100 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 10 Bol-1579 wich mayor ribdi, mi bog all that heterogeneous congregation quietly nibbling its several rations, in strange, promiscuous harmonyit still remains a problem of most unfeasible solution, how Noah, with his undisciplined and scanty help, could have safely navigated such an unwieldly enormity, in such a limitless, dark and boisterous ocean, without rudder, anchor, star or compass, nor yet, have failed to end his anomalous and erratic voyage, within the limits of his own Armenia. But may be, you are ready to retort, that God was Noah's pilot; and hence the safety of the ship, and prosperity of the issue! Then, in my opinion, God has been much more ingenious and successful in his nautical, than spiritual, affairs!—a much better mariner, than metaphysician or legislator; or both Jews and Christians have slanderously misrepresented Him! And again; though theological credulity shall be able to reconcile these preposterous circumstances, to its peculiar standard of consistency, it would seem that, were it not early and constantly disciplined in swallowing absurdities by the volume, it would find itself, not a little, perplexed with the state of affairs, inevitably consequent upon the deluge. It must have required much more than a mimic miracle, to produce a sudden crop of luxuriant verdure from out the mud and rock, the flood, so lately, had abandoned-a state, in which the earth could have been, scarcely, more prolific, than when it first emerged from a primeval chaos! And Theology, as we have seen, at length admits an epoch, of at least a thousand years, to have been expended upon the earth's first, verdant mantle, ere insects, 1 A quine-visel ajiben mert a go! beasts and birds, the product of such an other epoch, were sent to nestle in its folds: Nor terminates the difficulty here!-For, admitting vegetable luxuriance to have, miraculously, succeeded the deluge, there yet remains the perplexing consideration, that a great SQUET proportion of Noah's omnigenous congregation was carniverous; and therefore, in the absence of another, no less miraculous creation, than that wherein the life of animals originated, these imprisoned, fleshly feeders must have been turned adrift, with the improvident and evil chance of eating one another-ending Bone thus the catastrophe of the fable! And yet, the most surprising miracle of all is unrecounted; viz., that hot Have saved God should not have himself sal o perplexing an administration n of his own pr |