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LETTERS FROM 
Bryant’s second argument also rests upon 
a single word in the account of the ship¬ 
wreck. It is said, “ the barbarous people 
showed us no little kindness.” Jacob very 
clearly proves from Cicero and from Dio¬ 
dorus Siculus, that at the time in question 
the inhabitants of Malta were by no means 
a “ barbarous people.” 
St. Paul himself has furnished us with an 
answer to this argument in his first epistle to 
the Corinthians, chap. xiv. ver. 11: “ If I 
know not the meaning of the voice, I shall 
be unto him that speaketh a barbarian, and 
he that speaketh shall be a barbarian imto 
me.” Now there is no doubt that at the 
time of the shipwreck the inhabitants of 
Melita, who were of Phoenician and Cartha¬ 
ginian origin, still retained wholly, or in 
part, their ancient language, which would be 
unintelligible to Greeks and Romans. The 
