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tion assures us. Many of those islands may have been washed away; as the Indian tradition says, "the sea is eating them up;" as in Dr. Boudinot. Other tribes assure us, that their remote fathers, on their way to this country, came to a great river which they could not pass; when God dried up the river that they might pass over." Here is a traditionary roiion among the Indians, of God's anciently drying up rivers before their ancestors. Their fathers in some way got over Beering's Straits. And having a tradition of rivers being dried up before the fathers, they applied it to this event. Those straits, after Israel had been detained for a time there, might have been frozen over, in the narrows between the islands; or they might have been passed by canoes, or some craft. The natives of this land, be they who they may, did in fact arrive in this continent; and they probably must have come over those straits. And this might have been done by Israel, as well as by any other people.

Relative to their tradition of coming where was abundance of copper; it is a fact, that at, or near Beering's Straits, there is a place called Copper Island, from the vast quantities of this metal there found. In Grieve's history we are informed that copper there covers the shore in abundance; so that ships might easily be loaded with it. The Gazeteer speaks of this, and that an attempt was made in 1770 to obtain this copper, but that the ice even in July, was so abundant, and other difficulties such, that the object was relinquished. Here, then, those natives made their way to this land; and brought down the knowledge of this event in their tradition.

Doctor Boudinot gives it as from good authority, that the Indians have a tradition "that the

book which the white people have, was once theirs. That while they had this book, things went well with them; they prospered exceedingly; but that other people got it from them; that the Indians lost their credit; offended the Great Spirit, and suffered exceedingly from the neighboring nations; and that the Great Spirit then took pity on them, and directed them to this country." There can be no doubt but God d.d, by his special providence, direct them to some sequestered region of the world, for the reasons which have been already given.*

*We have a prediction relative to the ten tribes, which fully accords with the things exhibited of them, and of the natives of our land. In Amos viii. 11, 12, we read "Behold the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land; not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even unto the east; they shall run to and fro, to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it." This prophecy did relate to the ten tribes.Amos was a prophet to them: he lived not long before their expulsion, from which they have never yet returned. He in the context predicted this expulsion, as then just at hand.--See v. 1.2, 14. The famine here predicted, was to be fulfilled while they were in their outcast state. This is clearly evident from the whole connection.

The prediction implies, they should know they had been blessed with the word of God, but had wickedly lost it; as a man in a famine knows he has had bread or food, but now has it not. It implies, they shall feel something what they have lost, and shall wander. They shall rove from sea to sea; from the north even to the east. They shall set off a north course, and thence east; or be led to wander in a north-east dire irection as far as they can wander; from the Mediterranean, whence they set out, to the extremest sea in the opposite direction north-east; to the Frozen Ocean; over its straits, to the Pacific; and to the Atlantic. They shall run to and fro, over all the vast regions, the dreary wilds, which lie between those extreme seas. They shall retain some general correct idea of God; but shall find they have lost his word. This they shall not regain, till their long famine shall close in the last days. How exactly does this prophecy accord with the ac

M'Kenzie adds the following accounts of the Chepewyan nation: "They believe also that in ancient times, their ancestors lived till their feet were worn out with walking, and their throats with eating. They describe a deluge, when the waters spread over the whole earth, except the highest mountains; on the tops of which they preserved themselves." This tradition of the longevity of the ancients, and of the flood, must have been from the word of God in ancient Israel.

Abbe Clavigero assures us, that the natives of Mexico had the tradition, that "there once was a great deluge; and Tepzi, in order to save himself from being drowned, embarked in a ship,

count noted in Esdras, and with the Indian tradition, which meets it; of their fathers being led into this country! They have indeed wandered north-east, and from north to east, and south; from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth. They have run to and fro in a famine of the word; retaining some general view of God, and of their ancient blessings under him. But their famine and savage state have still continued. From their savage high priests they have sought the word of the Lord, and from their vague traditions; but they have not found it.

But the following chapter in Amos, engages they shall find again the holy oracles-v. 13--15. "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that the ploughman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed; and the mountains shall drop sweet wine; and all the hills shall melt. And I will bring again the captivity of my people Israel; and they shall build the waste cities and habit them, and they shall plant vineyards and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens and eat the fruit of them. And I will plant them upon their land; and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land, which I have given them, saith the Lord thy God." Here are the rapid scenes, the melting missionary events, of our day. Here is the succeeding recovery of the tribes of Israel. Here is the planting of them in their own land, and their permanent residence there, to the end of the world. Never has this restoration had even a primary accomplishment.

with his wife and children, and many animals.--That as the waters abated, he sent out a bird, which remained eating dead bodies. He then sent out a little bird, which returned with a small branch."

Doctor Beatty says, that an Indian in Ohio informed, that one of their traditions was, "Once the waters had overflowed all the land, and drowned all people then living, except a few, who made a great canoe and were saved."

This Indian added, to Doctor Beatty, that "a long time ago, the people went to build a high place; that while they were building, they lost their language, and could not understand each other."

Doctor Boudinot assures us that two ministers of his acquaintance informed him, that they being among the Indians away toward the Mississippi, the Indians there (who never before saw a white man,) informed him, that one of their traditions was, a great while ago they had a common father, who had the other people under him. That he had twelve sons by whom he administered his government; but the sons behaving illy, they lost this government over the other people. This the two ministers conceived to be a pretty evident traditionary notion concerning Jacob and his twelve sons.

Various tråditions of the Indians strikingly denote their Hebrew extraction. Doctor Beatty (mentioned by Mr. Boudinot) informs of their feast, called the hunter's feast; answering, he thinks, to the Pentecost in ancient Israel. He describes it as follows:

They choose twelve men, who provide twelve deer. Each of the twelve men cuts alsaplin; with these they form a tent, covered with blankets.

They then choose twelve stones for an altar of sacrifice. Some tribes, he observes, choose but ten men, ten poles and ten stones. Here seems an evident allusion to the twelve tribes; and also to some idea of the ten separate tribes of Israel. Upon the stones of their altar, they suffered no tool to pass. No tool might pass upon a certain altar in Israel. The middle joint of the thigh of their game, Doctor Beatty informs, the Indians refuse to eat. Thus did ancient Israel, after the angel had touched the hollow of Jacob's thigh in the sinew that shrank: Gen. xxxii. 25, 31, 32. "In short, (says Doctor Beatty,) I was astonished to find so many of the Jewish customs prevailing among them; and began to conclude there was some affinity between them and the Jews."

Col. Smith, in his history of New-Jersey, says of another region of Indians, "They never eat of the hollow of the thigh of any thing they kill." Charlevoix speaking of Indians still further to the north, says, he met with people who could not help thinking that the Indians were descended from the Hebrews, and found in every thing some affinity between them. Some things he states; as on certain meals, neglecting the use of knives; not breaking a bone of the animal they eat; never eating the part under the lower joint of the thigh; but throwing it away. Such are their traditions from their ancient fathers. Other travellers among them speak of their peculiar evening feast, in which no boue of their sacrifice may be broken. No bone might be broken of the ancient paschal lamb in Israel, which was eaten in the evening.

Different men who had been eye witnesses, speak of this, and other feasts, resembling the