The Placer herald., 1871-11-18
ANCIENT HISTORY AND ARTS.

| article WRITTEN f9r INC oanta DdIDdrI WttS. :.
The descendants of Cain inherited their
| fathers spirit, and became very wicked
race Of men. This wicledness, notwith-
standing the teaching and example of the
father of the human race for $50 years, in
creased to such pitch that the marks of
original Righteousness were either worn away
by neglect or disfgured by vice. God re-
solved to sweep him OF the face of the earth, /,
and with him all the living creatures that had
been made for his service. When about to
execute his resolve by purifying the earth
with the waters of the Deluge, Noah, whom
he had chosen from amongst so many thou
sands of men that were then living for the
restorer of future race, when the first
should be destroyed by the waters of the
Deluge, preserved with the human race the
arts, as they were taught from the beginning
and those subsequently invented. Therefore
we do not see the rudments of those arts in
the East, the cradle of the human race,
whence the human family was dispersed over
the earth. Everything springs from those
regions-the knowledge of God, the history
of the Creation, the memories of the Del
uge, &c.
|
to what degree of advancement the art of
building had arrived; and the details given
us in the Bible about the construction Of the
ark, display an amount of nautical knowledge
which must have hecn transmitted to the
sllful boatmen of the Nile and the bold
navigators of ancient Ph9nicia.
Assur, theson of Sem, the oldest of Noah's
children, built Nineveh, the capital of the
first Assyrian empire, on the eastern bank of
the s;ver Tigris. The prophet Jonas is sent
there by God to preach penance, and SO cX-
tensive was the city that it took him three
days to 90 through it. The city was built
in the form of an oblong square, lS2 miles in
length, III in breadth, and 60 miles in cir
cumference The walls, 100 feet high, were
thick enough for three chariots to stand
abreast upon them, and were fortified with
500 towers, each 200 feet high. Jonas
preached there about the year of the world
3197-before Christ 807 years.
N;mrod, the grandson Of Cham, the son Of
Noah, built Babylon. Tie description given
us by ancient historians of this city seems
almost Incredible: &c The walle arc eeid to be
81 feet in thickness aud $50 feet in height
They were drawn around the city in the
form of an exact square, each side of which
was Is miles in length-all built of brick,
cemented with bitumen. On every side of
this great square there were 25 gates; the
same number of streets ran in parallel lines
to the gates on the opposite side of the
wall, thus forming so streets, each Is miles
long, and each street $50 feet broad. Around
these squares, on every side, stood the houses,
three or four stories high, and beoutifed by
| all manner of ornaments towards the streets.
The space within the middle Of each square
was void ground, laid out in beautiful gar
dens."
Such is the description given us of these
two first great cities by ancient historians.
Time, and moisture, the great physica agent
in the decomposition of matter, have entirely
obliterated the very traces of their great
capitals. The site upon which the latter
stood is not now known, and whatever traces
of the former have been left are deeply bu-
ried beneath the earth.
The Chaldeans were early famed for their
learning. They were the first who cultivated
astronomy and discovered the motion of the
planets. They likewise pretended to be
| skilled in the science of astrology. The
grandeur and magnifcence of their temples,
the solidity, proportion, and beauty of their
| immense buildings prove them to have been
we'll skilled in architecture and geometry.
How can we account for this early advance
ment in civilization or solve the problem of
this mysterious culture?
The question has been answered thus by
Socrates: "Ihe ancients, better than we,
and nearer the gods, had transmitted by ira
dtion the sublime knowledge they had re-
ceived from them
Plato SAYS: The earliest of mankind,
issuing from the hands of the gods, must
have known them as well as we knew our
own fathers, and that it is truly impossible
not to believe the testimony Of the children
of the gods"
To all who believe in and accept the testi-
mony of the Holy Bible, the most ancient
and the most venerable document of human
history, the solution is simple, easy and nat
ural. Noah, living over 800 years with
Mathusalem, who lived more than 200 with
Adam, the father of the human race, had
learned from him, not only the arts and sci
ences which he had received from Adam,
who was taught from God, those arts which
were necessary from the beginning, but also
those that were subsequently invented.
These he preserved snd taught his children,
who transmitted them to their descendants.
The skill displayed in the construction of the
ark proved him to be not only a good me-
chanic, but also we'll versed in nautical
knowledge. His immediate descendants,
having laid the foundation of the cities Of
Nineveh and Babylon, commenced to build
in the latter city the Tower of Babel, one
hundred years after the Deluge. The gran
deur, magnifcence, and extent of these cities,
and the skill displayed in their erection, are
convincing proofs that the art and science of
building were learned from Noah, who re-
ceived his knowledge from the patrarchs OF
the first ages of the world. He was born
A. M. 1867; the Deluge took place 1906;
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