iterranean and Red Seas. This, therefore, we may assume to have been the area submerged by this deluge, and we have no occasion to look for its traces beyond these limits.

2. Whether the deluge destroyed all living men from the face of the whole geographical earth except those in the ark, it is perhaps impossible to decide with absolute certainty. If any were not reached, they must have been such as had wandered early, far from their native home, suppose into China or Africa, where neither the corruption which became the moral cause of the deluge nor the deluge itself reached them. The question is one of probabilities only, for we have no certain knowledge on the subject and can not have. The probabilities are in my view quite against the supposition.

.

Traditions of a Great Deluge.

All the great nations of history have traditions more or less definite of a vast deluge in the days of their fathers. As should be expected, these traditions compared with the Bible record are variously modified, corrupt we might say, mixed with fable, magnified as great stories are wont to be in passing from lip to lip through many generations. In general those are most pure which are found nearest the locality of Eden and which were earliest committed to writing. Some authors classify them into the West Asiatic, including the Babylonian, that of the Sibylline books, the Phrygian, the Armenian, and the Syrian, some of which are remarkably close to the truth. The East Asiatic, including the Persian, the Chinese, and the Indian; the Grecian, found in Plato, Pindar, Apollodorus, Plutarch, Lucian and Ovid; and those of peoples and tribes outside of the old world-the Celts of Northern Europe, the Mexicans, the Peruvians, the Indians of America and the tribes upon the Pacific Islands. Lange remarks that the ethical idea of the flood as a judgment upon men for their sins is every-where apparent. The Chaldean traditions, brought down in the writings of Berosus (wrote B. C. 260), are singularly minute and quite in harmony with the scriptural account in its main outlines, some of which are as follows:

Giving the name of Xisuthrus to the last of the prim

itive kings, it sets forth that he was warned of the flood in a dream; was commanded to write down all the sciences and inventions of mankind and preserve them; to build a ship and save therein himself and his near friends, and take in also animals with suitable food. After the flood had somewhat subsided, he let fly a bird which came back; a second which returned with slime on its foot; a third which never returned. Then seeing land visible, he opened his vessel and came forth with his wife and children; built an altar and offered sacrifice to the gods. They found the country to be Armenia. Portions of the ark were long in existence, sought for as amulets and charms.

The Chinese story may be taken as a sample of those more remote from the locality of Noah. As given by the Jesuit, M. Martinius, the Chinese date this great flood B. C. 4000; say that Fah-he, the reputed author of Chinese civilization, escaped the flood, and together with his wife, three sons and three daughters, repeopled the renovated world.

Dr. Gutzlaff communicated a paper to the Royal Asiatic Society (as in their Journal xvi: 79) in which he stated that he saw in one of the Buddhist temples in beautiful stucco the scene where Kwanyin, the Goddess of Mercy, looks down from heaven upon the lonely Noah in his ark amidst the raging waves of the deluge, with the dolphins swimming around as his last means of safety and the dove with an olive-branch in his beak flying toward the vessel. Nothing could exceed the beauty of the execution.*

Those which are found among the ancient people of the Western Continent-the Cherokees, Mexicans and Peruvians-have special interest as proving that, remote as these tribes were from the locality of Noah, they must have had a common origin and must have received this common tradition of the flood from the valley of the Euphrates.

* See Smith's Bible Dictionary, "Noah," for numerous traditions of the flood.

CHAPTER IX.

FROM THE FLOOD TO THE CALL OF ABRAHAM.

1. The law against murder and its death-penalty. When the waters of the great deluge had subsided and Noah and his family found themselves once more upon the face of the solid earth-an unpeopled solitude-that which we read in Gen. 9, was beautifully in place" And God blessed Noah and his sons." So long imprisoned in the ark; so long in the presence of this fearful visitation of a righteous God upon a hopelessly corrupt generation, how naturally must their view of human life take on a somber hue, and how refreshing to be assured that the Great God was still their loving Father! "God blessed them and said, 'Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth,""-for God would have it filled again with living men. Moreover, though few and feeble, they need not fear the violence of the animal creation, for "the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth; ... into into your hand are they delivered." Then by special provision, apparently never made before, God sanctioned the use of animal flesh for human food. Yet lest this sanction should make them dangerously familiar with the shedding of blood, and tend to lesson the sacredness of human life, God solemnly forbade the use of blood for food, and then proceeded to ordain that human blood shed by ferocious animals should be avenged with their life. Then follows special legislation against murder by guilty human hands: "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God made he That this is precept and not merely prophecy is so apparent that argument in proof might seem almost an insult to the common understanding of mankind. Yet the passage has been wrested in this way from its obvious significance. It should be construed in harmony with the scope of the context. Note therefore, that its close connection with the use of animals for the food of man and with the "requiring" of human

man.".

blood shed by the violence of beasts compel us to find here precept and not prediction. Still more does the historic place of this precept, standing upon the ruins. of the old world and in the presence of the yet unwasted bones of thousands whose wickedness had culminated in such recklessness of human life that "the earth was filled with violence." In the presence of such gigantic iniquity, grown up under the experiment of pardoning and not punishing the crime of murder and giving unrestrained license to bloody passion, it was pertinent to lay a new and more effectual foundation for maintaining the peace of society and the sacredness of human life. The solemn lessons of the past required, not a prediction of retributive vengeance under the social law of self-preservation, but a divine precept demanding it and enforcing it with its logical reason-that "God made man in his own image." You may take the life of the lower animals for no higher cause than human sustenance-food for man's wants;-but let no man put forth his hand against the blood of man, for he bears the very "image of God." To make this new law the more solemnly impressive, man must himself be the executioner of this divine behest-" By man shall his blood be shed." Society itself must commit to some of its members this solemn function and they must take the murderer's life. Nothing less can shield the life of man from bloody violence; nothing less will duly honor God's image in man.

2. The prophecy of Noah.

In Gen. 9: 25-27 we have the first of those patriarchal utterances of prophetic sort, in various strain-blessing and not blessing-of which several examples occur subsequently, as in the case of Jacob (Gen. 49: 1-27); Moses (Deut. 33: 1-29). The form is thoroughly that of Hebrew poetry-the brief parallelism of sentiment and language being the prominent feature.The circumstances which called out these prophetic words are given briefly in the narrative. Noah having come forth from the ark soon commenced the culture of the vine and experimented (unfortunately) in the free use of its wine. While he lay overcome and personally exposed in his tent, his younger son Ham, lost to all sense of filial duty, reported the sad spectacle. Shem and Japh

eth, with filial pity and with the most delicate modesty, covered his shame. When Noah awoke to consciousness and came to know what his younger son had done unto him, he said, "Cursed be Čanaan; a servant of servants shall he be to his brethren. Blessed be Jehovah, God of Shem, and let Canaan be servant to them. Let God enlarge Japheth, and let him dwell in the tents of Shem; and let Canaan be servant to them." -It had been previously said (v. 18), that "Ham was the father of Canaan." What part, if any, Canaan bore in this transaction, that the curse apparently due to Ham should fall so specially on him, the narrative does not say. The offense of Ham lay in the line of his relation as a son. Perhaps it was for this reason that his punishment lay in the humiliation of his son. Be this as it may, the words were prophetic of the future relations of the posterity of Canaan to the posterity of both Shem and Japheth. The devoted nations of Canaan were terribly exterminated by the Hebrew people, sons of Shem; the remnant (e. g. the Gibeonites) were made hewers of wood and drawers of water; and in the age of Solomon, were subjected to the most severe labors. See Josh. 9: 20-27, and 2 Chron. 2: 17, 18 and 1 Chron. 22: 2.

When Noah's prophetic eye fell on Shem, the blessings that rose to his view were too rich and grand for description. He could only give utterance to his grateful emotions and thanksgivings in the words "Blessed be Jehovah, God of Shem"! Blessed be Jehovah, the God of the covenant with his professed people, the God of all blessings, of ever-enduring love and faithfulness! What will he not do for his chosen people, brought into relations to himself so near and so dear-In this line the sweep of his prophetic eye took in the Hebrew race-Abraham and the patriarchs; Moses and the pious kings and holy prophets; and above all, the Great Messiah-to be born of David's line and to be the incarnation of God's mercy to a lost world. No wonder his soul was moved to devoutest adoration-Blessed be Jehovah who reveals himself as the God of Shem!

Of Japheth he predicts enlargement in the sense of a numerous offspring "God shall enlarge," i. e. multiply "Japheth," with a play on the significance of his name which signifies the enlarged one. God will verify his name and enlarge the enlarged son; in Hebrew phrase,