Assyrian Discoveries.

ASSYRIAN DISCOVERIES .

Lecture by the Rev . Dr . Kholer , delivered before the Sunday Afternoon Lecture Society of Chicago , America : — - You all have , no doubt , read iu the papers of the excavations lately made among the ruins of the ancient cities of Nineveh and Babylonia ; fewhoweverI

, , suppose , have sufficiently Avatched the progress of these explorations to be aware of their important value in tracing the history of our race . I may , therefore , right at the outset , claim your interest for a discovery which ranks among the greatest

achievements of our wouder-working age . By this , of course , I do not mean the digging clone with the axe and the shovel in yonder mounds of Mesopotamia , but the decip hering of the Assyrian inscriptions and the subsequent recoA-ery of lost treasures of a most ancient culture .

All great discoveries made on the progressive march of historyderive their importance less from what theyimmediately bring to light than from the chances they offer for widening man ' s horizon and enlarging his scope . Neither the Eldorado supposed to be detected by the Spaniardsnor the

, new continent added to the map of our globe , nor the vast territories unlocked for overcrowded Europe , won Columbus immortal fame . The inexhaustible blessing of the discoveiy of America was that , while putting man in possession of both

hemispheres , it made him master of the Avliole globe , and in making the wide ocean a bridge to connect the most distant lands , it brought , so to speak , the far off heaven Avithin the grasp of his calculations . Like-Avisethc Copernican discoA'ery of the earth ' s

being a mere planet moving around the sun unveiled the vista of the sk y for a Kepler , Galileo , Newton , and the Herschels , to perceive innumerable Avorlds beaming with light iu immeasurable distances . Or when geology unfolded tlie authentic

records of creation , as given in the substrata of the earth itself , each of which represents an epoch counting millions of years in the development of our planet , the Avay was cleared up for Darwin to find in the scale of beings the law of gradual evolution , and

thus to lay the corner-stone of a new science and a new philosophy , prompting much higher views of the universe , and

sublimer ideas of its Creator than the old one . Now , among these great modem revelations the discovery of Assyrian and Babylonian literature and art fairl y bids for a conspicuous place , as it offers indeed a great missing link in the chain of evolution of the human mind . For it is not

long since , silently admitted by thinking men that the chasm gaping betAveen the Bushmanand a Shakespeareand Humboldt , a Feejee Islander and aMoses and Aristotle , is too wide to he tilled up by the few thousand years brought forth by Biblical chronology ? Of coursefeAV people ave

in-, clined to give up the firm position of good old orthodoxy for a mere " perhaps " and " probably " offered by scientific inquiry . Hence most people fail to be convinced , Avhen the remnants of fossils found in the layers of the earth proved man to have

coexisted with the mammoth and mastodon , and OA'er since 200 , 000 or 300 , 000 years fought the struggle for existence . Indeed , all those hunting-caves , and pile-dwellings , and ancient mounds , found replete Avith specimens of man ' s handicraft on both

hemispheres , give no exact accounts , as regards their age , to convince men of lazy habits of thinking . Nor does the dim and scanty knoAvledge transmitted to us b y sacred and classical writers concerning a remoter past , shed light enough upon the

road of groping and struggling mankind in its infancy . Happily , then , Champollion , the general decipherer of tho hieroglyphics , discovered the key to unlock Egyptian antiquity , so long hidden , and to trace the history of

civilization thousands of years beyond the supposed flood . By continued researches evidences Avere brought to light of a hi ghly advanced state of-culture the Egyptians enjoyed more than 3 , 500 years before Abraham trod on the soil of Canaanas

, still existing monuments of yonder time witness . But , as when light is brought to shine through a small crevice into a spacious hall , dark from all sides , it merel y brightens up the room iu that one direction , leaving the other portions in a more contrasting

darkness , so it was in our case . To Eoypt , henceforth , every historian turned for light . Egypt Avas declared to be the parent and the inventress of all arts and sciences . Only a few iveeks ago I heard Bayard Taylor , in a most interesting lecture on Egypt , express himself in this ivay : " From