362 CONFIRMATION OF BIBLE HISTORY. Chap. XIII. 



the heart of Africa. A copper bar of native manufacture 

 four feet long was offered to ns for sale at Chinsamba's. 

 These arts are monuments attesting the fact, that some 

 instruction from above must at some time or other have 

 been supplied to mankind ; and, as Archbishop Whately 

 says, "the most probable conclusion is, that man when 

 first created, or very shortly afterwards, was advanced, 

 by the Creator Himself, to a state above that of a mere 

 savage." 



The argument for an original revelation to man, 

 though quite independent of the Bible history, tends to 

 confirm that history. It is of the same nature with this, 

 that man could not have made himself, and therefore must 

 have had a Divine Creator. Mankind could not, in the 

 first instance, have civilized themselves, and therefore must 

 have had a superhuman Instructor. 



In connection with this subject, it is remarkable that 

 throughout successive generations no change has taken 

 place in the form of the various inventions. Hammers, 

 tongs, hoes, axes, adzes, handles to them ; needles, bows 

 and arrows, with the mode of feathering the latter; spears, 

 for killing game, with spear-heads having what is termed 

 " dish " on both sides to give them, when thrown, the 

 rotatory motion of rifle-balls ; the arts of spinning and 

 weaving, with that of pounding and steeping the inner 

 bark of a tree till it serves as clothing ; millstones for 

 grinding corn into meal ; the manufacture of the same 

 kind of pots or chatties as in India ; the art of cooking, 

 of brewing beer and straining it as was done in ancient 

 Egypt ; fish-hooks, fishing and hunting nets, fish-baskets, 

 and weirs, the same as in the Highlands of Scotland; 

 traps for catching animals, etc., etc., — have all been so very 

 permanent from age to age, and some of them of identical 

 patterns are so widely spread over the globe, as to render 

 it probable that they were all, at least in some degree. 



