contend that the ways of God are not as the ways

man.

of

It

To this principle we offer our sincere credence and unhesitating acceptance. The ways of God are so immeasurably superior to the ways of man, they do not admit of the remotest affinity. They They are replete with magnificent beauty and systematic design. But to demonstrate in his works an unacquaintance with his own laws, and to ascribe to the Godhead the infirmities of humanity, productive of anger, revenge, changeableness, and favouritism, are in the highest degree irreverent, and familiarize in the mind an erroneous estimate of the Author of the universe. is with regret, therefore, we proceed to comment on the conclusion of this chapter, which informs us that Noah, on descending from the ark, proceeded "to build an altar unto the Lord, and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burntofferings on the altar. And the Lord smelled a sweet savour, and the Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every living thing as I have done."

We had occasion, in a preceding commentary, to draw the reader's attention to the surreptitious interpolation into the text by a Mosaic writer, of a passage in which he causes the introduction into the ark of seven clean beasts, and of seven clean birds of each species, in addition to the pair commanded to be taken by the original writer. Now, if the interpolation by a Mosaic writer is manifested (and that it is manifest must be patent to all readers), it follows that the

pious sacrifice by Noah, "who took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burntofferings on the altar," defeated the fulfilment of the destiny intended for them by the Deity, for if one of each pair was sacrificed, the renewal of their multiplication and increase could not be accomplished, and the extinction of their respective races must have followed as a matter of course. But the legend convicts itself of blindness at every step.

The narrative which follows is, indeed, mournful, and if unproductive of repulsiveness to the reader, it would betoken a lamentable absence of a sound discriminating faculty. The altar which Noah builded must have possessed enormous dimensions, to have afforded space for the vast holocaust which he dedicated to God. The sacrifice consisted of many hundreds of beasts and of fowls, whose odour ascended to heaven, and produced a favourable impression on the organs of the Deity. The text informs us, "that the Lord smelled a sweet savour, and his heart softened." Surely, this worse than human infirmity, ascribed to the divine nature, is blasphemous and repulsive in the extreme. But as a consequence of the odoriferous savour of roasted meats, so grateful to the organs of divinity," the Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every living thing as I have done."

The first sentence in this passage would appear to be a direct concession to the imperfection of man's nature, and the toleration of it, enveloped in evil from his youth, which, bad as it is said to be, is not again

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to be punished in the signal manner it had been. The concluding sentence confirms our assertion that the fish of the sea were intended to have been included within the provisions of the exterminating decree. God says, "neither again will I smite any more every living thing as I have done." The expression every living thing" indispensably includes the natives of the waters, whereas it is manifest that the occurrence of the flood, far from having a tendency to diminish the species of the finny tribe, had, on the contrary, the effect of increasing their numbers.

The Hebrew legend of the flood is a paraphrase of the heathen legend of the deluge.

The fossil remains of structures of vegetable and animal formation in the earth's strata were as open to the observation of the ancients as they are in our day, but the ancients did not patiently and systematically trace these evidences of a ceaselessly-renewing world, through their various ramifications to their primitive Great First Cause. The science of Geology was wholly unknown to them, and, governed by a system of Sacerdotal Fable, they attributed the awe-inspiring witnesses of bygone creations to the effects of a universal deluge.

The mythology of the Egyptians, and that of the Chaldeans, were nearly identical, and hence the legend of the universal deluge descended in a direct line to the Hebrews, who founded on it their not less illogical legend of the flood.

The fable of the flood shone brightly in the uncultivated understanding of the ancient people of the earth, but it grows pale with the advance of science,

whose illuminating influence supersedes its attempted light, as the rising sun absorbs the distant twinkling of the stars.

THE SCRIPTURAL LEGEND OF THE NEW COVENANT

The Scrip

AFTER THE FLOOD.

Gen. ix. 1-29.

"And God blessed Noah and his sons, tural Legend and said unto them, Be fruitful, and mulof the New tiply, and replenish the earth. And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be

Covenant after the Flood.

upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered. Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb,

But flesh with the life

have I given you all things. thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat. And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man. And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein. And God spake unto Noah and to his sons with him, saying, And I, behold I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you; and with every living creature that is with

you, of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth with you; from all that go out of the ark, to every beast of the earth. And I will establish my covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth. And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. And it shall come to pass when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud: and I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh. And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth. And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth. And the sons of Noah, that went forth of the ark, were Shem, and Ham, and Japheth: and Ham is the father of Canaan. These are the three sons of Noah: and of them was the whole earth overspread. And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard: and he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without. And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their