Having established the identity of Ahasuerus with Xerxes, he proceeds to shew that the palace mentioned in Scripture is in all likelihood that among whose ruins he had been digging.

"It was from Shushan or Susa that the same monarch, under the Greek name of Xerxes, set out on his ill-fated expedition for the subjugation of Greece; and it was here that on his return he deposited the immense treasures obtained from the plunder of the temple at Delphi, and the city of Athens.

"There is another point which gives extreme interest to this inscription. I have elsewhere quoted valuable authority as to the identity of Ahasuerus, the husband of Esther, with the Xerxes of Greek authors. If this be admitted, we cannot but regard the edifice in question as the actual building referred to in the following verses of Scripture:-The king made a feast unto all the people that were present in Shushan the palace, both unto great and small, seven days in the court of the garden of the king's palace; where were white, green, and blue hangings fastened with cords of fine linen and purple to silver rings and pillars of marble, the beds were of gold and silver, upon a pavement of red, and blue, and white, and black marble' (Esth. i. 5, 6). It was here, among the pillars of marble in the court of the garden in Shushan the palace, when the heart of the king was merry with wine,' that the order was given for queen Vashti to overstep the bounds of Oriental female modesty and shew the people and the princes her beauty.'

"By referring to the plan of the ruins, it will be observed that the position of the great colonnade exactly corresponds with the account above given. It stands on an elevation in the centre of the mound, the remainder of which we may well imagine to have been occupied, after the Persian fashion, with a garden and fountains. Thus the colonnade would represent the court of the garden of the king's palace,' with its pillars of marble.' I am even inclined to believe that the expression Shushan the palace' applies especially to this portion of the existing ruins in contradistinction to the citadel and the city of Shushan."

Among these ruins have been dug up cups and jugs of all kinds; and as these drinking vessels are referred to both in Daniel and Esther, we give the following illustration :

:

"Close to the foot of each coffin are one or more large glazed water-jugs and earthen drinking cups of the most artistic form. One of these, the tall central jug of the engraving, was found in a recess built for its reception in the side wall of a vault, within arm's length of the coffin. The bones of a fowl, with flint and steel, were also frequently deposited upon the lid. The

mentioning that aspect of the event which had interest for him. Again Ahasuerus married Esther, at Shushan, in the seventh year of his reign; in the same year of his reign Xerxes returned to Susa with the mortification of his defeat, and sought to forget himself in pleasure;-not an unlikely occasion for that quest for fair virgins for the harem (Esth. ii. 2). Lastly, the tribute imposed upon the land and isles of the sea also accords with the state of his revenue, exhausted by his insane attempt against Greece. In fine, these arguments, negative and affirmative, render it so highly probable that Xerxes is the Ahasuerus of the Book of Esther, that to demand more conclusive evidence would be to mistake the very nature of the question."

practice of placing food and water near the body was certainly connected with the superstitions of the period. The same practice is, I believe, continued among the Arabs, who believe that these articles are necessary to give the spirit strength on its long journey.

"A common baked clay plate was placed on either side, with jars and vases of various forms. Some of the latter are exceedingly elegant, particularly one of the convolvulus shape, which is commonly met with at Sinkara, and appears to be the type of the modern drinking coojah used at Baghdad. A few of the forms of pottery peculiar to these ruins are engraved in the accompanying woodcut. In one vault, the bones of several other skeletons were heaped up

in the corners evidently for the purpose of giving place to the last deposited body, which occupied the centre of the tomb. An armlet lay in the right upper corner, and a large jar near the right foot contained a small tooth-comb, made of bone. Among the dust was a rude white cylinder, and an onyx bead, with a rudely engraved figure upon it."

Regarding the temple vessels, or sacred utensils, the following facts are interesting:

"The total absence of iron in the older ruins implies that the inhabitants were unacquainted with that metal, or at any rate that it was seldom worked. Many of the copper implements above enumerated appear to be but little adapted to the object for which they were fashioned. Copper was particularly

used in the Tabernacle* and Temple of the Jews, and, it may be, that this metal was specially chosen for sacrificial purposes. This might account for its abundant discovery in connexion with the edifice a temple-against the wall of which the implements were found. At any rate, the entire absence of iron, and the curious shapes of many articles, point to a primitive age for their origin."

Regarding the writing materials in use in these times, Mr Loftus gives the following as the result of his researches and discoveries:

"There is evidence, too, that the early inhabitants of Babylonia used other materials for their written documents. Among the tablets were found many triangular lumps of clay covered, like them, with the impressions of rolled cylinders. At two of the corners are the holes through which cords passed, and attached them to parchment, papyrus, or leather.

"From the fact that many of these objects were damaged by fire, there is every reason to believe that it was a prevalent custom of the Babylonians to burn the private records of the dead over their graves. I know of no other cause to account for their blackened appearance, and the quantity of woodashes with which they are associated.

"Among other clay documents, I must not omit to mention a small tablet, which confirms the statement of Berosus, that the Babylonians made use of a sexagesimal notation-the unit of which was termed a 'Sossius as a decimal notation. The record in question is a table of squares."

-as well

The Chaldæan worship of the heavenly bodies has its illustration in the following brief statement :

"In examining these tablets there is one fact which cannot fail to be remarked-the frequent repetition of the heavenly bodies and zodaical signs. They seem to imply some connexion with Chaldæan worship, and this impression is to a certain extent confirmed by Sir Henry Rawlinson's inspection of the inscriptions upon the tablets. He observes that the matter relates entirely to the domestic economy of the temples."

We leave these extracts in the hands of our readers, and we refer them to the book itself for the full story of these interesting researches. They will find much in it of new and valuable discovery. They will find much to cast light on history, and much to illustrate Scripture. Nor is it unworthy of notice, that the book which gets the most light thrown upon it is the book of the Prophet Daniel. There is hardly one of these Chaldæan discoveries but brings out in fuller relief and vividness the prophetic pictures which he has given us of the four great empires of earth,

* "And he made all the vessels of the altar, the pots and the shovels, and the basins, and the flesh-hooks, and the fire-pans: all the vessels thereof made he of brass." Exodus xxxviii. gives a full account of the altar of burnt-offering and its vessels-brass being the principal metal employed. By brass we must understand copper, because the factitious metal was unknown at that early age.

ART. V. THE APOCALYPTIC WITNESSES.*

In a former number of this Journal is found the following useful and scriptural caution:-" We are far from sympathising with the unqualified condemnation of futurism which we sometimes meet with; but we must profess our suspicion of the extreme futurism of some interpreters of prophecy. Our chief complaint against them is, that they do not prove their statements. They suppose, or they judge, or they imagine, or they conjecture, or they think; but they do not enter into the scriptural proof of what they affirm. Some of them, for example, hold that Antichrist is to arise out of the tribe of Dan, but they do not prove their opinion. Others hold that Elijah is to be one of the two witnesses-that he is to come down from heaven and be slain-that his body is to lie in the streets of Jerusalem for three days and a-half, that all nations may come and look at it; but they give no proof of this."

In the following article, which presents in an abridged form what he has twice more fully discussed elsewhere, the writer sincerely desires to bear in mind the importance of these remarks. It is doubtless wholly impossible to prove that Enoch and Elijah are destined to be the two Apocalyptic witnesses; yet it may be permitted us to inquire, in a patient and reverent spirit, how far the sacred Scriptures may appear to favour or to discourage this view.

The Lord Jesus was transfigured before the three disciples on the mount, and Moses and Elias were visibly present with him in the glory. While reading the account of this wonderful transaction, we cannot help calling to mind not only the translation of the prophet, but also the mysterious burial of the lawgiver. The latter event is thus recorded by the sacred historian:-" Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord. And he [the Lord] buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Beth-peor, but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day." We naturally conclude from this brief record that the Most High himself selected a grave

* Whilst not wholly concurring with the following article, we think it well that our readers' attention should be called to the subject.-[ED.]

It is unnecessary here to speak at length of the transfiguration as a foreshewing of the future glory and kingdom of the Lord Jesus.

in which, probably through the ministry of angels, the corpse of Moses was deposited, in order that the Israelites might never discover the spot where the mortal remains of their deceased legislator had been interred.

Does not the narrative of the transfiguration throw light upon the mystery of the secret burial of Moses, and also upon the divine purpose in the translation of Elijah?

Immediately after the transfiguration, the Lord Jesus resumes his ordinary human position and character; and, descending with his three favoured disciples, again enters upon his usual course of teaching, healing, and working miracles. We are not told what became of Moses and Elias. Yet, perhaps, nothing can be more natural, scriptural, or reasonable than to suppose that, as it was with the divine Master, so it was with each of his illustrious attendants; and that they, therefore, like Jesus, returned to the same place, condition, and circumstances in which they had each been before their appearance with their and our Lord upon the mount. Thus we may venture, in all Christian sobriety, to believe that the body of Moses was carried back, probably by obedient ministering angels, to the secret grave whence it had been so recently taken, and that the immortal spirit returned to the blessed abode where the disembodied spirits of the servants of the Lord are expecting and longing for the morning of the resurrection.

Mr Scott thus alludes to an ancient tradition on the subject of the mysterious interment of Moses :-"Nothing can be considered more directly opposite to Scripture than the tradition, sanctioned by several ancient Christian writers, and apparently favoured by some moderns, that Moses did not die, but went to heaven alive, as Enoch and Elijah did." They who supported this view evidently felt the serious difficulty of the supposition that the body of Moses mouldered into dust in its unknown grave, and was afterwards raised from that dust to meet Jesus and Elijah on the mount of transfiguration. But surely it is not necessary to believe that the body of Moses was raised from its dust on that solemn occasion. For it is plain that when the son of Amram died, the Most High could choose between two things: he could allow the corpse to return to corruption and the dust, and afterwards, at the appointed time, restore and raise it for its brief appearance on the mount. Or the Omnipotent God of Israel could have willed the preservation of his servant's corpse from decay and corruption during the long period of the fourteen centuries which were to elapse before the divinely decreed season of the