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so eminently characterizes the exuberant fertility of an oriental 
fancy; yet we cannot fail to discover in it evident traces of the 
more simple and succinct account transmitted to us in the Mo- 
saical history. The cause of this signal display of divine ven- 
geance; the number of persons who were miraculously preserved 
from this convulsion of nature; the manner by which Omnipotence 
interposed to effect their deliverance, are all clearly defined; and 
remarkably correspond with what we are accustomed to consider, 
as the words of inspired truth.” 
“As has been now shewn, we can clearly prove the reality of 
an universal deluge, not from the Jewish oracles, which relate the 
event in its connection with their national history; not from the 
phenomena of the natural world, which are in harmony with those 
oracles; not from the nations of Arabia and Tartary, who have 
preserved many of the facts related in the sacred history, but who 
also retain a veneration for the Jewish law-giver; but from the 
arrogant and presumptuous Brahmin, who disclaims all kindred 
with the less favoured nations of the earth; who regards his own 
country as the spot on which the Divinity has displayed a peculiar 
manifestation of his presence, as the centre of terrestrial creation, 
and the ‘ land of virtues;’ and who views, with a consciousness of 
superior sanctity, the professors of that faith which his own records 
have shewn to be historically true.” 
The civil history of mankind, contained in the remaining 
fragments of the earliest annalist, agrees with the narrative of 
Moses. They concur in placing the theatre of the first memorable 
events that befel the human race, within the limits of Iran, under- 
stood in its true and extended signification, between the Gxus 
