The Ouachita telegraph. [volume] (Monroe, La.) 1865-1889, 1877-05-25
THE HEBREWS.

THE HEBREWS.
The following discourse was deliver
ed in Louisville by tho Rev. j. L. Bur-
rows, ID. d.:
TEXT: "I will sift the house of Israel
among all nations like corn is sifted in a
SIEVE, yet shall not the least grain fall to
the eearth."-Amos ix.,9.
from which of the races O! mankind
that existed one thousand years ago
have you descended: How far back
can you trace your gene:alogy? l do
not mean in direct family line, but by
tribe or nation: Were your ancestors Il
thousand years ago SaNons, Goths, Ro-
mans, Gauls, Greeks, Irish, Scotch, Ger
mans, Scandinavians or Poles: To
what nation or tribe did they belong? Z?
Except i'll a very general way OF refer
ence to some one Of the few gram di-
visions of the human race, you cannot
tell. IT by some chemical or lnicrospi-
cal analysis the blood corpuscles in
Your veins could be distinguished and
the descent of them traced back through
five hundred years, they might furnish
proofs that a score or more of national
tiles had contributed to your being.
There might be found tinges of Briton
blood, of daliic, of Celtic, Of Asiatic, OF
most of the tribes OF earth, all mingled
i'll together, coursing through your
veins. You cannot trace far YOUR gem
ealOgy. -.
But there lives among us race who
can trace their line of descent, in large
measure pure, for nearly four thousand
years, and that, too, under circumstan-
ces and conditions the most difficult
conceivable for rperpetuating their iden-
tity and peculiar race characteristics
You, of course, know at once that am
speaking Of the Jews. What L pro-
pose in this discourse is to show that
the main features in the history of the
Jews were foretold in the ancient scrip
tures5, and that those scriptures were
therefore written by inspiration of
God, who alone could foresee the
events. No indefinite guessing, no
study of probabilities, could have fore
told the very singular, exceptional, alb
normal course which the history of the
Hebrews has taken. In Il single dis
course we can mako but Il few points
i'll this large subject.
THE EXPULSION OF THE JEWS
from their native land is the first grand
fact We shall notice. They have been
repeatedly subdued and.exiled, in part
or III whole, from their home. But,
passing over these more remote subiu-
cations and ejectments, limit the dis
cussion to the last and longest banish-
ment. For more than seventeen hun
dred years the Jews have been without
Il country or govern naent, as nation.
Driven out finally by the Romans, in
the year a. u. 135, they have never
been able to rally or to concentrate
forces for the recovery of their country.
t,rp NA~<t
and found homes in strange lands.
With this outline of facts in mind, now
turn to the predictions OF their own
prophets, written from 700 to 1850 years
before their expulsion, and more than
1900 years from this date, and see how
these predictions describe their cOndi-
tiOn to-day.
In Deuteronomy xxx, 22-29, we
have II remarkable prophecy. We
have the reasons Of the Lords juds-
1nents, i'll their idolatries and persistent
rebellions against the sovereignty of
Jehovah, ana we have foresha<lowed
the inquiries of the generations vet to
come and the answers that should be
given to such inquiries. Read twenty
second to twenty-ninth verses. serhc
Lord shall cause thee to be smitteu be-
fore thine enimics; thou shalt go out
one way against them and flee seven
ways before them, and thou shalt be re-
moved into all tho Kingdoms of the
earth. .'-Deut. xviii, 25. "rfe Lord
shall smite Isreal rs a reed, as II reed
shaken on the water, and He shall
root up Isreal out of this good land,
and shall scatter them .''-I. Kings
xiv, Is. ''Ehen will pluck them out
OF my land which / have given thern.'
IL. Chron. vii, 20. These are a few
specimens out of prophecies more nu-
Inerous than L have time to quote, dis
tinctly foretelling their condition to-
day. Does their history answer to the
predictions" They were divinely
inspired. They ,ce,'e all driven out of
their land. An edict Of the Roman
Emperor forbade a Jew to set his foot
in Jerusalem. They were prohibited
from approaching the boundaries of
the country under penalty of death !;
and ever since, if Jews have resided at
all in any part of their native land, it
has been in small numbers and only by
sui1erance. Have they not then been
t'piucked out by the roots !'
THEIR DISPERSION AMONG ALL Ma
TIONS
was also very distinctly foretold. "rhc