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Rh unimportant tribes. Our ideas seem to have been likewise limited, extending but little beyond the principles of the Mosaic religion, which had been promulgated about fifteen hundred years before.

"I am informed that the accusation against Jesus was written over him as he hung upon the cross, in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. Whence came these dialects? When the prophets closed their writings (which was nearly five hundred years ago), the Greek was scarcely a written language, confined to a small part of Europe, and Rome, from which the Latin language came, was a straggling village on the banks of the Tiber. During this whole period, in which nations and monarchies were born, flourished, and decayed (showing clearly a providential preparation), the intermingling of the various languages indicates preparation for some great event, and to my mind makes the juncture most opportune for the introduction of a universal religion. That is, if I understand it aright, God has arranged the position and the existence of the several nations of the earth in such a manner as to promote the recognition, the establishment, and the propagation of true religion, the knowledge and worship of the true God.

"Whatever knowledge may have been imparted to our ancestors, or however long it may have lasted, certain it is that at the time of Abraham the nations generally had fallen into idolatry. To him God was pleased to make himself known, and to promise that of him He would make a great nation, and in him and his seed all the nations of the earth should be