230 



its sacred service. Now this tabernacle, and 

 this service, were undoubtedly emblems of the 

 Christian church and Christian worship. It ap- 

 pears, then, that in the mention of the tents of 

 Shem, Noah was inspired to make allusion to the 

 Jewish tabernacle, as the symbol of the Christian 

 dispensation ; and that the dwelling of Japhet in 

 those tents of Shem, took place when the idola- 

 trous nations of Japhet's line became converted 

 to the faith of Christ, and worshipped the God 

 of Shem in Shem's tabernacles ; that is, wor- 

 shipped God in the truth and spirit of revealed 

 religion. 



" This prediction, therefore, bears directly 

 upon the general object of all the prophecies the 

 union of all nations in the faith of Christ. And 

 the fact is notorious, that the Gospel has, from 

 the beginning to the present time, made the 

 greatest progress in Europe, where the early 

 and wide-spreading conversions of the idolaters 

 of Japhet's line (among whom were our own 

 ancestors) soon led to encroachments on the 

 territory of Shem. 



" How grateful should we be," my uncle 

 added, " to those learned men who thus elu- 

 cidate the difficult passages in Scripture, and 

 shew the beautiful harmony of the whole pro- 

 phetic system ! " 



. I am reading " Bartram's Travels in 



