r in the transjordani cities.

The question before us for consideration is, what has become of the
missing or dispersed tribes--to what quarter of the world did they
direct their footsteps, and what are the evidences of their existence at
this day?

An earthquake may shake and overturn the foundations of a city--the
avalanche may overwhelm the hamlet--and the crater of a volcano may pour
its lava over fertile plains and populous villages--but a whole nation
cannot vanish from the sight of the world, without leaving some traces
of its existence, some marks of habits and customs.

It is a singular fact that history is exceedingly confused, or rather, I
may say, _dark_, respecting the ultimate dispersion of the tribes among
the cities of the Medes. The last notice we have of them is from the
second Book of Esdras, which runs thus:

"Whereas thou sawest another peaceable multitude: these are the ten
tribes which were carried away prisoners out of their own land in the
time of Osea, whom Salmanazar, king of Assyria, led away captive, and he
carried them over the waters, so they came unto another land.

"They took this counsel among themselves that they would leave the
multitude of the _heathen_, and go into a further country wherein _never
mankind dwelt_, that they might there keep their statutes, which they
never kept in their own land (Assyria), and there was a great way to go,
namely, a year and a half."

Esdras, however, has been deemed apocryphal. Much has been said
concerning the doubtful character of that writer. He wrote in the first
century of the Christian church, and Tertullian, St Ereneus, Clemens
Alexandrius, Pico di Mirandola, and many learned and pious men, had
great confidence in his writings. Part of them have been adopted by
Protestants, and all considered orthodox by Catholics. With all his old
Jewish attachments to the prophecies and traditions, Esdras was
nevertheless a convert to Christianity. He was not an inspired writer
or a prophet, although he assumed to be one, and followed the course as
well as the manner of Daniel.

The Book of Esdras, however, is of great antiquity, and as an historical
record is doubtless entitled to great respect.

The precise number which left Babylon and other cities, and took to the
desert, cannot be accurately known; but they were exceedingly numerous,
for the edict of Ahasherus, which decreed their destruction, embraced
127 provinces, and reached from Ethi