them. The immense power of these might carry some of the animals along with them, to places very distant from their native soil. Fish and vegetables might sink into the chasms formed by "the fountains of the great deep breaking up ;"-and there they are found at this day. It is no unreasonable imagination, that these deposits were intended for the very purpose which they now subserve, -a continuing evidence of the truth of the Mosaic history.

Fanny. This is a curious subject. I suppose I might learn more of it than I know, from the Bible, if I read more attentively than I do. But you, mother, can tell us how long Noah remained in the ark.

Mother. I am always pleased with the expression of your curiosity. I will gratify it, by relating some particulars respecting the flood.

The seventeenth day of the second month, when the rain began, answers to the seventh of December, as some learned men calculate, and to the beginning of November, as others reckon. The waters from the clouds and from the hidden sources in the earth, increased the flood for one hundred and fifty days, or five months, until it had risen about twenty-seven feet above the top of the highest mountains. About the beginning of May the waters began to abate, and about the end of it, the ark rested on the mountains of Ararat. Toward the end of July, the tops of the mountains were seen, and on the twenty-seventh day of the second month (the eighteenth of December) Noah and his family went out from the ark, where they had been a year and ten days.

Charles. In what part of the world are these memorable mountains situated?

Catherine. Ararat, it is generally thought, is a mountain of Armenia, in Asia, a part of a chain, called Cau

casus.

Mother. The country is high. It is said to have been at that time very fertile, and therefore most suitable for the first habitation of man, after the flood. The period of time from the creation to the flood, embraces sixteen hundred and fifty-six years; and is called by chronolo gists the first age of the world.

ANTEDILUVIAN LONGEVITY.

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Charles. Were the years of the antediluvians like ours, containing each three hundred and sixty-five days? Perhaps they were months. Only think,-Methusaleh lived nine hundred and sixty-nine years. What a prodigious length of time!

Mother. They were literally years. The numbers recorded by Moses can, on no other hypothesis, be reconciled with his history. The age even of the oldest man, reduced to months, would not equal the period allotted to many in our own day; and that of others would dwindle into comparative childhood.

Charles. I suppose their climate was more healthful than ours.

Mother. The earth may have been more healthful before the flood, than it has been since, or it may be, that a vegetable diet might contribute to lengthen life. From the words spoken to Noah, when he took possession of the new earth, " Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things," it would seem, that animal food had not been allowed to man before the deluge. But whatever may have been the means of longevity, the design is evident. Having no written language, a greater number of contemporary witnesses, might, by tradition, hand down the history of the creation and subsequent events.

Methuselah having lived with Adam two hundred and förty-three years, and with Shem, the son of Noah, ninetyseven; and again, Shem living to the days of Abraham, the history might be carried on with certainty and precision. Still, the account of the first ages does not rest solely on the memory or veracity of the antediluvian patriarchs. Moses, as you will find by and by, was favoured with an intimate communication with the Creator, by whom he was inspired, and who alone could reveal the history of the creation, and the arrangement of matter, -events which were anterior to the existence of any human being.

The first act which Noah performed, after he descended from the ark, was to build an altar and offer a sacrifice. Nothing, surely, could have been more natural or becoming, than to express his gratitude for a deliverance so ex

ceedingly wonderful! We sometimes see extreme distress brought on a small district of country by a partial inundation; but how faint an emblem of that universal destruction of mankind, in a flood that involved the whole terrestrial globe!

The mercy of his Divine Preserver did not stop here. He graciously assured Noah, that he would not again sweep mankind from the face of the earth. But so long as it remained, his creatures should continue to enjoy and to cultivate it, through the vicissitudes of time; "that seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night should not cease." To confirm the faith of man in His promise, He "set his bow in the cloud," and directed the family of Noah to behold that beautiful arch, as a token of the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature; that the waters should no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.

Fanny. Do you think, mother, that a rainbow had never been seen before that time? Surely it had rained before the deluge.

Mother. There are two opinions, my dear, on this question; but no person can now determine, which is the more correct. Some suppose the rainbow to have always appeared, under the same circumstances in which we behold it at the present day, and that it was merely pointed out on the present occasion, as the memorial of a promise. Others believe, that this beautiful object was now first produced, and for this particular purpose. "Though it had rained," say they, " before the deluge, yet the superintending Providence, which caused the rainbow to appear as a pledge of the assurance that he gave, (that the world should never more be destroyed by water,) might have prevented the concurrence of such circumstances in the time, of rain, as were essentially necessary for the formation of a bow. It might have rained when the sun was set, or when he was more than fifty-four degrees high, when no bow could be seen; and the rain might continue, between the spectator and the sun, until the clouds were expended, or in any other direction, but that of an opposition to the sun.”

So many circumstances are necessary to coincide, for

NOAH'S PROPHECIES.

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the formation of a rainbow, that even now it appears in but few of the rains, which our beneficent Preserver showers down, to fertilize the land and render the air salubrious.

The Supreme Being, having condescended to promise by a covenant, that he would be the Protector of his creatures, continued to manifest his superintendence, both general and particular, by a variety of means, but more especially by a series of prophecies. These supernatural intimations of the divine will, from the first obscure ray which cheered our fallen parents in Paradise, to the full blaze of gospel light, harmonious in their tendency, and progressive in their clearness, besides their relation to the intermediate dispensations of Providence, still pointed to their ultimate end. They kept up the expectation of an extraordinary person, who should deliver mankind from the curse incurred by disobedience, both on him, and, for his sake, on the earth which he inhabited.

Lamech, for example, seems to have imagined, that he had received the promised benefactor, when, on the birth of his son Noah, he exclaims, "this same shall comfort us concerning our work and toils of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed." And Noah, alluding to the same hope, in the blessing pronounced on his children, distinguishes his son Shem, as being favoured with some peculiar relationship to the Deity, in these words: "Blessed be the LORD God of Shem." Noah was singularly honoured, as we have seen, and Shem became the progenitor of God's peculiar people.

Noah, having been a preacher of righteousness to the old world, became a prophet to the new, being enlightened to foretel the future fortunes of his children. On Shem and Japhet, who were virtuous persons and dutiful sons, he pronounced a blessing,-while Ham is assured, that he should be a 66 servant of servants to his brethren."

Fanny. Then Ham, I suppose, did not deserve a blessing?

Mother. You are right. The Supreme Disposer of events is always just. Ham had himself a bad disposi tion; but his posterity, who were chiefly implicated in the prophecy, were abominably wicked. Prophecies are sel

dom to be understood of single persons: they generally comprehend whole nations; as you will find, when you come to study them. We shall notice them now, only when they elucidate the history in which we are engaged. Charles. I have heard one of our professors say, that Ham became black, in consequence of the curse pronounced upon him by his father; and thus he accounts for the colour of the Africans, his posterity.

Mother. Your professor, my dear, has no authority for his opinion; nor need we undertake to discuss the question. Let us confine ourselves chiefly to the letter of Scripture, and if we cannot there discover the causes of dif ference in the colour of the human family, we can with certainty account for the varieties in language. There we learn, that though mankind had greatly multiplied after the flood, "they were yet of one language and of one speech," until, finding themselves straitened for room in the hilly countries of Armenia, where, it is generally thought, they had first settled when they descended from the ark, they began to spread over the adjacent lands. Travelling westward, they came to a plain called Shinar, and on the spot, as it is supposed, where the city of Babylon afterwards stood, they began to build a city and a tower, whose top should reach the heavens, to perpetuate their name to succeeding generations. But God, who does not always favour the designs of ambitious men, was pleased to send among these projectors, such a confusion of languages, that they could not understand one another; and the place was called Babel, which imports confusion. One tie, identity of speech, which had hitherto held together the great family of Noah, being now dissolved, they dispersed yet further with less reluctance. Still, as the number of mankind was comparatively small, it is not to be supposed, that they could at once form very extensive settlements. The children of Shem remained in Asia, and those of Ham are still found in Africa: Mizraim, his grandson, led colonies into Egypt, and founded a powerful kingdom; whence Egypt is sometimes called the land of Ham.

Europe was the portion of Japhet; and he, at least, must have practised the art of ship-building, which they