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holy purpose, which was probably to centralize power beyond what was right, and perhaps to establish a national or universal system of worship which was idolatrous, or in some way displeasing to God. Shallow indeed must be our knowledge of history, if we do not perceive that such an institution would have been full of mischief, and ruinous to the welfare of man. The power of the Almighty, therefore, frustrated the design.

CHAPTER V.

THE COMMON ORIGIN OF MAN.

From the ninth, tenth, and eleventh chapters of Genesis, it is evidently the doctrine of the Bible that all men are the descendants of one family, and belong to one stock. We assume this to be the doctrine of the Bible, and one fundamentally connected with all its grand teachings.

Like every great truth, it has been called in question by men who have depended upon reason alone; but, though it should not be considered debatable, but definitely decided, by all who receive the Holy Scriptures as the word of God, yet it can be successfully demonstrated by investigation.

It has been asserted that there are in the human family several distinct species, or, as they are sometimes loosely termed, races, each of which must have had a separate origin, distinct from the others in time and place. The foundation of this theory is the acknowledged variety that does exist among men.

The most obvious peculiarities are in size, ranging from seven feet in height to perhaps four feet; in colour, presenting many shades from jet black to pearly white; in the quantity and quality of the hair and beard; in the size and shape of the cranium, and in the consequent amount and position of the brain; and also in some of the bones and muscles of the body, imparting peculiarities to the gait and the features; and in mental tastes, and passions, and intellect.

Notwithstanding the above acknowledged varieties, and also others less obvious, reasons satisfactory and abundant exist, even apart from the Bible, for the firm belief that all human beings are absolutely of one species, and sprung from one stock.

The several facts, or classes of facts, which lead to the firm conclusion that all men are of one species, may be thrown into the form of reasons, which we shall proceed successively to state.

First reason.-If we assume for a moment that all men belong to one species, it does not follow that all must be precisely identical in size, shape, complexion, mental disposition, or ability. A certain amount of dissimilarity must be considered possible, even in the same race. Members of the same family, having the same parents, and educated as far as possible under the same regimen, are still various, and sometimes widely and strangely so. A forest, sprung from the acorns of a single oak, shall present some trees tall and straight, others dwarfed and twisted; some smooth and others rough, some spreading and others narrow; and in the whole grove there shall not be found two precisely identical in any of twenty particulars. And if we suppose a part of those trees to be transplanted, some to a sandy, others to a marshy soil; some placed on a limestone foundation, others on clay; some in a cold climate, others in a warm; the variety will become more marked, and, to some, more surprising.

In like manner a certain degree of variety can exist among the men of a single race, sprung from a single stock; and, that being allowed, it becomes a matter of great difficulty (indeed we think it an impossibility) to decide just how far that variety can extend.

Let us suppose that all the variety in the human family was no greater than that which does exist among the class of men commonly called the Anglo-Saxon race: let us suppose that the darkest complexion on earth was no

darker than the darkest Anglo-Saxon, the shortest men no shorter, the tallest men no taller, and the men with the straightest or most curly hair with hair no more straight or curly than the same extreme in the Anglo-Saxon race,— there would still be a variety; and a variety, too, which it would be impossible to account for, just as it is impossible to show why the appletrees, sprung from the seeds of a single apple, shall all bear different kinds of fruit, and not one of them just like its mother, and yet all of them so nearly alike as at once to be known as apples.

Now this fact, that some variety could and would exist in one species, predisposes us to believe that all the present actual variety does exist in one race; and this view is confirmed by the obvious reflection, that however little that variety might be, if it was the greatest existing, it would astonish observers, and be, in the present stage of physiological knowledge, unaccountable.

The amount of this reason is, that there is no antecedent improbability in the view that all men are sprung from one race; but that, on the other hand, that tendency of mind which leads us to select out of two supposed causes