THE NOACHIAN FLOOD. 55 



unbroken continuity through, a past as yet unfathomable. 

 His own mind, he will perceive, has actually reached 

 maturity without having admitted the voice of this 

 multitude, although, to apply almost literally the words 

 of his great Master, ' If these should hold their peace, 

 the stones would cry out 1 .' 



The world and its wonders are of no mushroom growth, 

 although even the mushroom, which is commonly sup- 

 posed to spring up in a single night, requires a much 

 longer period, often many weeks, for its production 2 . 

 The Book of Genesis itself most clearly warns any care- 

 ful reader against attempting to build a chronology upon 

 the brief memoranda of names and dates which for other 

 reasons are inserted in it. For, taking them simply as 

 they stand, Shem, the son of Noah, is represented as 

 long surviving the birth of Isaac, while Abraham, the 

 father of Isaac, appears as the contemporary of a vast 

 number of different and strange tribes and nations 

 Egyptians, Philistines, Canaan ites, Syrians, and many 

 more, besides the Chaldeans from among whom he 

 came. To find a parallel to all this, we should imagine 

 our own Edward III, instead of dying in 1377 as ne 

 did, living on and on to the present day, a forgotten old 

 man, not noticed in the page of history throughout 500 

 eventful years, during which the whole of Europe was 

 becoming peopled with descendants of himself and his 



1 A religious and supremely orthodox poet of the last century en- 

 quires, 'Where is the dust that has not been alive ?' Young, 'Night 

 Thoughts,' Night IX, 1. 87. 



2 ' Mushrooms and Toadstools.' Worthington G. Smith, p. 17. 



