that if he shall ever be taken thence, by the mercy of God, he will be immersed in the river of life, and his skin become whiter than pearls; see Pocock, notis in part. Moris, p. 289 and 292; but that the faces of the wicked will ever remain black. See Yalkut Shemuni, part ii. fol. 86; also Sale, Prelim. Disc. p. 104, 105. So the Mohammedan tradition, that the bad spirits, Monker and Nakir, who, upon the death of a man, come to examine him, are awful and black. See Prelim. Disc. p. 90. And hence the belief is that the wicked, even before judgment, will stand looking up to God with their faces obscured by blackness and disfigured by all the marks of sorrow and deformity. Idem, p. 99. So also the fable, that a precious stone of paradise fell down to the earth to Adam, whiter than milk, but turned black by the touch of a wicked woman, or, as others say, by wickedness of mankind generally; but the story is that its blackness is only skin-deep, and hence the Arabians carefully preserved it in the Caaba at Mecca. Idem, p. 125. Also, Al Zamakh, &c. in Koran ; and Ahmed Eben Yusef; and Pocock, Spec. p. 117. Similar traditions and quotations may be gathered from all quarters of the world, and from all portions of time; but let us turn to the book that never lies nor misleads. "Behold, I am against thee, saith the Lord of hosts; and I will discover thy skirts upon thy face, and I will show the nations thy nakedness, and the kingdoms thy shame." Nahum, iii. 5. The word here translated skirts, is shulaik. We believe that all scholars agree the Hebrew root of this word is borrowed from the Arabic, of which the meaning is postremum cujusque rei; and, hence the idea skirt, the extreme of something hanging down, tending downward. And from the same source we have the Hebrew word i sholal, a captive, a thing captured, &c., because the captive is in an extreme condition; and thus or skirt, from its cognate and Arabic thing tending downwards. Thus shul is made to mean a hem root, the extreme of some shaal, to be loose, to hang down. From these considerations, the word was often used to mean a prisoner, a captive. Thus, Job xii. 19: "He leadeth princes away spoiled," sholal, captive, reduced to the lowest extremity, &c. Therefore, although perhaps not as literal, the idea of the prophet would have been more exactly conveyed had it been translated, "And I will discover the low extremity of your condition upon your face," and in this same sense the word is used in Jer. xiii. 22: "If thou say in thine heart, Wherefore come these things upon me? For the greatness of thine iniquity are thy skirts (7: shulaik) discovered, and thy heels made bare.” Evidently proclaiming the doctrine, that a course of sin, through the Divine. providence, will leave its mark. "She is empty, and void, and waste, and the heart melteth, and the knees smite together, and much pain is in all loins, and the faces of them all gather blackness. Behold, I am against thee, saith the Lord." Nah. ii. 10, 13. "At Tehaphnehes also the day shall be darkened, when I shall break there the yokes of Egypt; and the pomp of her strength shall cease in her: as for her, a cloud shall cover her, and her daughters shall go into captivity. Thus will I execute judgments in Egypt: and they shall know that I am the Lord." Ezek. xxx. 18, 19. "Our necks are under persecution: we labour and have no rest. We have given the hand to the Egyptains, and to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread. Our fathers have sinned, and are not; and we have borne their iniquities. Servants (y abadim, slaves) have ruled over us: there is none that doth deliver us out of their hand. We get our bread with the peril of our lives, because of the sword of the wilderness. Our skin is black like an oven, because of the terrible famine." Lam. v. 5-10. "For the hurt of the daughter of my people I am hurt; I am black; astonishment hath taken hold on me." Jer. viii. 21. "Judah mourneth, and the gates thereof languish; they are black unto the ground; and the cry of Jerusalem is gone up." Jer. xiv. 2. "Her Nazarites were purer than snow; they were whiter than milk; they were more ruddy in body than rubies; their polishing was of sapphire. Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets." Lam. iv. 7, 8. "For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire; nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest." Heb. xii. 18. "Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever." Jude 13. "For though thou wash thee with nitre, and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before me, saith the Lord God." Jer. ii. 22. "The show of their countenance doth witness against them." Isa. iii. 9. LESSON IV. BUT experience proved that even this second degree of slavery was not a sufficient preventive of sin to preserve man upon the earth. "That the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man.” Gen. vi. 2, 3. The word translated "fair," and applied to the daughters of men, is to voth; it is in the feminine plural, and comes from tav, and cognate with the Syriac word af tor or tob; it merely means good, excellent, as the quality may exist in the mind of the person taking cognisance. It implies no quality of virtue or complexion, but in its use is reflective back to the nominative. It is one of those words which we find in all languages, of which rather a loose use is made. We find it in Dan. ii. 32, (the 31st of the English text,) "excellent;" also Ezra v. 17, "good." When it is said of Sarah, in Gen. xii. 11, that she was "fair," meaning that she was of a light complexion, the word yephath is used, and is the same with our Japheth, the son of Noah, and comes from y yapha, and means to shine, to give light, and, as an adjective, well means lightness of complexion, fairness, and brilliancy of beauty. So in Esth. ii. 7, "and the maid was fair and beautiful," yephath. 1 Sam. xvi. 12, "Now he was ruddy and of a fair countenance," yepha. 1 Kings i. 4, "and the damsel was fair," yaphah. It is true that in Solomon's Song, i. 16, " Behold, thou art fair, my beloved,”—ii. 10, "My beloved spake and said unto me, Rise up my love, my fair one, and come away,"-iv. 1, "Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thou hast doves' eyes," iv. 7, "Thou art fair, my love; there is no spot in thee," and also v. 9, "O thou fairest among women," the word y yapha, in grammatical form, is used in the original, and that the term is applied to a black woman. But this whole song is written in hyperbole. In the description of Solomon's person, it says, v. 11, "His head is as the most fine gold;" in the original, "His head is the most fine gold." 14: "His hands are as gold rings set with the beryl: his belly as bright ivory overlaid with sapphires. 15: His legs are as pillars of marble, set upon sockets of gold: his countenance is as Lebanon, excellent as the cedars." Asiatic poetry always abounded in hyperbole. Thus an Arabian poet, speaking of his mistress, says "I behold in thine eyes, angels looking at me. Deformity in another, in thee is excellent beauty; The garments of the shepherd, upon thee, are the finest tissue, Thy excellence, so great among men, the god beholds, And is astonished at thy beauty." It is not from such productions that we are to look for the simple, original, and radical meaning of terms; and probably even in the case of Canticles, the word y yapha would not have been allowed by the rules of composition, had it not been first announced in a calm, initiatory manner, that she was a black woman, in order that no misconception might arise from such hyperbole. Let us suppose ourselves in Arabia, and some poet announces that, for our evening entertainment and diversion, he will deliver a panegyric upon some black woman, and, among other things, says Thy neck is as a tower of ivory. That looketh towards Damascus ; And the smell of thy nose like apples; And the smell of the roof of thy mouth like the best wine Thy stature is like the palm-tree. Thy skin is fairer than snow, And thy breasts like two clusters of grapes. Thy head is as Mount Carmel, And the hair of thy head like purple, And the curls of thy hair like a flock of goats. Behold, thou art fair, my love; thou hast doves' eyes. True, amid such hyperbole, we might have mistaken her colour, if he had not previously informed us on that subject. But, as it stands, there is no falsehood asserted; there is no liability to mistake. The poet merely means that, at least in his conception, she is as lovely, beautiful, and desirable as all those hyperboles would make her. And we think we have reason to contend, that the hyperbolic use of the word yapha, in Canticles, does not alter in any sense its real meaning, or, in any ordinary use of language, make it a term applicable to people of colour, or in any sense whatever a synonyme of the tav, or to voth, as used in Genesis. This explanation is thought necessary, since it is seen that we shall hereafter contend that the descendants of Cain were black. LESSON V. If we take the passage, Gen. vi. 2, 3, as it stands in connection, it seems to us an obvious deduction that the commingling of the races of Seth and Cain was obnoxious to the Lord. It is placed in position as the cause why his Spirit should not always strive. He saw that such amalgamation would, did deteriorate and destroy the more holy race of Seth; and therefore determined, with grief in his heart, to destroy man from the earth. All were swept away, except Noah, his three sons, and their four wives. Yet sin found a residence among the sons of Noah, and Canaan was doomed to perpetual bondage, as it now exists upon the earth. "And he said, Cursed be Canaan: a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. And he said, Blessed be the Lord God of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant. God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant." Gen. ix. 25-27. The expression "servant of servants" is translated from the words ' ebed abadim, slave of slaves. The expres sion is idiomatic, and means the most abject slave. In the passage quoted, the word servant, in all cases, is trans |