These predictions have been minutely accomplished. The posterity of Ishmael may be traced in the Ishmaelites, the Hagarenes, the Itureans, and Arabs; especially the Scenites and Saracens, the latter of whom erected one of the largest empires in the world. To this day the Arabs are not only a distinct people, but possess the original character of their father, fierce and unsettled, living in a state of perpetual hostility against the rest of the world. Every attempt to subdue or extirpate them, has proved abortive. The Egyptians and Assyrians were equally unsuccessful, and whatever partial dominion Cyrus and the Persians might obtain, they could never penetrate the interior of the country, or reduce them to tributary subjection. In vain did Alexander plan their destruction; the hand of Providence interposed to prevent it by his death. The Romans could never conquer Arabia; and they continued to molest their neighbours by incessant incursions. Under Mohammed they became a mighty empire, and though it was ultimately dissolved, they still maintained their liberty in defiance of the Tartars, Mamelukes, and Turks. "Who," inquires a great writer, "can fairly consider and lay all these particulars together, and not perceive the hand of God in this whole affair, from the beginning to the end? The sacred historian saith, that these prophecies concerning Ishmael were delivered partly by the angel of the Lord, and partly by God himself: and indeed, who but God, or one raised and commissioned by him, could describe so particularly the genius and manners, not only of a single person before he was born, but of a whole race of people, from the first founder of the race to the present time? It was somewhat wonderful, and not to be foreseen by human sagacity or prudence, that a man's whole posterity should so nearly resemble him, and retain the same inclinations, the same habits, the same customs throughout all ages. The waters of the purest spring or fountain are soon changed and polluted in their course, and the farther still they flow, the more they are incorporated and lost in other waters. How have the modern Italians degenerated from the courage and virtues of the old Romans? How are the French and English polished and refined from the barbarianism of the ancient Gauls and Britons? Men and manners change with times; but in all changes and revolutions, the Arabs have still continued the same with little or no alteration. And yet it cannot be said of them, as some barbarous nations, that they have had no commerce or intercourse with the rest of mankind; for by their conquests they overran a great part of the earth, and for some centuries were masters of most of the learning that was then in the world; but, however, they remained, and still remain the same fierce, savage, intractable people, like their great ancestor in every thing, and different from most of the world besides. Ishmael was