Since the departure of Moses the kingdom of China, which he founded, has many times been invaded by different nations of Western Asia; and has had conquerors so savage that they ordered all the books to be burnt, and compelled the people to adopt many strange customs, which prevail in China even to this day. So that the Chinese were more civilized in the days immediately succeeding Moses’ time than they are in this century.
The country along the sea-board adjoining China is Corea; and the Lawgiver visited this country also before he crossed over to the island of Japan. The original Coreans were savages, like all their primitive neighbours; and here the god-like Lawgiver imparted to the ignorant men the same lessons he had given in all the countries along his route. He formed the peninsula of Corea into a dependency of China; so that its annals are included in the History of China.
The Coreans have a knowledge of the writings of Moses; and a system of caste prevails as in the Eastern parts of India. The colonists were, of course, the nobles of the land. A traveller states:—[[63]]
“The features of a very considerable portion of the natives I had an opportunity to see during my travels in the country bore an expression so noble and so marked, that they might have passed for Europeans, had they been dressed after our fashion. This was also most strikingly observable in a great number of children, whose handsome, regular features, rosy skin, blue eyes, and auburn hair really made it so difficult to distinguish them from European children that at first I could not account for their looks but by believing them to be of European descent—an impression which had, of course, to be abandoned as altogether false and erroneous after penetrating further into the interior, when appearances of the same nature became of daily occurrence.”
From the peninsula of Corea Moses and his followers crossed over to the beautiful island of Japan, in the North Pacific Ocean, not far distant from the continent of Asia. The people inhabiting the numerous isles which compose the kingdom of Japan were savages—ignorant and superstitious, like the rest of the children of Nature, whom the Lawgiver had met in his journey, and whom he reclaimed from the darkness of ignorance to the knowledge of God and His commandments.
Here he taught the Japanese as he had other people; and after giving laws and ordinances for their guidance, he departed, leaving a colony to govern the country.
CHAPTER VIII.
MISSION OF MOSES IN THE WEST.
Proceeding still further eastward Moses landed on the western coast of North America. He found the natives inhabiting this vast tract of land as savage as those he had left on the continent and the adjacent islands of Asia—profoundly ignorant of God, living like the animals around them, and going about as nude as in the day when they were first created. The god-like Lawgiver founded an extensive empire in this wilderness, and brought these savages under subjection, and taught them all things necessary for their happiness and well-being. This empire was Mexico.
In this new empire he constructed monuments resembling those of Upper and Lower Egypt, Nubia and Ethiopia; he set up statues, built pyramids, aqueducts, palaces, and bridges. His works he embellished with sculpture portraying the battles his forces had fought with the different nations that opposed their landing to occupy the country. And he brought his new subjects to the same state of civilization as the ancient Egyptians of his time. The following extracts are from the work of a modern traveller, concerning the pyramids and other ruins of Mexico:—[[64]]
“We arrived at Chollula after a pleasant ride over plains covered with corn-fields, interspersed with plantations of the Agava Americana. This city was, before the conquest, one of the most considerable belonging to the ancient Mexicans. It was famed for its idols, its sanctity, and its pagan worship.