What shall I say of the cities of Tyre and Sidon, of Nineveh with her hundred gates; of Babylon, "the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees excellence," with her mighty walls, her strong gates and towers, her palatial residences, her magnificent temples, her hanging gardens, the wonder and admiration of all who beheld them! Where are all these? Crumbled into shapeless heaps of ruins that are scarcely sufficient to show where they once stood--nothing left of them but their names. Where, too, are the grand empires of Assyria and Babylon, of Egypt and Persia, of Macedonia and Greece? and, lastly, where is Rome, the most stupendous political fabric yet constructed by the wit of man--where are all these? Where is their strength, their glory, their pride--nay, I ask more, where are the principles that formed the basis of their constitutions, the ideas by which they were governed--principles which they expected would forever perpetuate their institutions--where are all these things, as well as the empires themselves? Like the gorgeous temples, and cloud-capped towers of the cities we have named, they have dissolved into thin air, like the baseless fabric of an empty vision. Look at your maps of today, and you shall find no line or trace of them, not even of the boundaries which once marked the extent of their dominion. All is lost except their names and their history. As in the sight of God the mountains are as unstable and transient as the clouds, so nations rise and pass away. But seek out the causes of their dissolution, look well into it, and you will find that these nations no less than the children of Israel, both Jews and Nephites, were guilty of violating righteous principles, as they understood them, of refusing to repent, and of rejecting the counsels of God, and fighting against his truth. They were guilty of oppression, pride, licentiousness; they tyrannized over the meek and lowly; they wrung from the hands of the poor the wealth their labor created, that they might consume it upon their lusts. These abominations were the causes of their overthrow, and as one reviews the rise and fall of great kingdoms, republics, and splendid empires, he concludes that Byron might well say-- There is the moral of all human tales; 'Tis but the same rehearsal of the past; First freedom, and then glory--when that fails, Wealth, vice, corruption--barbarism at last: And history with all her volumes vast Hath but one page!