within the last four thousand years-that there are trees on this very continent which were growing at the very time when the earth is said to have been covered with the floodand that, therefore, the story of the flood is false, these honest trees themselves being witnesses.

16. And, again, the tops of the highest mountains, even in the tropics, are covered with eternal snow. Indeed, long before you reach the tops of the highest mountains, you enter the regions of everlasting winter. How would the tropical birds and beasts, that require eternal summer, fare in those high cold regions? Nay, how would the water itself fare? It seems to us, that before the waters got fifteen cubits above the tops of the highest mountains, they ought to be frozen over from pole to pole. And once frozen, there could never be warmth enough in those high regions to thaw them again. The ark would become a fixture, in that case, and the destruction of the world be more complete than had been intended.

17. Once more, according to the story, Noah had but one wife, and his children would be likely to be all of one color. But the races of men at present are of various and opposite colors. And they have been of opposite colors from the earliest times of which we have any records or monuments. From three to four thousand years ago, not long after the period of the supposed flood, some were negroes and some white, as they are now. And there is no more reason to suppose that the different races changed more during the three or four thousand years previous to the building of the pyramids, than they have changed since. The colors of the different races of men therefore throw discredit on the story of the flood.

18. Philologists too discover, that diversities of language have a natural origin, an origin in the nature and circumstances of men,-and their discoveries discredit the Bible account of the confusion of tongues.

19. And Ethnologists assure us, that the story of the dispersion of mankind over the earth from one centre, has no support either in authentic history, in the nature of man, or in the customs, languages, institutions, and distinguishing peculiarities of the different races of men.

20. It was formerly believed that proofs of Noah's flood were furnished by the remains of animals, especially of sea animals, found on high lands, and on the tops of mountains in various parts of the earth, and that other appearances on the earth's surface and in the earth's crust, supplied still further proof of the Bible story. But geologists now assure us that this was all a mistake. Professor Hitchcock

says, that among well-informed geologists the opinion is almost universal, that there are no facts in their science which can be clearly referred to the Noachian deluge; that is, that there are no traces in nature of that event. The appearances which used formerly to be referred to the deluge, are now referred to events which took place before man's existence.

21. It is also found, that the animals, whose remains are found in the earth's crust, are not of the same species as those now living on the earth and in the sea. Those races

of birds and beasts and creeping things, whose remains are found in the rocks, are proved, with few exceptions, to have utterly perished, and that at periods long before man or the present races of animals came into existence.

22. The existence of remains of sea animals on the tops of mountains, which used to be accounted for by the supposition that the waters had once burst their bounds and rushed up to the mountains, are now accounted for by the fact, that what are now high mountains, were once the bottoms of seas and oceans. One of the ancient philosophers of Greece guessed that this was the true explanation; and his successors would probably have proved his guess correct many ages ago, had not the curse of Christianity, that deadly enemy to science, fallen on the earth, and for so long and dreary a period put an end to scientific researches. What the shrewd philosopher of ancient Greece conjectured, modern philosophers have demonstrated, and thus another prop of Biblical theology has been removed.

23. Great stress was laid fifty years ago on the universal or general tradition of a flood. How should nations so wide apart, with different languages, and no intercourse, have the same or similar traditions of a flood, said the clergy, if they had not received them from a common ancestor? But what more natural than that the different nations, in their state of ignorance, when they found the remains of sea animals on the tops of mountains, should suppose that the waters of the sea had once overflowed and covered the mountains? The supposition once made, would naturally become an article of the common creed, and an undying tradition. Of course, when once convinced that there had been a world-wide flood, the belief in an ark, and in the preservation of pairs or more than pairs of man and animals, would naturally follow; the same phenomena suggesting everywhere the same hypothesis.

24. Some contend that the monstrous character of the story of the flood proves nothing against the truth and divinity of the New Testament. But this is an error. The

New Testament pronounces the writings of the Old Testa ment divinely inspired, and speaks of them as true and profitable. The New Testament speaks of the flood as a real event. The Gospels, the Epistle to the Hebrews, the first and second Epistles of Peter, all speak of it as a great and solemn fact. On this subject, therefore, as well as on others, the New Testament makes itself answerable for the Old, and the two must fall together. The doctrine of the flood is a part of Christianity, and, being proved false, Christianity must share the discredit.

25. Now that it is proved that no such thing as a universal deluge ever took place, many who are unable to resist the evidence, and yet unwilling to disbelieve the Bible, contend that the Bible has been misunderstood,-that it does not really say, and that it does not mean, that there was a universal, but only a partial flood, confined to one small district, and destroying only a few animals, and one small colony of human beings. They deal with the story of the flood, as they deal with the account of creation, set aside the plain and obvious meaning of the words, and invent new and impossible meanings. Day does not mean day, but a thousand years,-nay, not a thousand years, but an unmeasured and immeasurable period, and evening does not mean evening, and morning does not mean morning, and night does not mean night, and nothing means anything, as it used to mean; but everything means something else quite different; and if you wish to know what it means, they will tell you to wait till the next geological discovery transpires, for they wish to know what meaning geology may render necessary, before they change the meaning any more. When a despot of France once asked the time of day, his attendant, knowing that his master did not like to be displeased, and not knowing what he might wish the time to be, very politely answered, "Whatever your majesty pleases." So those, once proud and insolent, but now servile and sycophantic theologians, trembling in the august presence of modern science, queenly alike in grace and dignity, no longer dare to give a meaning to their sacred books, till they learn what meaning science, the modern monarch of the human race, may require. This is infinite meanness. The Bible does not mean a universal deluge, eh? Let us read a passage or two and see. hold, I do bring a flood of waters on the earth, to destroy all flesh, and everything that is in the earth shall die. And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills that were under the whole heaven were covered. Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail,

"Be

and the mountains were covered. And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing." What words can describe a universal deluge, if these do not?

Besides, what need was there of an ark and a collection of animals, if the flood was only a partial one, confined to one small district? How easy it would have been for Noah to get out of the way a little, as Lot did, when the shower of fire and brimstone was about to fall on Sodom and Gomorrah? Away with such wretched evasions! It would be intolerable to listen to them, were it not that they afford proof how fast the Christian superstition is falling.

The eighth chapter of Genesis affords additional proof, not only that the writer of the story believed himself to be describing a universal deluge, but that the story is a monster fable. But we have said enough on the subject. Yet the story of the return of the waters, the abatement of the flood, the sending forth of the raven and the dove, the return of the dove with the olive leaf, the resting of the ark on the mountain, and the fate of poor Methuselah, who did not reach the age at which the Bible says he died, until the flood had been ten months and thirteen days on the earth, and who must, therefore, have had a tremendously long and tedious swim amid the troubled waters, for a man so far advanced in years as he was. I say all these matters, as well as the contradictory account of the number of animals taken into the ark, and the distinction between clean and unclean beasts, as well as the stories which follow about the going forth of the animals, the reception of Noah's sacrifice, the use and origin of the rainbow, furnish proof, not only that the story of the flood is untrue, but that the book of Genesis generally is the production of an ignorant and a barbarous age.

We are sorry to spend time in exposing such foolish stories, but the work must be done by some one. Men cannot, in many cases, receive the truth, till they are freed from error. Men cannot receive the revelations of science, till cured of their pious prejudices. And the thought that by spending a little time in showing the absurdity of Bible stories, we may free men from the vices and horrors of religion, bringing them to experience the blessings of knowledge and virtue, ought to reconcile us to the task. Happy will it be when churches, and priesthoods, and theologies, and religions shall disappear, and truth and virtue, and peace and freedom, and health and happiness be the lot of all mankind.

1. In Genesis, c. i, v. 20-21, we are told that the waters brought forth all the fowls and the moving creatures; while in Genesis c. ii, v. 19, we are told that God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air, out of the ground.

2. In Genesis, c. i, v. 20-28, God is represented as making all the lower animals first, and man and woman after; but in Genesis, c. ii, v. 7-22, God is represented as making man first, the lower animals after, and woman last of all.

3. In Genesis, c. i, v. 12, we are told that the earth brought forth grass, herbs and trees: but in Genesis, c. ii, v. 4-5, we are told that God formed every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew.

4. In Genesis, c. i, v. 3-5, we are told that God made light, and divided the light from the darkness, and called the light day and the darkness night the first day; but in v. 14-18, we are told that God made the sun and moon on the fourth day, and that he made them to give light on the earth, and to divide the day from the night and the light from the darkness. Thus we have the light divided from the darkness twice, and we have three days and three nights before the sun is made; and we have the sun made to do the very thing which had been already done three days before.

5. In Exodus, c. ix, we read that all the cattle of Egypt died; shortly after, we find the cattle afflicted with boils; then shortly after that, they are killed with hailstones, and, last of all, the first-born of the cattle are killed a third time.

6. In Numbers, c. xxxi, we read that the Israelites killed all the Midianites, old and young, male and female, except the young females, whom they reserved for themselves; yet in Judges, c. vi, we find the Midianites coming up against Israel in great numbers, and spoiling their country, and driving them into the dens and caves of the mountains.

7. So with the Amalekites. In 1 Samuel, c. xv, we are told that the Israelites destroyed the whole of the Amalekites, man and woman, infant and suckling; yet, c. xxvii, we are told that David, at a later period, killed them all again, leaving neither man nor woman alive; and yet, a short time after, the Amalekites invaded Ziglag, and