Page:Studies in the Scriptures - Series I - The Plan of the Ages (1909).djvu/366

 6 A Critidsw, of Millennial Hopes Examined.

We now reach the time of wars and must reckon the increase of population more slowly than during the pastoral period. Proceeding, we group the nest sis centuries to- gether and remember that the Israelites in Canaan were some eighteen times in bondage to their enemies during this period, and that a census taken near the close of David's reign by Joab showed the numbers competent to serve ia the army to be 1,300,000; the entire population of Palestine, therefore, at that time cannot have been much, if any, above 5,000,000. The same warfaring spirit affected other nations and similarly hindered rapid propagation; hence our estimate is that the race doubled during those six centuries, which would show a population in Solomon's time of over 37,000,000 throughout the world again, a very liberal estimate according to all reliable information at our command, probably double the actual number.

We group the next twelve centuries together, concluding that the race doubled during those twelve centuries. To some this may appear too slow a ratio of increase, but we should consider the immense wars of that period, during which Assyria went down and Babylon rose and conquered the whole world, destroying many nations entirely; and that it subsequently fell before the Hedes and Persians, who also shed blood in a wholesale manner, and who in turn fell before the Greeks; and that the latter, under Alexander the Great, conquered and dominated the world, but in turn fell before the Romans; and that these, at a cost of thousands upon thousands in the prime of life, did their share also in staying the rapid propagation of the race. These figures would give a world population of 82,000,000 in the time of Nebuchad- at the time when the Roman Empire was at its zenith its boundaries extending over Europe, Africa and a considerable portion of Asia. The historian estimates the population of the Roman world then at 50,000,000, and our estimate dhows a surplus therefore of 63,000,000 for the known and unknown portions of the earth at that time again, evidently, a very liberal reckoning. {Rwnd numbers are given as estimates. EvtnU wtmtd $at not occur at exact cksing *f centuries. )

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