conferring blessing on the younger, yet the principle is the same when the mode of procedure is reversed-when the elder obtains the blessing, or is simply passed by without special notice, and the younger is associated with the father's sin in a marked and special manner. Thus it is here. Illustrations of the choice of the younger occur in the case of Isaac (Gen. xxi. 9-21), and of Jacob (Gen. xxv. 23-24; Mal. i. 1-3). Indeed, the same principle is seen from the beginning. Abel is specially blessed, Cain is left in unbelief. The selection of the Syrian idolater, Abraham (Josh. xxiv. 3; Neh. ix. 7), in order that he might become the founder of a great nation; and even the bringing in, when the fulness of time was come, of the Gentiles to the enjoyment of the special blessings of grace (Rom. xi.); tell the same tale of the sovereignty of the great moral Governor of the world as the Father of the covenant heritage. "Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell severity; but toward thee goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off" (Rom. xi. 22). May not the limitation in Exodus (xx. 5), bearing upon the hereditary curse, be designed to raise the question in our minds of the disposition of those on whom it falls? It is to come "upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate God." Does not this imply the wicked children of wicked parents? those, in a word, who stand in the same moral relation to God as that in which their fathers stood? The open door to blessing will thus be set before the children of the wicked, and the strongest motives will be presented to them not to be like unto their fathers. 3. The consideration now urged may warrant the inference, that among the children of Ham the disposition which led to the contempt for Noah, as the divine representative in the household and the family leader and example, on the part of Ham, was fully possessed by Canaan, and that thus his name is associated with this curse. The fact, that the other sons are not named, should separate them from its special bearings. Had it been designed to go out in the whole line of Ham, it is in the highest degree probable that the father only would have been named, in such a way as to include all his offspring.

This whole subject is invested with peculiar interest to the theologian, the student of prophecy, the philanthropist, the historian, and the ethnologist. To the first, it presents some of the most difficult questions in dogmatic theology-such, for example, as the difference between prediction by God and the causal expression of his will; or such also as the harmony between his character as a tender, gracious, loving Father, and such views of his ways as meet us in the working

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out of his threatenings of wrath and righteous judgment. To the second, it presents a wide field of comparison between the destinies of nations and the prophecies which went before concerning them. The third will find, in a right view of the scope of Noah's utterance, a strong refutation of the arguments which have been drawn from it in support of slavery. And the last two will acknowledge that it is full of suggestive matter as they follow the path of the Hamites, either by the light of monumental records, or by that of the physical features of this great family. The relation of the subject to slavery is that now specially in view. Before the words of Noah can be adduced in support of slavery, they must be shown to include all the Hamites, and it must be made apparent, either (1.) that all the nations descended from Ham were specially cursed above all the Japhetan and Semitic tribes, or (2.) that the Negro family are the descendants of Canaan. The former is directly contradicted by history, and even, by fair inference, it may be held to be so by the word of God. The latter is impossible. Looking at the former, tribes descended from Japheth will be found as unlike a favoured people as the Assyrians and Egyptians descended from Ham. Besides, are these now named not included in the promises of grace themselves? "In that day shall there be a highway out of Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian shall come into Egypt, and the Egyptian into Assyria; and the Egyptians shall serve with the Assyrians. In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria, even a blessing in the midst of the land: whom the Lord of hosts shall bless, saying, Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel mine inheritance" (Isa. xix. 23–25). Such prospects are not opened up to Canaan. As to the alleged relation between the Negro and Canaan, every statement of Scripture which may be held to shed light on the subject goes to indicate that the seven nations of the land of Canaan-the Canaanites-were his descendants; and that Noah's curse, in the chief aspect of it at least, was fulfilled in their expulsion from the land, and their almost total extirpation by the Shemites under Joshua and his successors. Yet that even in their case there was a day of grace, a time of long-suffering, and, as with the Gibeonites, a remnant spared (Josh. ix.), are evident from the references in the Old Testament to the agricultural prosperity, the populous and walled cities, and the military prowess and skill of the people. For nearly a thousand years at least they were allowed to hold the land as seven distinct and ordered nations. It is acknowledged, however, that the relation of the offspring of Canaan to Japheth,

presents other difficulties which are not so easily got rid of. But this is chiefly because we have been so much in the habit of seeking for an illustration of it, in the connection between the Negro and the AngloSaxon branch of the Japhetan family, that light from every other quarter has either not been sought, or been excluded when it presented itself. Already, as we shall see in the sequel, most important discoveries have rewarded the application of ethnology and of historical criticism in the direction now indicated. This information will increase as we become better acquainted with the history of the first migrations of mankind from the neighbourhood of Ararat. Meanwhile, might not as much stress be laid upon the relation of the Japhetan tribes to the Tyrians, the Phoenicians, and subordinate branches of the descendants of Canaan, as is laid upon that of the seed of Japheth to the Negro? Here we would find, often enough, Canaan as the servant of Japheth.

GENESIS X.

N no department of recent modern literature has such marked advantages rewarded the student, as in the application of historical criticism to the materials which serve for the history of primeval tribes. Its contributions to the elucidation of this chapter are many and of great value. As these deal chiefly with the ancient and modern names of countries and cities, they will be appreciated only as we keep before us, in general outline at least, the outstanding features in the physical geography of the vast tract of country which more or less came to be associated with early Scripture history. This history, for convenience sake, may be broken up into three great divisions; namely, the period from Adam to Noah, from Noah to Abraham, and from Abraham to Moses-the antediluvian, the patriarchal, and, what may not inaptly be called, the embryo-national periods. The purely Hebrew or Jewish element in Scripture history dates rather from the mission of Moses than from the calling of Abraham. The church during the Abrahamic period was not confined to the household of Terah's son. This history demanded a much wider platform even than that lying between the range of Ararat on the east, and the Hellespont on the west-that is, the whole of Asia Minor-wider even, including this, than the great tract lying between the Tigris and the Mediterranean Sea in its northern division, and between the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea on its southern division. The range of Ararat has sometimes been assumed as a centre, in the light of which the gradual dispersion of men, both in Adamic and Noachian times, has been looked at. But both climatal and industrial considerations would make the migration from the original seat of the human race, and from the spot where the ark rested, tend towards the east, west, and south, rather than to the north. The physical features of the surrounding region would also have a well marked influence. To the north of the supposed land of Eden, and of the resting-place of the ark, they would be met by the barriers

"Of frosty Caucasus' bleak mountain-sides,”

stretching like a mighty natural wall between the Black and the

Caspian Seas. Comparatively little progress could be made towards the east without meeting the waters of the Caspian, whose shores, running southwards, would guide men gradually into the immense plateau of Iran, which, strictly speaking, may be held to extend from the Indus to the Nile. Between the range of Ararat and the Caucasus on the north-west, they would meet the shores of the Black Sea, and, following them in a south-westerly direction, they would ultimately be led directly west, towards the Grecian Archipelago, and, indeed, into the whole tract of Asia Minor. The fertile valleys of the Euphrates and Tigris, with those of their confluents, would lead them to the south, and to the east, and to the west. The earliest historical traces of the location of the sons of Noah are in complete harmony with this sketch.

The region now under notice includes the whole of those vast tracts known to us at present, under the names of their modern political divisions, as Affghanistan and Beloochistan, Persia, Arabia, and the Lesser Asia, with Egypt to its most remote western boundary on the Libyan Desert. In looking at its physical characteristics, Ararat is taken as a starting-point. From the two conical peaks, specially referred to already, which give their names to this vast range, the chain of mountains which stretches southward has the ancient Asshur on the west. The main ridge, as it runs to the south, throws off, as we have seen, to the east and to the west a multitude of subordinate ridges. The great mass of the rocks composing this range are igneous. To the west of this chain we saw that the great ranges of the Taurus, and Anti-Taurus mountains, diverge into Asia Minor; the latter being broken up into two main divisions, the northern and southern, the former extending from the mountains of Asshur to the Mediterranean, and along the northern shores as far as the Hellespont. In its approach to the great sea it throws off to the south the ranges of Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, which run from north to south through the whole of Syria, having here and there ridges which meet them at right angles. Limestone, gypsum, sandstone, and volcanic rocks, constitute the bulk of these. Many of their slopes are well-wooded, and in their valleys flowering shrubs and herbaceous plants are met with in great luxuriance. In addition to these great chains, which stretch out from the snowy peaks of Ararat, another range, not before mentioned, lies at some distance from the western and southern shores of the Caspian, and strikes away to the east into the northern parts of Affghanistan, in a line more or less continuous, and here and there throwing off diverging arms still towards the south.