 21st he says; "The surviving brother by the Mosaic law was to raise seed to a deceased brother, who left a widow childless. The Indian custom looks the same way." Under the last argument he says; "The Indian tradition says that their forefathers in very remote ages came from a far distant country, where all the people were of one colour; and that in process of time they removed eastward to their present settlements." He notes and confutes some idle fabulous stories which he says "sprung from the innovating superstitious ignorance of the popish priests to the southwest;" and speaks of the Indian tradition as being altogether more to be depended on. He says, "They, (the rambling tribes of northern Indians excepted,) aver that they came over the Mississippi from the westward, before they arrived at their present settlements. This we see verified in the western old towns they have left behind them, and by the situation if their old beloved towns or places of refuge lying about a west course from each different nation." "Ancient history (he adds) is quite silent concerning America, which indicates that it has been time immemorial rent asunder from the eastern continent. The north-east parts of Asia were also undiscovered till of late. Many geographers have stretched Asia and America so far as to join them together; and others have divided them into two quarters of the globe. But the Russians, after several dangerous attempts, have clearly convinced the world that they are now divided, and yet have a near communication together by a narrow strait in which several islands are situated, and through which there is an easy passage from the north-east of Asia to the north-west of America. By this passage, it was very practicable to go to this new world, and afterward to have proceeded in quest of suitable climates. Those who dissent from my opinion of the Indian American origin, (he adds) ought to inform us how the natives came here, and by what means they found the long chain of rites and customs so similar to the usage of the Hebrew nation, and in general dissimilar to the modes of the pagan world. Their religious rites, marital customs, dress, music, dances and domestic forms of life, seem clearly to evince also, that they came to America in early times before sects had sprung up among the Jews; which was soon after their prophets ceased; also before arts and sciences had arrived at any perfection. Otherwise it is likely they would have retained some knowledge of them." We learn in Dr. Robertson's history of America, that the Mexicans had their tradition that "Their ancestors came from a remote country situated to the north-west of Mexico. The Mexicans (he says) point out their various stations as they advanced from this into the interior provinces; and it is precisely the same rout which they must have held, if they had been emigrants from Asia." * Mr. Adair says that though some have supposed the Americans to be descendants from the Chinese; yet neither their religion, laws, or customs agree in the least with those of the Chinese, which sufficiently proves that they are not of this line. And he says the remaining traces of their religious ceremonies, and civil and martial customs, are different from those of the old Scythians. He thinks, therefore, that the old opinion that the Indians are descended from the Tartars or ancient Scythians, should be exploded as weak and without foundation. Those who have advocated the affirmative have not been able to produce much, if any evidence, that any of the religious rites found among the Indians, and resembling those of ancient Israel, have ever been found among any people in the east of Asia. Such a thing cannot be expected. Those rites were arbitrary, established only in Israel; and designed to distinguish them from all other nations. It is utterly inadmissible then, to suppose these Indian rites may be accounted for, from an idea that the Indians may have learned them from other heathen nations. With very similar propriety might the unbeliever in divine revelation say that the Jews and ancient Israel derived their religion, not from God, as the bible purports, but from heathen nations, __________ * B. 4, page 41-2-3. who at the time might, for aught we know, have had just such religious customs. If the aborigines derived these rites and customs from ancient Asiatic heathen; why have not some of them, and disseminated them through some other parts of the world, besides the vast wilds of North and South America? Capt. Carver is able to find that some of the people north-east of Asia once presented to some of the Russians their pipe of peace. The people of Israel, as they passed by that people in ancient days may have caught this custom from them; as none pretend this was a Hebrew rite. Or those few people thus noted in Asia may have caught this custom from the Indians over the Beering's Straits. But this is nothing, compared with the many Hebrew rites found among the natives of America. Captain Carver, who travelled five thousand miles among the Indians of North America, states some customs observed by some of them in relation to marriage and divorce, which seems much like those of ancient Israel. He says; "When one of their young men has fixed on a young woman he approves of, he discovers his passion to her parents, who give him an invitation to come and live with them in their tent. He accepts the offer, and engages to reside in it for a whole year in the character of a menial servant. This however is done only while they are young men, and for their first wife; and not repeated like Jacob's servitude. When this period is expired, the marriage is solemnized." "When any dislike (he adds) a separation takes place, for they are seldom know to quarrel, they generally give their friends a few days notice of their intention, and some times offer reasons to justify their conduct." Some little ceremonies follow; and he says, "The separation is carried on without any murmurings, or ill will between the couple or their relations." Probably no other nations has such a resemblance in this respect to ancient Israel. Capt. Carver says of the Indians "wholly unadulterated with the superstitions of the church of Rome;" "It is certain they acknowledge one Supreme Being, or giver of life, who presides over all things -- the Great Spirit; and they look up to him as the source of good -- who is infinitely good. They also believe in a bad spirit, to whom they ascribe great power. They hold also, that there are good spirits of a less degree, who have their particular departments, in which they are constantly contributing to the happiness of mortals." -- "The priests of the Indians (he adds) who are at the same time their physicians -- while they heal their wounds, or cure their diseases, they interpret their dreams, and satisfy their desires of searching into futurity." But Capt. Carver unites with other authors on the subject, in speaking of the difficulty of strangers among them obtaining much knowledge of their religious rites. He says; "It is very difficult to attain a perfect knowledge of the religious principles of the Indians. They endeavor to conceal them." It is no wonder then, that Capt. Carver, passing by them on a tour upwards of five thousand miles, discovered but few of these many rites resembling the religion of ancient Israel, stated by Mr. Adair. He says there was "one particular female custom" bearing resemblance to the rites in the Mosaic law; alluding to the well known Indian separation of women. Speaking of their "religious principles," which he says are "few and simple," he adds, "they (the Indians) have not deviated, as many other uncivilized nations, and too many civilized ones have done, into idolatrous modes of worship." -- "On the appearance of the new moon they dance and sing; but it is not evident that they pay that planet any adoration." Here then, according to this author, is their one God, infinitely good, the giver of life, and of all good, presiding over all, who is the only object of worship; though they sometimes beg of the evil spirit to avert their calamities, which in their opinion, he brings. Here are their good angels, ministering to the good; here their priests; and a "particular female custom" inexplicable unless by the Mosaic law. Here is their firm adherence to their "few simple doctrines," or rites, less deviating to idolatry than other uncivilized, and even many civilized nations. These facts are far from being destitute of then favourable bearing on our subject. -- How should such things be true of these savages, were they not the descendants of ancient Israel? It was observed in page 88 of this book, that the Esquimaux natives and people round Hudson's Bay appear a different race from the American Indians, and may have come from the north of Europe. Capt. Carver notes an ascertain from Grotius, that "some of the Norwegians passed into America by way of Greenland." He also notes that De Laet gives "the following passage from the history of Wales, written by David Powel, in the year 1170. This history says, that Madoc, one of the sons of prince Owen Gwyanith, being disgusted at the civil wars which broke out between his brothers, fitted out several vessels, and went in quest of new lands to the westward of Ireland." And he goes on to speak of their planting a colony there. Here may be the origin of the people of Greenland, Iceland, and round Hudson's Bay. But it gives no satisfactory account of the origin of the numerous Indian tribes of America. Let us look at the natives in an extreme part of South America, and see if they exhibit any evidence similar to what has been adduced of the natives of North America. Don Alonzo de Ericilla, in his history of Chili, says of the natives there; "The religious system of the Araucanians is simple. They acknowledge a Supreme Being, the author of all things, whom they call Pillan, a word derived from Pulli, or Pilli, the soul; and signifies theSupreme Essence. They call him also, Guenu-pillan; the Spirit of Heaven; Bulagen, the Great Being; Thalcove, the Thunderer; Vilvemvoe, the Omnipotent; Mollgelu, the Eternal; and Avnolu, the Infinite." He adds; "The universal government of Pillan, (his Supreme Essence, is a prototype of the Araucanian polity. He is the great Toqui of the invisible world." He goes on to speak of his having subordinate invisible beings under him, to whom he commits the administration of affairs of less importance. These, this author sees fit to call "subaltern divinities." We may believe they are a traditional notion of angels, good and bad; such as is held by the Indians of North America. This author says of this people; "They all agreed in the belief of the immortality of the soul. This consolatory truth is deeply rooted, and in a manner innate with them. -- They hold that man is composed of two substances essentially different; the corruptible body and the soul, incorporeal and eternal." Of their funerals, he says; "Their bier is carried by the principal relations, and is surrounded by women who bewail the deceased in the manner of the head mourners among the Romans." He also says; "They have among them a tradition of a great deluge, in which only a few persons were saved, who took refuge on a high mountain called Thegtheg, which possessed the property of moving on the water." Here then it seems the remote natives of Chili (a region 1260 miles south of Peru, in South America,) furnish their quota of evidence that they originated in the same family with the North American Indians, and hold some of their essential traditions. Whence could arise the tradition of those natives, of one "Supreme Being, author of all things?" That he is the "Supreme Being; the Spirit of Heaven; The Thunderer; the Omnipotent; the Eternal; the Infinite?" Whence their tradition of the flood, and of several persons being saved on a floating mountain, meaning no doubt the ark? Whence their ideas so correct of man's immortal soul? This author says of those native Chilians, "Many suppose that they are indigenous to the country; while others suppose they derive their origin from a foreign stock, and at one time say, that their ancestors came from the north, and at another time from the west." Their better informed or wise men, it seems retain some impressions of their original emigration from a foreign land, and from the north-west, of Beering's Straits. It is possible to give a satisfactory account of such traditions among those native Indians of Chili, short of their having received from them from the Hebrew sacred Scriptures? And if from thence, surely they must be Hebrew. In Long's expedition to the Rocky Mountains, we learn that the Omawhaw tribe of Indians (who inhabit the west side of the Missouri River, fifty miles above Engineer Cantonment,) believe in one God. They call him Wahconda; and believe him to be the greatest and best of beings; the Creator and Preserver of all things; the Fountain of mystic medicine. Omniscience, omnipresence, and vast power are attributed to him. And he is supposed to afflict them with sickness, poverty, or misfortune, for their evil deeds. In conversation he is frequently appealed to as an evidence of the truth of their asservations -- "Wahconda hears what I say." These Indians have many wild pagan notions of this one God. But they have brought down by tradition, it seems, the above essentially correct view of him, in opposition to the polytheistical world. Their name of God is remarkable -- Wahconda. It has been shown in the body of this work, that various of the Indians call God Yohewah, Ale, Yah, and Wah , doubtless from the Hebrew names Jehovah. Ale, and Jah. And it has been shown that these syllables which compose the name of God, are compounded in many Indian words, or form the roots from which they are formed. Here we find the fact; while the author from whom the account is taken, it is presumed, had no perception of any such thing. Wah-conda; the last syllable of the Indian Yohewah, compounded with conda. -- Or Jah, Wah, their monosyllable name of God thus compounded. Here is evidence among those children of the desert, both as to the nature and the name of their one God, corresponding with what has been exhibited of other tribes; and very unaccountable, if they are not of the lost tribes of Israel. A religious custom, related by Mr. Long goes to corroborate the opinion that these people are of Israel. He relates that from the age of between five and ten years, their little sons are obliged to ascend a hill fasting, once or twice a week during the months of March and April, to pray aloud to Wahconda. When the season of the year arrives, the mother informs the little son, that the "ice is breaking up in the river; the ducks and geese are migrating, and it is time for you to prepare to go in clay." The little worshipper then rubs himself over with whitish clay, and at sun rise sets off for the top of a hill, instructed by the mother what to say to the Master of Life. From this elevated position he cries aloud to Wahconda, humming a melancholy tune, and calling on him to have pity on him, and make him a great hunter, warrior, &c. This has more the appearance of descending from Hebrew tradition, than from any other nation on earth; teaching their children to fast in clay, as "in dust and ashes;" and to cry to Jah for pity and protection. Such are the shreds of evidence furnished, one here and another there, through the wilds of America, suggesting what is the most profitable, if not evident origin, of the natives of this continent. In the Percy Anecdotes, we have an account that the Shawano Indians in an excursion captured the Indian warrior called Old Scranny, of the Muskhoge tribe, and condemned him to a fiery torture. He told them the occasion of his falling into their hands was, he had "forfeited the protection of the Divine Power by some impurity or other, when carrying the holy ark of war against his devoted enemy. Here he recognized the one God, his providence speaks of his holy ark borne against enemies, alludes to the purity of those who bear it, and if they become impure, the Divine Being will forsake them. The bearing which ideas like these have on our subject, needs no explanation. |
Return to top of the page
Return to: Oliver Cowdery's Writings | Oliver Cowdery Home Page
last revised Nov. 3, 2005