Grand Chapter Of The Rose Croix Degree For Ireland.

that which becomes men wdio are anxious , by all lawful and honourable means , to carry out a lawful and honourable object in their respective departments , and that withont imperilling a friendship which the lapse of years has rather augmented than impaired .

Original Correspondence.

Original Correspondence .

PROFESSOR RAWLINSON AND THE TEN TRIBES . To the Editor of The Freemason .

Dear Sir and Brother , — If Professor Rawlinson cannot extinguish the Ten Tribes by an intermixture and absorption of them by " the former population of Mesopotamia and India , " in his attempt to shew ,

-which I think I have proved him to have Failed , he must lind means of extinguishing them in some other way . They must be got rid of somehow , no matter how . Why it should be so , it is difficult to see , for there are few things more clearly foretold , in fulfilment of God ' s promise

to the Fathers , than the preservation , exaltation , enlargement , and final restoration to " the Land of Israel or Ephraim . " As the Tribes , after the death of Solomon , had divided and formed themselves into two distinct nations , always in hostility towards each other , so they were to be preserved as separate and distinct peoples , until

the termination of their captivity or dispersion . It is Israel and Judah that are finally to return to the land given to their fathers ( Jer . xxx . , 3 ) . " The words of the Lord are spoken concerning Israel and concerning Judah " ( ver . 4 ) ; and it is of the former that it is said , " Though I make a full end of all nations whither I have scattered

thee [ not Judah , for they were in Babylonia , wdiereas Israel was scattered , according to the Professor , through countries ' nearly 900 miles from east to west , and not less than 138 miles in breadth—that is , at least fifteen times as large as the territory from which they had been taken , ]

yet will I not make a full end of thee " ( Jer . xxx . si ) . But , as I have said , they are not only to be preserved ; they are to become illlustrious—a distinguished people ; for Jehovah Jias said , " An everlasting covenant will I make with them : and their seed shall be illustrious amonir

the nations j and their offspring m the midst of the peoples . All they that see them shall acknowledge them , that they are a seed which Jehovah hath blessed " ( Isa . Ixi . S , 9 ; Lowth ' s translation ) . But they are to be blessed not only in themselves ; they are to be made an

instrument of blessing to others . " And He saith unto me , thou art my servant , Israel , in whom 1 will be glorified " ( Isa . xlix . 3 L For " Behold 1 will lift up mine hand to the nations , and set up my standard to the people ; and they shall bring thy sons in their arms , anil thy daughters

shall be carried on their shoulders . And kings shall be thy nursing fathers , and their queens thy nursing mothers : they shall bow down to thee with their face towards the earth , and lick up the dust of thy feet ; and thou shalt knowthat 1 am Jehovah ; for they shall not be ashamed that wait for me" ( ver . 22- ?) .

The promises to the ehect , made to Israel in contradistinction to J udah , abound in the prop hetic books : and while these remain , whicli is to be as lornr as the heavens anil the earth remain

( Jer . xxxi . ? , - , - " , ]) , it is " kicking against thc pricks , " to strive , as Professor Rawlinson does , to extinguish them , by " an inextricable intermingling with the former population of Mesopotamia and India ; " or b y a coalescing with the Jews of the dispersion , " who returned to their land , under the permissive decree of Cyrus ,

li . c . 15 , 36 . It is by force of this latter assumption , that Professor Rawlinson attempts to make good his theory of the extinction of the Ten Tribes , as a separate people , in thc event of his former assumption that they were assimilated with and lost in the populations of Mesopotamia and India failing , let me look at it a little .

That lhe books of Ezra and Xehemiah , is referred lo by tlie Professor , alford evidence of the return of some of the Israelites , with the | ews , from Babylonia to Palestine , there is no doubt . During the period of the 70 years '

Original Correspondence.

captivity of Judah , it is not unreasonable to suppose that some of the Israelites , wdio had been carried further north , found their way into Babylonia , and upon the publication of Cyrus ' s decree , returned with the Jews , and afterwards formed with them one people . It is not

pretended by those who , relying upon the many divine promises to that effect , the man }' historical facts , which seem so full y to sustain those promises , believe that Israel maintained itself as a people , separate from Judah , after the era of the captivity , as it had done between the

revolt and the overthrow of the kingdom , but not of the tribes of Israel joined those of Judah , and Benjamin in Babylon , and with them returned to their own land . As there was " a remnant" left in Israel when the great bulk of them were carried away , so there was " a

remnant , who returned with the Bab ylonian captives . But it is a fine assumption , without even a shadow of evidence to sustain it , that that the Israelites , who had been turned into Assyria and India , returned in such numbers ,

with the Jews , from Babylon , as to " make the returned peoples representative , not of the curtailed Jewish kingdom of Rehoboam , but of the original kingdom of Sanl , David and Solomon . " The improbabilities of this are manifold ; I notice two or three of them .

( 1 ) There is an absence of all mention b y Ezra antl Nehemiah of a return ot any number of the Assyrian captives ( Israel ) with those of Babylon ( Judah ) , which was not likely to have been the case , if , as the Professor assumes " many Israelites" took advantage of Cyrus ' s

decree , it was " the chief of the fathers of Judah and Benjamin , " not of E phraim or Israel , " and the priests and the Levites , with all whose spirits God had raised to go up to build the House of the Lord , which is at Jerusalem , " wdio rose up to return to the land , so in chap , ii , 1 ,

we read , " how these are the children of the province that went up out of the " captivity , " of those which had been carried away , whom Nebuchadnezzar , the king of Babylon , had carrietl away into Babylon ( that is of judah and Benjamin ) and came again unto Jerusalem . "

In like manner , in chap . iv . 1 . "When the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heart ! that the children of the captivity builded the Temple , " they took steps to " weapon the hands of the people of Judah , " ( verse 4 ) . And when Darius issued his decree in favour of the

resumption of the building , Ezra and his companions , who are spoken of as "the children of the captivity , " ( Ez . x , 7 ) , are afterwards said to be " the men of Judah antl Benjamin , " ( verse 9 ) . In point of fact , so far as any conclusion can be formed from what is said of those who

returned from the captivity , the number of Israelites among them was so inconsiderable , and so insignificant a portion of the whole , that they are passed over in silence , while those of Judah and Benjamin are constantly spoken of , as " the children ofthe captivity . "

( 2 ) Professor Rawlinson agrees that " the elaborate genealogies of the sons of Reuben , ( hid , Manasseh , Issachar , Aapthali , and Asher , " in 1 Chron . ix . 2 , 3 , " can onl y be accounted for b y the supposition that persons of those tribes were included among the Israel of his day , " i . e ., of tlie writer of the First Book of Chronicles—¦

Ezra or Nehemiah . By being " included among the Israel of his day , " the Professor intends us to understand that they had come up with the other captives , and again possessed the land . But he has evidentl y overlooked the fact , that these genealogies are not given with any purpose ol '

shewing which of tlie people had returned . They had nothing to do with that . 'I'he Jews were always most careful to preserve their genealogies , for civil purposes as well as for others ; but those to whicli he refers were the trenealogies of ail Israel , going back , indeed , to Adam , Seth , and

Enos , as " they were written in the books of the Kings of Israel and Judah" ( i Chron . ix . i ) , the preservation of which had been carefully looked to in Babylon , antl were now restored to their proper place . larchi considers thein to have

been given by Ezra , the compiler of the boo ! . ' , as if he had said , " I have given tlie genealogies ofthe Israelites as I have fountl them in the book which was carried , into Babylon , when the people were carrietl thither fur their transgressions ; and

Original Correspondence.

this book which I found is that which I have transcribed in the preceding chapters . " ( 3 } Nor does Professor Rawlinson strengthen his case b y reference to three or four cities or other places which he finds in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah , as amongst those that

became occupied by the returned captives . In fact , he startles one by the serious blunders he makes . He says , ( 1 ) "Jericho , for instance , was an Israelite town , " ( 2 ) " So was Nebo , " ( 3 ) "So was Bethel . " It is said " Homer sometimes nods , " and some of the great men of our day

seem to do the same thing . Jericho was not an Israelite town ; it was the second principal city of Judah , the original metropolis of the tribe , and wdiere David for some time dwelt , after he had received the submission of all the tribes ( 2 Sam . vi . 5 ) . Nebo was also a city of Judah ,

believed by Eusebius and Jerome to be the same as Nabau , which was situated ei ght miles south of Lebanon . Bethel , originally called Nujath-Arba , was also in the tribe of Judah , as we read in Josh , xv ., wdiere is a description of the allotment of the tribe : " And unto Caleb he

( Joshua ) gave a part among the children of Judah even the city of Arba , the father of Anak , which city is Hebron " ( ver . 1 , 3 ) . The Professor lays some stress upon the fact , that the people are called Israelites , after the .

return from Babylon ; but that was the ordinary appellation , and it is used , whenever there is no apparent reason for making a distinction between Israel and Judah . They are also called "The Twelve Tribes , he says ( Acts xxvi . 7 ; Jas . i . ) ; but this is another ordinary appellation of the

whole people , in like manner as " The Twelve Apostles , " was of Christ ' s chosen ones , who are still called " The Twelve , " after the death of Judas , and while they were onl y eleven . It should be noted , too , that James , who wrote before the dispersion of the Jews , on the final

overthrow of the Temple and kingdom by the Romans , adtlresses himself to the Twelve Tribes "scattered abroad ; " as we say , the tribes of Israel were . Be it observed , however , that all this is compatible with the presumption , that some of Israel , though not the great body of

them , returned with the Jews from Babylon . But the presence of even some of Israel was not necessary to induce the offering of twelve bullocks for all Israel , and twelve he-goats for a sin offering ( Ezra viii . 3 , 5 ) . This might surely have been done for the great family , albeit , a

large portion of them were still scattered abroad , without a sacrifice and without an aphad ( or priest ) . I Ios . iii . 4 . But if we are to accept loose inferences against many and striking facts , wdiat shall we infer from the circumstance of the returned tribes having feasts in remembrance ol

the taking of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans , ofthe siege of J erusalem , of the burning of the city , anel of the murder of Gedaliah ( Zach . viii . 19 ) , all calamities pertaining to Judah ; while we do not read of anything commemorative of the invasion and partial depopulation of the land by

liglath-Pileser , of the siege of Samaria , of the taking of the capital , and of the extinction of the kingdom , —all calamities pertaining to Israel . Tl . e inference from these facts woultl bo , that it is the men of Judah and Benjamin , and the rites of Judah and Jerusalem , to which the

narrative ol Ezra , to whicli the Professor refers , appertains , and not to Israel and the kingdom of Samaria , as , indeed , we see in Ezra x . 7 , 9 . I think I may now say that Professor Rawlinson completely fails in his attempt to shew ( 1 ) tl-. at the carrying away of Israel b y

Tiglath-Ptieser and Slialmaneser or Sargon , was but partial ; so partial , indeed , that the foreign colonists , though said to have been sent into tbe cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel , were "lost in the remnant of the Israelilish people ; " ( 2 ) that the captive Israelites were

scattered over so wide an expanse ol country that a large portion of them " became inextricably intermingled with the former population of Mesopotamia and India , " and were absorbed by them ; ( , 3 ) that such as escaped this

swallowing up by the heathen , took advantage of Cyrus ' s decree , and returned with Judah lo their own land , wherein the two people , so long living in enmity , formed one , under the common name of jews , or Israelites . in these opinions of his ,