459 
Dr. McCausland of course is not unaware of the narrative with respect to 
Ham, the father of Canaan. I need not trouble you with any extended 
reference to the fact, which is of course cognizant to all present, and I will 
therefore only mention the curse which was pronounced upon Ham. Ham 
had infracted the law of the decalogue ; he had been guilty of filial impiety. 
When his father had in his infirmity disgraced himself, no doubt filial piety, 
if it had operated in a noble nature, would have afflicted Ham with sorrow 
and distress, but it seems to be implied in the narrative that he made a jest 
of his father’s dishonour. That suggests to me that he must then have been 
in a state of moral declension — in a very low moral condition — or he would 
have been differently affected by his father’s conduct. The result is that a 
curse is pronounced upon Ham in these words : — “ Accursed be Ham ; the 
servant of servants shall he be to his brethren.” That curse took effect. It 
might not immediately develope the lower type of the negro or anything of 
that sort, but it resulted ultimately I presume in that degeneracy, and 
that appears to me to be the only possible solution of such degeneracy. 
Dr. McCausland says : — 
“ The time that elapsed between Adam and the exodus, or, more properly 
speaking, between the dispersion and the exodus, is altogether too short to 
account for a change so decided and fixed as that between the Caucasian and 
the negro.” 
But I find that that interval is one of no less than 847 years, and surely 
eight and a half centuries give ample time for the development of that low 
type. There is quite time enough to account for the degeneracy which took 
place. Then the theory of unity of origin is supported by other con- 
siderations. I read in the same record, that God made of one blood all 
nations to dwell on the face of the earth. One blood — what does that 
mean ? It means one life, for the life is in the blood — the blood is simply 
the vehicle by which life is conveyed through the organism. Therefore 
God made them of one life, and one life is one organisation ; for organisation, 
I take it, must refer itself to life — the organising force or principle must be 
life. Then one organisation means one organism, and if that be so, any 
declension must be explained in some other manner than by diversity of 
origin. Another thing strikes me, in relation to what Dr. McCausland has 
said as to the original unity of language. I find it written in a very early 
portion of the record that the whole earth was of one language, of one 
speech. That again establishes to my mind — unity of origin. If there was 
one language, one speech, it implies to my mind essential unity of origin, 
for with diversity of origin you would have diversity of language. 
Rev. C. A. Row. — I shall confine my observations to the last portion of 
Dr. McCausland’s essay, as to how far the science of language bears out 
the chronology of the Bible ; and my own opinion is, that so far as the science 
of language has yet gone, it being imperfect, but daily progressing towards 
perfection, it does demand a longer chronology than 6,000 years from the 
creation, or 4,000 years from the flood. It is common to study this point 
