That Abraham, the great progenitor of many of the nations of the eastern world, was a learned man, is asserted in the writings of several of the early Chaldean historians, as stated by Josephus, book 1. Berosseus, a Chaldean historian, speaks of this Abraham, the Syrian, as being wonderfully versed in a knowledge of the heavenly bodies, or in astronomy. Hecatus, another Chaldean writer, celebrates the greatness and the learning of the man Abraham, who, as Josephus relates, composed a book, setting forth the life of Abraham, by which means his name was well known to the ancient writers of India and Hindostan. To this Adam Clarke sets his seal, who says, that in the oriental writings in the Sanscrit language, frequent allusion is made to Abraham, as well as to Solomon ben-Doud; or, in other words, to Solomon, the son of David.
It is said by Josephus, that Abraham carried with him to Egypt a knowledge of arithmetic; which is borne out in the fact of his seed, both the Hebrews and the Ishmaelites, always being in the possession of the science of figures. And from whom did Abraham receive this knowledge, but from Shem, or Melchisedek, the son of Noah, which came from beyond the flood?
How is it, therefore, that literary men of the latter ages have seemed to look for the origin of the arts and sciences no higher than to the sooty cities of Egypt or Phœnicia, with all this evidence before them, as if the negro man must have been the first and only discoverers of all that is excellent in the earth, especially when it is known that this race have
