Page:The future of Africa.djvu/162

156 commerce Or enlightenment; and then they worshipped dumb idols, and bowed down in fear and awe to graven images. Christianity was introduced among them a few centuries since, and the night of ancestral darkness departed; and it is a fact that this idea, that is, of the oneness and essential spirituality of the Divine Being, has been unfolding and developing itself: that has caused their rise, gradually, and in proportion as they received it with more and more clearness and distinctness, to their present commanding power and influence in the world: for as Pagans they could never have originated nor retained commerce and civilization.

But perhaps some one here will want to know whether these principles pertain to those ancient States, whose names are associated with so much grandeur and magnificence. There were Nineveh, and Babylon, and Egypt, among the first empires of the world. lie may ask, "Was it the idea of God which carried them up to the height of their glory?" This, without doubt, was the case. When our first parents left their Paradisiacal home they carried with them, though tarnished, those pristine ideas of God and His attributes, which had been their crown and glory in Eden. And there is evidence in the Bible and in profane history, that the enlightenment of our first parents was transmitted, for centuries, to their descendants; and was the cause of all that wondrous refinement and civilization, the fragments of which have been disentombed from the sands,—the obelisks and the pyramids of Egvpt; and the monuments are now being dug up from beneath the banks of