Then when the whole circle shall have been accomplished—and of which more than two-thirds have been already passed over—when civilization in Austral-Asia shall touch the confines of its original starting point, the Eastern shores of India, the consummation of all things shall be at hand; the purpose for which the earth was created, and for which millions of years have been slowly, surely, and silently beautifying, storing, and adapting it, until it is like “the Garden of the Lord,” shall have been fulfilled; and the whole of this beautiful system shall vanish away like a breath, yet leave no vacuity, no defect, in the vast and mighty universe, whose limits utterly transcend our notions of time and space. Two-thirds of this circle have been already passed over; the remaining third is rapidly running out: we already stand half-way between the beginning and the end of this third part; nay, we are nearer the end than the beginning, we see more clearly and apprehend more closely the day when Austral-Asia shall be the seat of civilization and Christianity, than we do the day when those blessings seventeen hundred years ago, first landed on our shores; we feel more affinity for, and more sympathy with, the latter age than with the former, and we may be assured that we do this because we are much nearer in Time to the one than to the other. This is an awful contemplation; we cannot but feel that there is an extra responsibility cast upon us upon whom literally “the ends of the world are come,” and that it concerns us more than all who have gone before to be up and be doing; to take heed that while civilization is progressing geographically, it is also progressing in power and character; for upon the extent and nature of the Knowledge which we transmit, depend in a great degree the extent and nature of the Knowledge which shall ever reign on the earth. Theologically considered, the subject is infinitely more awful and important; and the mind cannot contemplate without fear and trembling, what may be the consequences if we, instead of a pure and perfect, transmit to the few generations yet to subsist on the earth, an impure and imperfect, Christianity. But to return to our more immediate subject. The Jews have always been celebrated for shrewdness in commercial affairs. Though the peculiarities of their religion prevented them from taking a leading part in the general commercial business of the ancient world, yet among themselves trade always flourished; and in the present age of the world, the Jews were in all countries the first revivers of commerce after the stagnation occasioned by the irruptions of the northern hordes, and in many nations are still almost the only traders.