DIVERSITY OF RACES. 177 



and shall dwell in the tents of Shem, and Canaan shall be his 

 servant," are very far from having received their verification in 

 any past or existing order of things, if these patriarchs were the 

 authors of races. Again, that the scriptural account of the 

 Deluge does not necessarily imply its literal universality, we 

 have very clear evidence, as well as high authority.* And that 

 it was not in fact universal, is now generally maintained by 

 scientific men and conceded by most divines. For, to the geolo- 

 gist, the physical appearance of the earth presents no indications 

 of a flood prevailing over all lands at one and the same time; 

 but on the contrary every presumption against it. The natural 

 historian affirms that the dissemination of animals from one 

 common center is not only impossible, but contradicted by innu- 

 merable facts. The theologian perceives the necessity of such 

 an unparalleled combination of miracles, in the collection, storage, 

 and sustenance for nearly a year, of over a hundred thousand 

 zoological species, in an Ark of but an acre's area, that he also is 

 compelled to assign a comparatively limited extent to the 

 Noacliian Deluge. f Nor can this tendency of modern science 

 to modify and explain, by the intervention of natural causes, 

 the phenomena of Bible history, with the exception of avowed 

 miracles, be regarded as in the least heretical. So far from it, it 

 must give us the noblest conceptions of a Deity, to reflect that 

 the wondrous machinery of the universe, moved and regulated 

 solely by a few grand laws, works out, of itself, His own eternal 

 purposes. There is then no necessity, arising either from the 

 Mosaic records, or the universality of the Flood, for accounting 

 Noah as the second progenitor of all the human family. 



In the days of Abram, the tenth in descent from the patriarch 

 of the Deluge, Egypt was a populous country, the seat of a 

 flourishing empire. On the other side, Assyria "of the Chaldees" 

 was on its march of refinement and magnificence ; and on every 

 hand we read of " kings of nations," and " captains of hosts," 

 coming out to battle on those ancient plains. Before the time of 

 Moses, in the tomb of Osiris far up the Nile, the Egyptian was 



*.Tohn P. Smith's "Relation of Scrip, and Geol.," London, 1830, p. 304. 

 f John Pye Smith, p. 159. 



