he allotted the countries to the south of those mountains ; but he cursed Charma, because when the old monarch was accidentally inebriated with a strong liquor made of fermented ice, Charma laughed; and it was in consequence of his father's imprecations that he became a slave to the slaves of his brothers." All this is curious enough, nor is it less remarkable, that whilst the Hindoos pretend to describe with accuracy the principal events which befell, from the commencement of the Satya-yug down to the 446th year before Christ, their system of chronology then totally ceases. This appears to be quite at variance with the ordinary course of things, or to use the language of an eminent historian,* "It is a most suspicious circumstance, in the pretended records of a nation, when we find positive statements for a regular and immense series of years in the remote abyss of time, but are entirely deserted by them, when we descend to ages more nearly approaching our own. Where annals are real, they become circumstantial in proportion as they are recent; where fable stands in the place of fact, the times over which the memory has any influence are rejected, and the imagination rests in those in which it is unrestrained." On the whole, therefore, we cannot hesitate in believing with the author just quoted, "that there is nothing more remarkable in the traditions of nations, than their agreement respecting the origin of the present inhabitants of the globe;" whilst Mr. Bryant, Sir William Jones, and other eminent inquirers, have distinctly proved, "that the account of the Deluge in the religious books of the Jews, must be taken as the archetype of the whole."

We have said that it is not our design, on the authority of modern writers, to supply the blank which Moses has left in the history of mankind, however ample the materials within our reach may be for the purpose. Let it suffice to state, that the eight generations which occurred between the Deluge and the birth of Terah, comprehended, according to the accurate calculations of Dr. Hales, nearly nine centuries; and that during that lengthened period mankind greatly increased in numbers, which spread themselves, gradually but surely, over a large surface of the earth. How this was effected it is not difficult to conceive. As one region or district became over populous, the more adventurous of its inhabitants would form themselves into bands, and go forth

* Mr. Mill, whose History of India is an extremely valuable work.

under some favourite leader, to seek for new settlements till at last the whole of the country round about the original seat of man, became fully, if not densely peopled. We need scarcely observe that each of these leaders, as soon as he abandoned the ancient territories, would assume to himself and obtain from his followers the title of king, which seems originally to have been enjoyed, as well as the priestly office, by every head of a family. Hence the multitude of kings which are represented as flourishing in the days of Abraham, and even of Joshua, when each town and city with a small district attached, had its independent sovereign; of whose power in the field, or influence in the affairs of other states it would be unfair to form any idea, by comparing them with the sovereigns of modern Europe, or the Cyruses and Nebuchadnezzars of old.

Whilst this gradual extension of the human race went on, vice, as had been the case in the ages before the flood, kept steady pace with it. It has already been stated, that as long as Noah and his sons lived, and the tradition of the Deluge continued fresh in their minds, men could hardly run into the excess of folly and crime in which we find them afterwards involved; but these patriarchs were scarcely called to their fathers ere human perverseness began to exhibit itself, in a form to which, when unaided by divine revelation, it appears to be peculiarly prone. The worship of the true God became corrupted and debased by the substitution, in the room of Jehovah, of tutelary deities, till at last idolatry, with its concomitants, the grossest immorality and cruelty overspread the world like a pestilence.

We have already given it as our opinion that this grievous malady took its rise in Chaldea, and that Nimrod, the impious founder of Babel, was its author. In these respects, universal tradition, as well as the best writers of ancient and modern times, are agreed; whilst the worship of the heavenly bodies is generally admitted to have been the first species of idolatry introduced among men. It does not appear, however, that all the tribes became equally and simultaneously infected with that crime. As it began with the Cushites, of the family of Ham, so probably was it for a time confined to them and their more immediate neighbours; at least we find that even in Abraham's day, neither Melchizedek, the king of Salem, nor yet Abimelech, king of Gerar, worshipped any other besides Jehovah; whilst Job, the Arabian, and Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, at a later

period still, continued in this respect absolutely pure. But the impulse being once given, it is easy to explain how its progress would be both sure and rapid, till in the end nothing short of a direct and immediate interference of the Almighty sufficed to hinder it from destroying all remnant of the truth.

There appears to be good ground for believing, that with the use of letters, as well as with most other arts and sciences, the antediluvians were well acquainted; and that they were conveyed by Noah and the survivors from the great Deluge, to the new world. It has, indeed, been ably argued, that the Mosaic account of transactions previous to the flood, was compiled from certain documents preserved by the family of Noah in the ark; and, if the case be so, it is difficult to imagine, that the immediate descendants of that family could be illiterate, or, in the proper sense of the term, barbarous. As men departed, however, in small tribes from their common centre, and settled themselves in the midst of dreary wastes, or gloomy forests, they would every day find less and less leisure for the cultivation of literature and science; and in a few generations would unavoidably become too much sunk to attribute to such pursuits any value. Exactly in the same ratio would increase their inability to comprehend the idea of a Being every where present, yet himself invisible; and the tradition that some suck being existed would remain in full force, long after they had ceased to be aware whence it originated. Such a state of things would naturally lead to the substitution of some visible symbol, as the sun, the moon, and the planets; next would follow the deification of deceased benefactors, of men who had performed great exploits, or enjoyed a brilliant reputation during their lives, in honour of whom statues may have been erected; and last of all would arise the practice of worshipping these statues themselves as the very gods whom they were originally intended to represent. As to the peculiar superstition of the Egyptians, the worship of the brute creation, that has been very fully and satisfactorily accounted for by Warburton, in the fourth book of his Divine Legation. It was unquestionably occasioned by the employing, in hieroglyphic writings, the figures of different animals, to denote the attributes of their different gods, or the different attributes of the true God; for when the meaning of the hieroglyphic was forgotten, the grovelling minds of those who had long treated it with reverence continued to

do so still, and not knowing the import which it had among their forefathers, considered it as the likeness of some unseen god. Hence it seems to be, that the graven images of animals were worshiped long before the animals themselves, as is completely proved by the idolatrous erection of the golden calf by the Israelites at Mount Sinai. That people possessed numerous herds of cattle; and had they been accustomed, with their Egyptian ancestors, to worship the living animal, their women would not have been called upon to give up their earrings, for the purpose of forming an inanimate emblem of the gods "which brought them out of Egypt."

Such was the state of the world, or at least into this state it was rapidly falling, at the period when Abraham, the illustrious ancestor of the Jewish nation, was born. Though placed first in order in the Book of Genesis, we have the best authority for asserting that he was the youngest son of Terah, the ninth in descent from Shem, because we find that his wife Sarai, who was the daughter of his brother Haran, was his junior by ten years only; and because Lot, the son of Haran, appears to have been at least coeval with Abram. Besides Abraham and Haran, the latter of whom died before his father, Terah had a third son named Nahor, who married Milcah, likewise a daughter of Haran, though senior to Sarai. Terah's family, thus circumstanced, dwelt for some time at Uz, a city of Chaldea; the exact geographical situation of which, as it is no where accurately laid down, it appears both vain and unnecessary to determine. In Uz, as in all other towns and cities of Chaldea, the Zabian idolatry was practised; and there is a tradition very prevalent in the east, that not only Terah, but Abram himself, was in his youth a priest of the Sun. For the truth of this rumour we cannot pretend to vouch, though there are several circumstances in the history of Terah's descendants which appear to sanction it; but it is certain, that God having determined to select this family out of mankind, for the purposes of establishing with them his church, and bringing through them, the Messiah into the world, adopted the only plan which appears at all reconcileable at once with divine wisdom, and the liberty of the human will. He commanded Terah, either in a vision by night, or by some other means not to be mistaken, to quit his polluted country; and the patriarch, probably cured by that vision of his idolatrous propensities, hesitated not to obey. Leaving Nahor behind, as is plausibly enough imagined, to superintend, or rather to

wind up his affairs, he took with him his son Abram, and his grandson Lot, with Sarai, the wife of the former, and set out with an intention of penetrating into the land of Canaan; but falling sick by the way, at a place called Haran, he was compelled to halt, and there, after a brief sojourn, he died.

This last event befell, according to Dr. Hales, in the year of the world 3318, just one thousand and sixty years after the Deluge, and two thousand and ninety-three before Christ.

CHAPTER VII.

Abraham's History continued.-His travels.-Birth of Ishmael. Destruction of Sodom.-Birth of Isaac.-Ishmael dismissed.Sacrifice of Isaac.-His marriage.-Death of Sarah and Abraham.-Objections noticed and answered.

A. M. 3333 to 3398.-B. C. 2078 to 2013.

How long Abram sojourned at Haran after the decease of his father, we possess no means of ascertaining; but we are told that God renewed the injunction in his case, which he had formerly given in the case of Terah, by commanding him to abandon Haran, and to continue his journey to a land which should be divinely pointed out to him. Along with this command, came an assurance, that God would bless, protect, and multiply his posterity in a wonderful manner, whilst the gracious promise which had previously been made, first to Adam, and afterwards to Noah, was distinctly and explicitly renewed to Abraham. "I will bless them that bless thee," said Jehovah, "and curse him that curseth thee; and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed." This was the more gratifying to Abram, because as yet no child had been born to him, though he himself was seventy-five, and his wife sixty-five years of age; and in proportion as the prospect of a family became daily more remote, the desire to possess one, as usually occurs, had strengthened. That the latter clause, in the above declaration, contains an explicit prophecy of the Messiah, no divine has ever called in question, though, whether it was as yet