"At the Administration of the Lord's Supper. From age to age is the Lord in his Kingdom; the Lord is in his Trinity: the Lord is in his Divinity. Even before the Day-break, and the Morning; before that the Day and Night were; before that Angels were created, was the Lord in his Kingdom. Before that the Heavens were spread out; and even before the face of Dry-land appeared; and even before the herbs began to pat forth buds, was the Lord in his Kingdom. Before the Sun, and the Moon, and the Stars; and before the revolutions of the Lights, was the Lord in his Kingdom. Even before the Beasts which crawl, and the Birds that fly, and even before the great Fishes of the Seas, was the Lord in his Kingdom. Before that Man was created with his own image and likeness, and even before he transgressed his commandments, was the Lord in his Kingdom Hear ye Heavens, and give ear O Earth, and be thou shaken to thy strong foundations. The Well-beloved of the Father, of himself descended to..... and was a stranger. In immaculate virginity God is born. In a cavern he is reared and brought forth. He took the gifts which Kings offered to his honour. In the likeness of an infant he wept, and sought his nourishment from the breasts of his Mother. He walked on the Earth as a Man, and was manifest unto the sight. By degrees he arrived at manhood; and at the age of thirty years, he was baptized in the River Jordan. Being altogether as a man, he hungered whilst he inhabited the Desart. By the Devil he was tempted, but by the virtue of his Divinity he dispersed the Princes of Darkness. Although he was a King, he shewed himself in the form of a Servant. He spread out his hands which had created men, that men might be free from the judgment of sin. In that night in which he was betrayed, he took bread into his holy, pure, and undefiled hands; and looking up to Heaven where his father is, he gave thanks, blessed, and brake it, and gave it to his Disciples; his holy Disciples, and his pure Apostles, and said to them, "Take, Eat, this is my body, which is broken for you, for the remission of sins. In like manner also he mixed wine and water,gave thanks, blessed, and hallowed it, and gave it unto them his holy Disciples, and his pure Apostles, and said to them, "Take, Drink; This Cup is my blood, poured out for you for the remission of sins.

TheService then continues to relate the succeeding events till Pentecost, and the separation of the Apostles: and it afterwards proceeds to supplicate the sanctifying power of God, in adapting the emblem of his Son's death to the souls of men. It concludes with a fine contrast between the infinity of the Lord and the weakness and wickedness of mortals, and the usual ascription of eternal glory.

Additional information respecting the Ethiopian language, will be found in Jacob Ludolph's Lexicon Ethiopico Latinum, Lond. 1661, 4to; Grammatica Ethiopica, Franckfort, 1702, Folio, by the same author; Travels to discover the Source of the Nile, by James Bruce, Edin. 1807, 4to.; and A Voyage to Abyssinia, by Henry Salt, Lond. 1814, Quarto.

A blank in the original.

CHINESE.

THE last descendant of the Hebrew tongue, is the language of China; although it is impossible to say by whom, or at what period it was carried into that Nation. Indeed it has been considered as standing in such a relation, rather because imagination knows not where else to place it, and history gives no other light for any other hypothesis. From what Nation the Chinese had their origin, or whether they were first planted in the land which they occupy, by the hand of Divine Providence, it is now impossible to decide. Their own Annals, when blended with the visionary fancies of the enthusiast Fo, carry back the history of the Nation to a period, which sets all European Chronology and Cosmogony at defiance; but when divested of them, it goes only to somewhat more than 3000 years before the Birth of Christ; which brings it to about the time of the Deluge, as that great event took place in the year of the World 2366, and 2348 years before the Nativity of our Lord. Concerning the origin of the Chinese, there are four hypotheses extant; namely, first, that they are an original people, who have dwelt within their own country for ages: secondly, that they have descended from the Hebrews and Arabs: thirdly, that they came from one of the Tartar Nations, who came down from the Steppes of Imaus: and fourthly, the Bramins state that the inhabitants of China are derived of the Military Hindoos. To the latter of these suppositions, Sir William Jones seems to incline, since he considers the Chinese and the Hindoos as the same people, and he identifies with a wonderful degree of Oriental knowledge, the Deity Fo, of the former nation, with the Buddho of the latter. Other writers incline more to the Tartaric derivation of the Chinese, on account of their physiognomical character, and refer the similarity of manners, of their rites and superstitions, to other nations, to visits from various other people. Before language was reduced to a written character, the Chinese imagine that the commands of Rulers were made known, and that ideas were communicated by means of Knotted Cords. A character somewhat resembling these is said to have been formed from the trigrams of Fo-Hi, the First Emperor of China. The combinations of his characters were eight in number, and were intended to represent the eight Chinese elements, as well as the two foundatory principles; namely, Heaven and Earth, Male and Female, Perfect and Imperfect, from which all other parts of Nature were formed. "The characters or trigrams of Fo-Hi, consisted of two broad straight lines, one of which was entire, and the other divided; but it is supposed, that when knotted cords came into use for the expression of wishes or commands, that the first

writing after their invention, was constructed of the line, as before, but broken by the insertion of small outline circles placed at various distances along it. In representing the celestial figures, the Ancient Chinese found that the knotted cord was excellently adapted for the depicting of the Constellations. Thus the circle or knot stood for the Star, and the connecting line defined the form of the Heavenly sign: nor was this method peculiar to the Chinese, since the Chaldeans, as we have already shewn, vide ante, pages 300-1, formed similar characters, although their's were assumed from the stars, instead of being adapted to them. All traces of these knotted cords are not yet lost in China, since both their Swan-Pan, or Arithmetical Table, and their method of carrying their money, were evidently derived from the ancient use of them. The former of these, the Chinese Abacus, is a shallow box, in the shape of a parellellogram, which is unequally divided in the longer way, by a thin wooden partition. Across the box are several stout wires, which pass through the partition, and are fastened into each of the longer sides. Upon these wires, both above and below the partition, are placed a quantity of small hollow wooden balls, which pass up and down them with the greatest freedom; and they are calculated by tens and multiples of tens, the upper balls being each reckoned for five, and the lower for units. The Hebrew, the Egyptian, and the Greek, have all been named as the primitives of the Chinese; but it would certainly be a difficult task to produce proof of a direct descent from any of them, although it might be comparatively easy to shew its connection with all. This circumstance may however be received, as a sufficient proof that the Chinese are not an original people like the Hebrews, as some would endeavour to substantiate; but were a formed Nation, like all the others of the Earth. Dr. Marshman, who has laboured to prove that there does not exist any connection between the Sanskrit and Chinese languages, and whose hypothesis will be more particularly mentioned in our notice of the former tongue, has also endeavoured to prove that there is no more connection between the speech of the Hebrews, and that of the inhabitants of China. He found, by an examination of the original text of Judah's address to Joseph, contained in Genesis, chap. xliv., that out of 206 words, in which are 16 monosyllables, only 7 of them were Chinese. He then proceeds to consider Abraham's intercession with God on the behalf of Sodom; in which he found 230 words, containing 10 monosyllables, but only 4 Chinese. Lastly, the learned Doctor takes Noah's prophetic Curse of Canaan, where there occur 26 words, one monosyllable, but not one Chinese word. From these philological experiments the Doctor concludes, that to derive the Chinese

language from the Hebraic, is nothing less than absurd, since in the first instance, only one word occurs out of 29, in the second, one out of 50, and in the third, one out of 26. But even this small number militates agains this hypothesis, that they are an original people, and that their language was invented by themselves; because it is scarcely probable that they could give that Hebraic character both to their tongue and writing, if the idea had not been previously conveyed to them. With respect to the Egyptian language forming the foundation of the Chinese, those authors who have supported this hypothesis, have selected some of the most expressive characters, and by a few minute yet important variations, have produced a faint resemblance of the thing signified by the latter. Barrow, in his Travels in China, Lond. 1806, 4to. page 238, while he seems to controvert this supposition, nevertheless allows that "certain ancient characters are still'extant, in which a rude representation of the image is employed." But the Rev. Dr. R. Morrison, whose astonishing industry has triumphed over all the difficulties of the Chinese tongue, remarks that "in proof of characters being at first a representation of the thing signified, a few instances are adduced, as--

Jib. Yue Shan

Ma

Mah Chow Chay Shwuy Urh

日月山目車水耳

Letters in China, as it is supposed by the Natives themselves, were the invention of a person called Ts'hang-hee, who devised them from the form of a Celestial Constellation, the marks on the Shell of a Tortoise, and the print of a horse's foot. But Paou-Shee, who lived in the third century of the world, is considered the Father of Chinese Letters, since he formed a work entitled Luh-Shoo, or the Six Writings, the contents of which he taught to his pupils. He asserts in that volume, that nine-tenths of the Chinese characters were originally Hieroglyphic; but that for the sake of convenience, speed, or beauty of writing, they became so abbreviated or extended, that their forms were gradually lost. About 800 years previous to the Christian Era, the Seal character, which consists of the general character greatly compressed without any difference of thickness, (Vide Table II. Nos. ix. xvii. xxii.) was first. used. A person named Chow, invented the Ta-chuen-Wan, or letters depicting the object; in which he proposed to represent the straight lines of the Dragon, the crooked windings of the worm, the footsteps of birds, the marks on

shell-fish, and the figures of plants, trees, insects, swords, and spears. About five centuries afterward: Le-sze remodelled the Chinese character; and reducing the number of strokes, formed the Seaou-chuen-wan, or the Little Engraved Letters, which however are sometimes confounded with the Seal character, although their forms are distinctly different. They are now called Chung-Ting-Wan, or the Letters of Bells and Tripods, since they are supposed first to have been derived from the Hieroglyphics on ancient metal vases, which preserved the old characters of China, when the Emperor Che-hwang-tee (about the year of the world 3700), commanded all books to be burned. For specimens of these characters, Vide Table II. No. xvi. The contractions and inconveniences attendant upon the Seal cha racter, caused the Dynasty Han, (A. D. 200), to order it to be reformed to the Le-tsze, or the Court Officer's cha racter, so called from the Clerks of the Public Courts having framed it. It has however been ascribed by some, to one Ching-mo, who invented it in prison. About the year of our Lord 300, Wang-t'hsze-chung, first wrote the Kae or Kea-Shoo, or Level or Excellent Writing, which is considered the most beautiful form of the Chinese character; but in this instance, as well as in some of the former, the original shape is almost wholly lost. HeuShin an Officer of Government, suspecting that at some future period such a revolution might take place, about the year 100 of the Christian Era, composed the work entitled Shwo-wan, a Discourse or Explanation of Letters, in which he endeavoured to preserve the derivation and meaning of the ancient character. The Tsaou-tsze, Grass character, or Running-hand, was invented about the same period by Sheyew, for the purposes of dispatch in the affairs of Govern. ment, but official documents are written in the Kae-Shoo form. It will be seen from the foregoing sketch of the history of the Chinese language, which is an abstract from the Rev. Dr. Rob. Morrison's admirable Chinese Dictionary, that it has undergone many changes, and is composed of many and various materials. The character at the present time is said to be deduced from six different sources: Firstly, from those letters which bear a resemblance to the object, as in the instances already given, Vide ante, page, 363: Secondly, from letters which point at some property, as Shang, Above, is a character like an inverted T thus, L: Thirdly, from a combination of ideas, as Sin, Truth or Belief, is formed from Man and Word: Fourthly, from the sound of the thing spoken of, in which point they greatly resemble the ancient Greeks, as Ho, A River; but sometimes a part of the character is put for meaning and a part for sound: Fifthly, by invertíng or reversing various charac