dreariness. It was then called, in derision, (Mal Passi,) the Mean Land. After a time there was another eruption. Before the lava flows it is usual for an immense cloud of ashes to ascend, and to be carried to a great distance, sometimes in one direction, and sometimes in another. These ashes, Brydone states, fell several feet in depth over the surface of this ruined country; and being impregnated with the Alkaline salts, as soon as rained on, they rot, and form one of the richest soils in the world. The Mean Land, he states, soon resumed its ancient fertility, and is now called (Bel Passi) the Beautiful Land. The lawyer was asked if his difficulties were in any way obviated by this rapidity of change from soil to nakedness, and from nudity to soil again, narrated by the same original discoverer of the whole theory. He answered in the negative, and continued to cast obstinately away the book of God. Thousands of cases happen continually, where the individual is as readily and as speedily turned into the path of infidelity, and when once there, continues to track it with invincible pertinacity. Men (without knowing it) love darkness rather than light.

EXAMPLE II. -When some travellers in Asia wrote back that the Chinese record made the world many thousand years older than the Mosaic history does, how it rejoiced a host of listeners! Oh, how they clapped their hands! We thought, said they, that the Bible was a fabrication, unworthy of belief. If any wrote, or said to those who were thus becoming scoffers at Revelation," Do not be too hasty in your conclusions : how can you tell but that national vanity may have had some share in exciting those who speak of their Celestial Empire, to claim a spurious antiquity ?" they turned away, or closed their ears with satisfied confidence.

They seemed to wish for no farther information. After a time, some additional items were published from Chinese history, such as the following: They tell the name of their first king, which would sound in the ear of some as a corruption of the word Noah. The time they assign for his reign corresponds with the age of Noah. They speak of this king as being without father; of his mother being encircled with the rainbow; of his preserving seven clean animals to sacrifice to the Great Spirit; that, in his day, the sky fell on the earth, and destroyed the race of men, &c. &c. When we remember that the waters of the sky did days of Noah; that Noah was the first of the post diluvian race, and thus without father; that the rainbow is interestingly connected with his history; that he did take into the ark clean animals by sevens, part of which were offered in sacrifice: we begin to discover, that the Chinese account is nothing, more or less, than a blotted copy of the truth. (See Stackhouse's History of the Bible.)

do this in the

We gather from Moses that, between the creation and the deluge, there were ten generations of men, surpassing us greatly in longevity. It would be no tortured inference to suppose them vastly our superiors, both in strength and stature. This kind of men, the heathen, in ages past, were in the habit of calling gods, after their death. The Chinese account speaks of ten dynasties of superior beings, who ruled in their country a thousand years each, before the sky fell upon the earth. It is not hard to see that this is only a different, and a singular manner of relating the same facts. But why did (and do now) many of the seemingly learned, choose to suppose that each father ended his race before the son began to live? It was for the purpose of stretching out the time, be

tween the deluge and the creation, to ten thousand years. Moses informs us that each of these ten generations did extend near a thousand years; but he lets us know that a son and his father, walked much of their earthly race together. The journey of each was long; but it was a simultaneous travel. For the purpose (if possible) of extending the chronology of earth beyond the dates of Revelation, multitudes have taken partial extracts from hearsay records; and then, to prevent these fragments from agreeing with, or upholding the history they hate, have twisted them with labour and ingenuity; failing even then, to construct a passable cavil against the truth! What is the reason of this strange hungering and thirsting after little falsehood, rather than the wonders of glorious truth? It is because men love darkness rather than light. Those who had cast away all reverence for Holy Writ, as soon as some one said in their hearing that the Chinese Record contradicted Moses, never seemed to inquire further. They asked not after any additional account; or if they were shown that all these heathen traditions were simply the truth, preserved in a dress more or less awkward; they were silent; but they did not return to the place where they once stood. They continued scoffers at Christianity.

The author has been in the habit of conversing with unbelievers, whenever he could obtain the privilege, during the last eighteen years. Having once been of their number, he has since felt for them a kindly solicitude, (as he hopes,) moving him, at a prudent opportunity, to speak of heavenly things, although, at times, even at the risk of their displeasure. He has found that certain items of history or tradition, such as might seem to militate against Holy Writ, they receive readily, and remember long. Out of the ten thousand facts of a different de

scription, they treasure none. They seem to either not hear, or they understand slowly, or forget with speed. We have been naming some out of the kind which obtains their attention and their recollections. We will now notice one or two out of the mass of items, such as they either do not learn, or do not hold.

CHAPTER IV.

FACTS, SUCH AS UNBELIEVERS DO NOT LEARN.

UNDER this head it matters not where we begin ;There is no necessity that we should quit the Record already before us. If you will go to that opposer of Christianity, who appeals loudly to that part of Chinese chronology already discussed, and ask him a few questions, you will find that part of Asiatic history with which he is utterly unacquainted. Ask him what he thinks, when the Chinese history speaks of Yao, their king, declaring, that in his reign, the sun stood so long above the horizon that it was feared the world would have been set on fire and fixing the reign of Yao at a given date, which corresponds with the age of Joshua, the son of Nun-(See Stackhouse)-you will find, in nine cases out of ten, the objector knows nothing of that part of the Chinese Record. Out of the countless items of this character, which, if compiled, would fill so many cumbrous volumes, he has treasured scarcely one: his taste has not craved them with avidity, or he remembers not. We are not now speaking merely of the unlettered and the feeble-minded. This is true of the senator in legislative halls; of the minister plenipotentiary to foreign courts; of the man

whose information seems to extend almost everywhere. Of the Bible, and of ancient literature connected with with the Bible, he is uninformed: the cause is his appetite for darkness rather than light. The Latin Poet (Ovid) amuses the school-boy greatly, in his fanciful narrative of Phaton's Chariot. This heathen author tells us, that a day was once lost, and that the earth was in great danger from the intense heat of an unusual sun. It is true, that in attempting to account for this incident of peril and of wonder, the writer, as was his custom at all times, consulted only his imagination, and clothed it all with an active fancy. But our notice is somewhat attracted, when we find him mention Phaeton, (who was a Canaanitish prince,) and learn that the fable originated with the Phoenicians, the same people whom Joshua fought. If you will ask an unbeliever of these incidents, or of the common tradition with early nations, that a day was lost about the time when the volume of truth informs us that the sun hasted not to go down for the space of a whole day, you will find that he had never thought on these points;-they are not of the character which he is inclined to notice.

Let not the young reader suppose for one moment, that if the many octavo volumes which might be made, were really filled by the compilation of such items, and placed in his hands, that this would constitute the evidences of Christianity. Far from it. These books would scarcely form an introduction to that entire subject. Such corroborative history or traditional fragments are mentioned here, because they serve to exhibit the fact, that man is inclined to the side of error, (without knowing it,) in matters of religion. The way in which things have been and are received, exhibits our disposition unequivocally; and it is so important that we know plainly, whether