the world was already peopled, and in the contact of knowledge with barbarism, while the one sought to "raise a mortal to the skies," did the other succeed in "drawing an angel down?" Learned men, including names on whose orthodoxy no imputation can rest, are of opinion that the Book of Genesis has been composed from previously existing documents; and the earlier chapters are translations into the Hebrew, from some anterior but now unknown language. There was, therefore, a pre-existing literature, of which these early chapters of Genesis are but the translated fragments! The names in our earliest genealogies, as Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, Noah, Nimrod, and Peleg, have all expressive significations in Hebrew, indicating that proper appellations in the primitive language had been translated instead of being transferred; and this fact not only points our gaze into a dark abyss, where all objects are wrapped in profoundest gloom, but tells us how vain are our efforts to find out the age of the world.

Peter Jones now recollected a circumstance which had troubled him for a time, when he was considering the genealogy given in the first chapter of the gospel of Matthew. From Abraham to Christ, forty-two generations are enumerated, divided into three sets of fourteen each. Now, the Bible informs us that there were more generations than are here expressly enu. merated; and the omissions are accounted for on the principle of the construction of oriental genealogies. The Hebrews and the Arabians counted it a high honour to be enrolled in a family genealogy; and the genealogists frequently omitted names, in making up their lists. Thus, it is said, in several places of the Bible, that one man begat another, although it is known from other lists that there were

All that was

several generations between them. requisite was to mark the line of descent; as we might say that Queen Victoria succeeded Queen Anne, although several kings occurred between. If this system of abbreviation was adopted in such an important genealogy as the one given by Matthew, why suppose that the genealogy from Adam to Noah has been exempted from a similar curtailment ? All that was required was to mark the line of descent, without giving the whole of the names; and in this case, the leading or more conspicuous names were all that were required. This explains why there appears to have been only TEN generations from Adam to Noah; while from Shem to Abraham there are also TEN generations-the vast period from the Creation of man till the Deluge, being occupied with only the same number as are placed in the short interval between the Deluge and the "Call."

The world was old when Abraham was young-the "Call" of the Father of the Faithful is but as a modern DATE in the history of Man. More than three thousand years, according to the Chronology of Dr. Hales, had sped away from the time when Adam walked in Paradise, to the day when Abram the Migrant, left Ur of the Chaldees—a period greater than has elapsed since David the Psalmist chanted his immortal odes, since Homer the Rhapsodist recited his undying story! Peter Jones could not think that during that enormous period, the human race stretched itself, like a lazy Titan, on the surface of the earth, or that the human intellect slumbered like a huge kraken at the bottom of the sea. Polygamy existed before the Flood-slavery was an "institution"cities were built, the arts were practised, nations warred with one another, man was busy, even as now.

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To this effect testify primeval traditions, although all that remains to us is but a few, very few, fragments, snatched from the gulf of Elder Time. "Therefore," said Peter Jones, "when I review modern history from the period of the ' Call,' I must never lose sight of the fact, that there was a prior EXISTENCE which breathed its Life into ours-an antique world, whose Ideas suffered a transmigration, even as the names which are given in the tenth chapter of Genesis are translations into the Hebrew, from a previous language, long since embedded in the primary rocks of human forgetfulness!"

CHAP. IX.

THE OFFERING-UP OF ISAAC.

"Civilization is still in its infancy. How distant is the human mind from the perfection to which it may attain-from the perfection for which it was created! How incapable we are of grasping the whole future destiny of man!......The movements of Providence are not restricted to narrow bounds; it is not anxious to deduce to-day the consequence of the premises it laid down yesterday. It may defer this for ages, till the fulness of time shall come. Its logic will not be less conclusive for reasoning slowly. Providence moves through time, as the gods of Homer through space-it makes a step, and ages have rolled away!"

GUIZOT-Modern Civilization.

THE clergyman under whose ministry Peter Jones had been brought up was a worthy man, excellent in character, and mild in temper. But he belonged to what may be termed the "old" school. Acquainted with the English theology of the seventeenth century, he was all but ignorant of the vast addition to our Biblical knowledge acquired since the East has been freely opened to modern research. He had read an occasional narrative of a visit to the Holy Land; he had heard something about Egyptian antiquities, hieroglyphics, paintings on tombs, mummies, and other comparatively recent topics, in connection with sacred history, and he believed that the Pyramids had been built by the Children of Israel during the "Bondage." But he was nearly unconscious of the great enlargement of view, and correction of traditional prejudices, which the present generation has witnessed, since the manners and customs of the East have been more minutely described, since a key has been found

to the hieroglyphics, and a meaning discovered in the paintings and sculptures, of Egypt, and since the study of the Sanscrit, the sacred language of the Hindus, has shown the affinity of distant nations, and interpreted the literature and laws of India. No wonder, therefore, that the good man should occasionally preach in such a way as to jar with the opening knowledge, and to irritate the inquisitive intellect, of Peter Jones, who, unlike too many of his neighbours, was not accustomed to nod during

sermon.

One day the theme announced from the pulpit was -Paul preaching at Athens. Peter Jones pricked up his ears the subject which has inspired the greatest painter may well animate the noblest orator, and draw out the most discriminating philosopher. The preacher described Paul coming to a city which, as appears from history, was most grievously “given to idolatry;" and whose inhabitants divided their time between verbal disputation and the worship of a crowd of false deities. But they were not content with Jupiter and Juno, Apollo and Diana, Mercury and Minerva, and all the rest of them. They were ready to admit into their Pantheon, or national creed, any god that was worshipped by any other nation; and lest they should be chargeable with neglect, or incur the anger of any deity whatsoever, whose name and character were unknown to them, there were altars in Athens erected to " the unknown gods;" and it was the sight of one of these which had roused the indignation of Paul, and led him, in his oration from Mars' hill, to tell the Athenians that "in all things ye are too superstitious."

Peter Jones had arrived at that point in the acquisition of knowledge, which made him feel that this