markets are stocked with the children of Ham, sold to perpetual bondage and suffering, under the descendants of Shem and Japhet. "Let us now notice the portion of this remarkable prediction, which relates to Shem. "Blessed be the Lord God of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant.' The word Shem signifies renown, or a name, and to the descendants of Shem have pertained the greatest temporal renown and glory. They possessed the fairest regions of the earth, and long upheld the mightiest empires. But their chief renown has been in the line of Abraham, from whom descended the promised seed that was to bless all nations, and whom all nations were to call blessed. The worship of the true God, the God of Noah and of Shem, was continued in their family, and long confined to them, while all the rest of the nations were sunk in idolatry. 'To them,' says the apostle Paul, pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises. Whose are the fathers, and of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for evermore.' "Thus it clearly appears, that a marked division, or classification of the human family, has obtained from the earliest times. None of the changes to which the nature of man, and the interests of nations are subject, have availed to obliterate or remove these characteristics. They answer, in a most remarkable and convincing manner, to their threefold origination, and to the three sentences attached to them by their common progenitor. No one can regard the three great ancient geographical divisions of the globe, without at once perceiving, that there is a clearly marked distinc tion of national character. Europeans, Africans, and Asiatics, though each including many nations, and many great diversities of character and habit, cannot be confounded together: for each severally retains, to the present day, a marked correspondence in their conditions to the sentence pronounced on them by Noah."* 4. The traditions and mythology of the heathen nations strikingly corroborate the account of Moses. The traditions which we have already quoted in confirmation of the Mosaic account of the deluge, at the same time confirm the Mosaic account of the origin of nations; for they refer the peopling of the earth to the pair or the family that had been preserved in the ark. It will, therefore, be sufficient to add to them one that was found among the Armenians, and has been preserved by Abulfaragi, in which Noah is represented as distributing the habitable earth, from north to south, among his sons, and giving to Ham the region of the blacks; to Shem the region of the tawny; and to Japhet the region of the ruddy.t The mythology of the heathen appears to have been really based on the division of the earth among the families of the sons of Noah, as described by Moses. Thus Saturn and his three sons, Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto, can be easily identified with Noah and his three sons; and the dominions assigned to the former can be readily traced to those possessed by the latter. In the division of the earth, Africa fell to the lot of Ham, which, a great part of it being within the tropics, and thus lying under a vertical sun, was supposed to be nearer to heaven than any other part of the earth; Jupiter, therefore, who may be identified with Ham, had assigned to him the dominion of heaven. Japhet inherited the islands and maritime regions; Neptune, therefore, who represents him, had assigned to him the dominion of the seas. Shem and his immediate poste * Redford's Scripture Verified, pp. 189–193. rity probably continued with Noah in the neighbourhood of Ararat some time after the dispersion, and imitated the great patriarch in his worship of the true God; on which account they would become obnoxious to the rest of mankind, who had addicted themselves to the worship of idols. Thus, when Shem became deified, as in process of time he did, under the name of Pluto, he had assigned to him the dominion of the infernal regions.* * Vide Bocharti Phaleg, 1. i. c. 1, 2. F LECTURE IV. COUNTRIES POSSESSED BY NOAH AND HIS THE MOUNTAIN OF ARARAT.-THE LAND OF SHINAR, HAVING in our last lecture considered the Mosaic account of the deluge, and of the origin of nations, we are prepared to enter on a description of the countries possessed by Noah and his immediate descendants. These comprehend—the Mountain of Ararat,—the Land of Shinar, the Countries of the Dispersion,-and the Empire of Nimrod. The Mountain of Ararat, and the Land of Shinar, will occupy the present lecture. THE MOUNTAIN OF ARARAT. Here the ark rested on the subsiding of the waters of the deluge. The country of Ararat is generally supposed to be the same as Armenia, and the mountains of Ararat, the same as the Armenian mountains. That part of these mountains on which the ark is supposed to have rested, is what are called the Gordiæan mountains, near to the source of the Tigris. The reasonableness of this supposition will appear from the following considerations : : 1. It is likely that the ark was built in the country of Eden; forth at was probably the residence of Noah and his family, when he was commanded by God to prepare an ark to the saving of his house. Our first parents were indeed expelled from Paradise, but there is no reason to suppose that they were expelled from the country of Eden; and as the eldest sons were permitted to remain with, and succeed their fathers in their inheritances, while the younger were obliged to emigrate into other places, and Noah was the eldest son in a direct line from Seth, this country would fall to him by inheritance. Moreover, the wood of which it was built, which there is good reason to believe was the cypress wood, grew in abundance in that country. This wood is not only durable and suited to shipbuilding, but was formerly actually used for this purpose. The fleet which Alexander the Great built at Babylon, Arrianus informs us, was built entirely of cypress; and it grew in great abundance in the province of Babylonia. Now Babylonia is the province in which, as we have seen, the country of Eden was situated. 2. The waters of the deluge were formed, not only by the opening of the windows of heaven, or the falling of rain; but by the breaking up of the fountains of the great deep, or the swell of the ocean. Thus the swell of the Persian Gulf, on the south, would create a current that would bear the ark northward; but illadapted, from its form, for speedy floating, and, drawing, by its bulk, an immense quantity of water, also meeting as it advanced two other currents that would impede its progress,-one from the Caspian Sea, on the east, and the other from the Mediterranean, on the west; it would require the period of a hundred and fifty days, the period during which the waters really prevailed, to carry it from Eden to the source of the Tigris. 3. It was generally believed by the ancients, that the Gordiæan mountains was the spot on which the ark |