That the religion of Ethiopia should have become corrupt is not in the least surprising, although we can only refer it to the superintending providence of God that, amid the wreck of ages and the changes and revolutions of time, it has survived at all. The wonder is, that, surrounded as they are by Pagan and Moslem, together with the corrupt propensities of the human heart, the very name and profession of Christianity has not been long since obliterated from their minds, the Sabbath forgotten, and the name of the Great Mediator supplanted by that of the false prophet. Abyssinia, notwithstanding her corruptions, is immeasurably above all other African nations in the scale of civilization. This is plainly enough proved by the following extract from the Narrative of the Travels of Charles Johnston, through the country of Adel to the kingdom of Shoa, in 1842-43: "Arrived upon the summit, the stranger finds an extensive table-land spread out before him, and he cannot divest himself of the idea that he has reached some new continent. A Scotch climate and Scotch vegetation, wheat, barley, linseed,—and yet in intertropical Africa. The country seems highly cultivated, wheat and barley on all sides growing close to our path, while near the farmhouses were stacks of grain, which gave the whole country an English appearance. "Amidst the luxuries and conveniences so abundantly supplied to the embassy by the indulgent care of a liberal government, I almost fancied that I had returned to the comforts of European life." Mr. Johnston says that he was furnished with excellent wheaten bread, and butter quite as good as any he had ever eaten, with fish, flesh, fowl, wine, honey, and a kind of native beer, resembling English ale. He speaks of the king as being beloved by his people, remarkably just in all his transactions, moderate in his anger, and benevolent to his visiters. He himself declared that he had "the fear of God before his eyes." The Holy Scriptures have been preserved in Abyssinia, on parchment manuscript, and in the Geez language; but, in 1826, they were translated by the Ethiopians themselves into Amharic, the spoken dialect of the country. These books, our traveller declares, agree perfectly with the Vulgate, except the book of the Maccabees, in which he discovered some discrepancies. They also possess a commentary on each of the sacred books, and, besides the five books of Moses, possess a sixth, which they equally revere. The names of the books agree with ours, and appear to be Ethiopic translations of Genesis, Exodus, &c. They also possess the book of Enoch, which, however, according to Mr. Bruce, is the production of a Gnostic philosopher. They have a liturgy in Ethiopic. It is said that all the literature of the country is embraced in 120 volumes.