in jeopardy all title to a belief in the blessing with which God, according to the Chaldean tradition, blessed the seed of Abraham.

Had it fallen to Moses' pen to have blazoned forth the ingratitude, the crimes, and the cruelties, with which the descendants of Jacob repaid the hospitality of the Egyptians, the detail must have drawn from the historian an expression of opinion but little flattering to their self-love. Moses acted, therefore, with policy. Not being able to redeem their history from odium, he condemned it to silence; and the oblivion has succeeded. A blank of 430 years is deemed preferable to a detail of infamy for the same period of time.

The Hebrews, long initiated into a state of domestic slavery, had partially imbibed the religion of their masters. This is a necessary consequence of slavery, when perpetuated through several generations. We see the same results occurring in our own day. The slaves of the Turks are professed Mahomedans; the slaves of the Spaniards and Portuguese are professed Romanists; and the slaves of the Anglo-Americans are professed Protestants. It follows that there must be a marked analogy between the religion of the Egyptians and that of the Hebrews. We must bear in mind also that the Hebrews were descended from Chaldeans, and that the mythology of the Chaldeans, and that of the Egyptians, was analogous. Thus, in the following examples, the heathen mythology corresponds with the Hebrew mythology, with a closeness of resemblance which denotes one and the same original.

1. The heathen legend of Chaos corresponds with

the Mosaic legend of the Earth without form and void.

2. That of Tellus corresponds with that of Adam. 3. That of the Deluge corresponds with that of the Flood.

4. That of Deucalion and Pyrrha corresponds with that of Noah and his family.

5. That of the Giants besieging heaven corresponds with that of the Tower of Babel.

They are parallel legends, and can scarcely be said to differ from each other in character. But we dissent from those who assert that these legends are borrowed by the Heathens from the Hebrews: the reverse is the case, they are borrowed by the Hebrews from the Heathens. We have introduced the Mosaic historian to the reader before his proper time. Moses was not the author, but the compiler, of the traditions which are found in the Genesis, or in the Book of Generation and Production. As we are about to treat of the first of these legends, we have found it needful to describe the nature of its authority, and the manner in which the historian obtained a cognizance of it. After the termination of the Book of Genesis, we shall proceed with the Mosaic history, from the date at which the historian introduces himself to the world as an infant exposed to perish in the rushes on the banks of the Nile.

Gen. i. 1-5.

The First

We proceed to dedicate our attention to the legend of the seven days of creation. "In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form and

Day.

void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day."

Commentary

The cosmography of the ancients was on the First divided into two parts-the one destined Day. for the abode of immortals, the other of mortals. In the sacred cosmogony, these places are called the heaven and the earth. The heaven was supreme, as the place for the residence of God; but the earth took precedence over all other subcelestial objects. Thus the earth was created on the first day; but the sun, the moon, and the stars, being merely attendants on, and subordinate to, the earth, were not created until the fourth day. But what is to be comprehended by the epoch of time denominated the Beginning, the date at which the earth was called. into existence from a chaotic state, "the earth being without form and void"?

God never had a beginning. The being of God is from all eternity; and the creative power of God was in full activity anterior to the date at which the foundations of the earth were laid.

The defective wording of this legend would, therefore, admit of the inference, that at the epoch of time denominated the beginning, the universe comprised a state of chaos, and that God was the god of chaos!

The sensitive mind repudiates this heathen conception of God. God is not-God never was- the God

of chaos. God is the god of order, the god of system, the god of law; and the inquiring mind perceives these primary conditions of the Godhead stamped upon every object throughout the vast scheme of creation.

But God said, "Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night."

Darkness was one of the elements of chaos; but light was a newly-created substance, emitting luminous matter, which shone during the day. Upon its withdrawal, darkness resumed its sway; and thus were constituted the evening and the morning of the first day. But light and heat are not synonymous; and no medium seems to have been devised for the diffusion of heat on the first day. The light, also, which was created for our system, is not the same light which illuminates other systems. Some of the fixed stars emit light of diverse colours, green, purple, yellow, red, and white. They are the suns of other systems, to which separate acts of creative power have been extended, giving evidence of the glory and majesty of God, and of the surpassing beauty of his works.

We have asserted that Moses was not the author of this legend; but if he had possessed a glimmering of the merely elementary principles of astronomical science, he would have rejected it. Moses was ignorant of the magnificent arrangement by which one-half of the surface of the earth receives the rays of the sun, whilst the other half is in shade, the earth herself alternating, by her diurnal revolution, the changes of

day and night in every place, within each twenty-four hours.

Had Moses derived his principles of astronomical knowledge by means of inspiration, he could not possibly have convicted himself of the fallacy of introducing the evening and the morning without the sun.

Gen. i. 6-8. -The Second Day.

"And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day."

Commentary on the

The work of this day is not very intelligibly described; so that the author Second Day. cannot have well comprehended what he desired to bring under the intelligence of his reader.

Water was one of the elements of Chaos, which existed on the first day. A firmament was now constructed which was named Heaven, and which served to divide the waters into two reservoirs, one of which is placed above the firmament of heaven, and the other below the firmament.

The waters below the firmament were elaborated on the third day, and gathered together, so that the uses of the reservoir above the firmament on the second day were for the retention of water for the purposes of

rain.

The Talmud gives to Moses the reputation of a profound chemist. The book of Exodus particular