mise, securing the regular changes of seed-time and harvest, day and night, cold and heat, summer and winter, to the end of time.

In closing the history of the Deluge, it may be useful to our young readers to remark, that it is a solid proof of the truth of divine revelation. There is no ancient nation without traditions of this great event. It is distinctly recorded by several heathen historians, and striking allusions to it are to be traced in the heathen observances of different nations. Beside this, in every country may be found occular proofs of our globe having been at some period submerged by the ocean. On the summits of high mountains, and in spots far inland, vast beds of sea shells, and other marine productions, are to be found. Petrified fishes and sea weed are met with in the heart of quarries. Both the animal and vegetable productions of the hottest countries have been found (petrified) in the coldest; and the reverse. There is abundant reason to conclude, that a deluge like that recorded by Moses must have taken place. Other existing accounts are rational and probable just as far as they agree with that; where they depart from it, they become at once involved in fable and obscurity. We can scarcely err in concluding it to be the

Several instances might be given in our own country. Very interesting relics of this kind are found in abundance on and about Shotover hill near Oxford, in a chalk hill near Reading, and many other places.

only authentic account of the matter, and the source of all that is correct in other accounts. By an easy process of reasoning, it follows, that the book which contains this account is, what it purports to be, a revelation from God.

Together with the narrative of the general deluge should be read Mathew xxiv. 37–44. and 2 Peter iii. 1-14.

63

III.-FROM THE DELUGE TO THE CALLING OF ABRAHAM.

§ 1. God's Covenant with Noah. Gen. ix. 1-17.

B. C. 2347.

WE now behold Noah, as the father of a new world, receiving from his great Creator and Preserves various grants and directions; in some respects resembling the original communication to Adam, but in other important respects essentially different. The command to be fruitful and multiply was renewed ; also the dominion of man over the brute creation, yet with some variation: before the fall, the animals regarded man with confidence and familiarity; but since that event, man's dominion over them has been rather the result of fear on their part, which leads them either to submit to or flee from him, as a powerful enemy; or else has arisen from superior knowledge and address on his part, by which he devises ways and means of rendering them subservient to his purposes. Whenever we see a strong and spirited horse easily managed and made subservient to the will of his rider; or a large drove of oxen guided forward by a single individual; or, even wild ard