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 OF BABEL 
 
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Pf^esident Whjte Library, 
 Cornell University. 
 
__ Cornell Unlvenlty Library 
 
 BS661 .M16 
 
 Bulders of Babel. By Dominick M'Causlan 
 
 olln 
 
 3 1924 029 284 663 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029284663 
 
THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
THE 
 
 uilJ)£r0 oi ^-ahtl 
 
 DOMINICK M'CAUSLAND, Q.C., I.L.D., 
 
 AUTHOR OF "sermons IN STONES," "aDAM AND THE ADAMITE," 
 ETC., ETC. 
 
 " God drave asunder and assigned their lot 
 To all the nations. '' 
 
 ■ LONDON: 
 RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON. 
 1874. 
 
! - 
 
 President White 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The following pages have been written to 
 ■elucidate the fulfilment of one of the oldest 
 prophecies of the Bible in the events that con- 
 stitute the history of the civilized world. History, 
 in the ordinary sense of the word, signifies the 
 authentic history of mankind, which admittedly 
 commences at the first Olympiad, ^^6 B.c. But 
 the history to which we refer has been developed 
 far before that date by the new science of 
 " Prehistoric Archseolo^," which has come into 
 existence within the last fifty years, and has 
 been consolidated and rendered fruitful by some 
 of the ■ most astute and enterprising of modern 
 philosophers. 
 
 *By studying the relationship of languages, 
 identifying and interpreting ancient myths, de- 
 ■ciphering hieroglyphic, cuneiform, and other 
 
vi PREFACE. 
 
 archaic inscriptions on papyri, clay tablets, and 
 cylinders, on buildings, rocks, and slabs, medals 
 and coins ; by comparing the architecture of old 
 edifices in different parts of the world, and thus 
 tracing the migrations of the early civilizers 
 of mankind, a record of prehistoric times is 
 disclosed that was unknown to our ancestors, 
 and which bridges over the misty gulf that 
 has hitherto intervened between the primeval 
 history of the Hametic and Japhetic branches 
 of Adam's race in the Book of Genesis, and the 
 Grecian era. 
 
 This dark interval is thus found to have been 
 occupied by a civilization that flourished in 
 Chaldaea, Arabia, Egypt, Phoenicia, and her 
 many and distant colonies, for nearly two 
 thousand years ; and preceded the Japhetic 
 (better known as the Aryan) and Semitic 
 civilizations, which have been long supposed to 
 have divided the whole world of history between 
 them. This increase of our knowledge of 
 Oriental affairs has restored the links that bind 
 the builders of Babel to their descendants, 
 throughout all their generations, to the present 
 day — assuring us of the reality of the dispersion 
 at Shinar, and its object, cause, and con- 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 sequences ; and setting the seal of truth on the 
 sacred record. 
 
 The importance of utilizing such inquiries, for 
 the establishment of the authenticity of the 
 Scriptures, cannot be exaggerated ; for every 
 addition to our knowledge of prehistoric events, 
 from whatever quarter it may come, must con- 
 tribute to a better understanding of the primeval 
 Jiistory in Genesis, and mitigate the evils that 
 <have arisen from the unnatural state of hostility 
 that has prevailed, throughout all the ages of 
 Christendom, between the religionist who dis- 
 regards science, and the philosopher who ignores 
 revelation. 
 
 Both these classes — and they are numerous 
 and influential even in the present day — are 
 equally hostile to, and deprecate, any attempt 
 to reconcile Scripture and science ; the former, 
 because they despise the Bible, and reject its 
 authority ; and the latter, because they cannot, 
 ■or will not, distinguish between what is true and 
 what is false in science. But there is a third 
 class, composed of those who regard Scripture as 
 the exposition of divine infallible truth, and who, 
 at the same time, respect science as the true 
 interpreter of the phenomena of nature. Such 
 
viii ' PREFACE. 
 
 men are honestly and earnestly seeking for the 
 harmony' that must necessarily exist between the 
 well-ascertained facts of science and the rightly 
 understood words of revelation. To such this 
 work is dedicated ; and the Author trusts that 
 his inquiries may operate to encourage the study 
 of jSecular knowledge in connection with the 
 knowledge that has been so wonderfully pre- 
 served for our instruction in the pages of the 
 Bible — to the better understanding of God's way 
 upon earth, "His saving health among all 
 nations." 
 
 D. M'C. 
 
 Dublin, March 1st, 1871. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE DISPERSION. 
 
 The increase of laiowledge — Its effects — Prehistoric Archae- 
 ology — The Bible — ThcVedas and Zendavesta — The con- 
 tributions of science to the authentication of the Scriptures 
 — The extent of the Flood — The confusion of language 
 and the dispersion — Noah's prophecy — Its fulfilment — 
 The dispersion a tribal separation — The ethnical condition 
 of the Globe — The pre-eminence of the Caucasian race 
 — The Semitic and Japhetic branches of the Caucasian 
 race — The two families of the inflectional languages — The 
 Hamitic race — Distinguished from the Semitic race — The 
 distinctive characteristics of the Semites and Japhetites 
 
 Page I— 25 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 HAM; 
 
 The Hamites — Their early supremacy — The ancient king- 
 dom of Childaea — The Builders of Babel — The present 
 aspect of Mesopotamia — The discoveries of Layard and 
 others in the East — Confirmation of Scripture history — 
 Early Chaldaean monarchs — Nimrod — The Scripture date 
 of the Chaldsean monarchy confirmed — The Hamitic 
 civilizing element — How established — The commence- 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 merit of history — Myths, of Antiquity — Not wholly ideal 
 — Identity of Cush, Ethiopia, and Arabia — The testimony 
 of old historians — Modern misdescriptions of Arabia — 
 Palgrave's Arabia— Phoenician traffic— Scripture evidence 
 of Phoenician prosperity— Carthage— The religion of the 
 Phoenicians— Moloch 4nd Ashtaroth — Cush — Mizraim 
 — Phut — Canaan — Early descent of the Canaanite into 
 Egypt — Cyclopoean structures of the Hamites — Chaldjean 
 Architecture— Birs Nimroud— The Temple of Belus — 
 Egyptian Architecture — The Hall of Karnak — The Laby- 
 rinth — Phoenician Architecture — American pyramids and 
 tumuli — Identity of American and Hamite traditions — 
 Aztecs and Toltecs — ^Hamite route to America — The 
 Rock Temples and Pagodas of India and Ceylon — Archi- 
 tectural remains in Burmah, Cambodia, and Java — All of 
 Hamitic origin — The Hamitic origin of alphabetic writing 
 — Phoenician literature — Similarity of Hamitic and Semitic 
 languages — Change of language in Chaldeea and Canaan — 
 Traces of the Hamitic language — Contrast of Hamitic and 
 Semitic characters — Cuneiform writing — The downfall of 
 the Hamite — The cause .... Page 26 — 103 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The key-note of Semitic history — Two classes of Semites — 
 Divine revelations to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob — Reve- 
 lation to Moses — Manifestation of divine power to the 
 Israelites — The supernatural not favoured by the Japhetite 
 — Semitic monotheism not an instinct — But a revelation — 
 Difference between Japhetic and Semitic intellects — The 
 scientific philosopher — The Prophet — Primary and second- 
 ary causation — Prophetic element peculiar to the Semite 
 — The office of the Prophet — The supernatural element 
 twofold — ^The influence of language as to Semitic charac- 
 ter — ^The science of language — The Japhetic languages — 
 The Sanskrit and Zend — The Semitic languages — Sever- 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 ance of language at Shinar — Well-attested miracle — De- 
 votional character of the Semitic language — Examples — 
 The future of the Jews — How attested — The Arabs — 
 Their conquests — Their return to Arabia — The fulfilment 
 of their destiny — All religious knowledge Semitic — The 
 education of Adam's race — The only evidence of the Lord 
 God of Shem Page 104 — 162 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 JAPHET. 
 
 The Japhetic channel of religion and civilization — The ex- 
 pansive powers of the Japhetites — Their early migrations 
 —The Brahmans— The Vedas— The Aryans— The date of 
 the Vedic poems — The religion of the authors of the 
 Vedas — Their debasement by Brahmanic sacerdotalism — 
 The influence of their language on their religion — Resem- 
 blance between the Semitic, Indian, and Persian traditions 
 —The Creation— The Flood— The date of the Aryan 
 entry into India — Difference of Hindoo and European 
 civilization — The Western Japhetites — Two bands of 
 European emigrants-^The climate and soil of ancient 
 Europe — ^Japhetite tribes of central Europe — Celtic, Teu- 
 tonic, Sclavonic — Aborigines of Europe — Progress of 
 Japhetic civilization — Grecian civilization — Early state of 
 Greece — The Pelasgi — Homeric poems — Their use — 
 Phoenician civilization — Purified by the Greeks — Infe- 
 riority of the Hamites — Greek knowledge of the physical 
 sciences — The stationary period — The effect of sacerdotal- 
 ism — Contest between sacerdotalism and philosophy — 
 Revival of the physical sciences-^Copernicus — Galileo — 
 Kepler — Newton — Discovery of the law of gravitation — 
 Geological knowledge — The Atmosphere — Optics — Elec- 
 tricity and Magnetism — The Mariner's Compass — The 
 discoveries of Columbus, Cabot, and others — The Tele- 
 scope — Chemistry — Physiology and comparative Anatomy 
 — The increase of knowledge — The age of progress — 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Rapid advance of mechanicaLarts— Steam— Its progress — 
 Progress of religious knowledge — The Japhetic faculty — 
 Japhetic expansion — The downward moral tendency of 
 civilization— The duty of the Japhetite— The future of the 
 Japhetite Page 163—255 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE ADAMITE. 
 
 The generations of Noah — The Karaite —The Semite — The 
 Japhetite — The ethnical condition of the world before the 
 migrations from Shinar — Aborigines of Europe— India — 
 Australia — Africa — The Japhetite excluded from Africa — 
 The future of Africa — The, antiquity of the Negro race — 
 The Scripture testimony of pre-Adamite races — The 
 Unity of Mankind — The difference of the religious and 
 scientific doctrines of unity of race — Plurality of races — 
 Climate and soil inadequate to account for diversity of man- 
 kind — Plurality of race the doctrine of a divine creation 
 — Autochthons — Replenishing the earth — Bunsen's error — 
 Plurality of races not inconsistent with Christian doctrine 
 — ^The struggle between ecclesiastical authority and scien- 
 tific knowledge — The result in favour of science — Errors 
 of the religionist and of the philosopher — How to be cor- 
 rected — Warning to the Japhetite . Page 256 — 303 
 
THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 "So tJie Lord scattered them abroad."— Gsa. xi. 8. 
 
 The present era of the world is marked by a 
 rapid accumulation of knowledge, produced by 
 an unprecedented increase of scientific disco- 
 veries. Nature is yielding up her secrets abun- 
 dantly to the inquisitive spirit and persevering 
 research of the philosopher ; and man is calling 
 on each new fact, as it becomes developed, to 
 aid in t;he expansion and extension of the com- 
 forts and conveniences of civilized life. The 
 ground on which we tread, the air we breathe, 
 the clouds above and the ocean around us, so 
 long unquestioned by man, are now eloquent of 
 the presence and power of the Creator ; and the 
 smallest particle of matter that contributes to 
 the great whole reflects the wisdom and good- 
 
 I 
 
THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 ness of the mighty Architect of the universe. 
 The same spirit^of inquiry that has thus tended 
 to develop the laws by which the Creator has 
 produced and regulated the phenomena of 
 nature from the beginning, has also led to the 
 investigation and development of the state and 
 condition of pre-historic man, from relics of anti- 
 quity and works of art which have survived the 
 long-buried fabricators, and are now contributing 
 materials for the construction of their long-lost 
 history. 
 
 Fifty years ago the records of the civilized 
 world commenced with the Grecian and Roman 
 histories. With the exception of the Bible, and 
 some fragments of the writings of a few Oriental 
 historians, which have been preserved in the 
 works of later authors, nothing was known of 
 those centres of Easteirn civilization, which un- 
 doubtedly existed in the fertile valleys of the 
 Nile and Euphrates, and throughout all the 
 countries that lie between those rivers and the 
 Ganges, long before the dawn of European 
 civilization. The remains of cities, temples, and 
 palaces, of pyramids and catacombs, hiero- 
 glyphic and cuneiform inscriptions on rocks, 
 monuments, medals, and coins, met the eye of 
 
THE DISPERSION. 
 
 the traveller throughout the East ; but the 
 stories they had to relate of former generations 
 were untold and unknown, until the modern 
 science of " Pre-historic Archaeology " drew aside 
 the veil that concealed them, by disclosing the 
 mode of deciphering the mysterious characters, 
 and has thus enabled the present generation to 
 read some of the secrets of the remote past. 
 ChampoUion and Young, very early in the present 
 century, supplied a key to the perusal of the 
 hieroglyphics of Egypt ; and Rawlinson, Hinckes, 
 Jules Oppert, and others, have interpreted and 
 taught us how to decipher the cuneiform in- 
 scriptions on the Babylonian and Assyrian 
 monuments ; so that the political and religious 
 institutions, and the domestic habits and 
 customs of the ancient Egyptians and As- 
 syrians, may now be studied and apprehended 
 like those of the nations and peoples of the 
 historic era. 
 
 The only written history of events contempo- 
 raneous with those thus rescued from oblivion, 
 is that contained in the Holy Scriptures, which 
 have preserved for us the records of the Semitic 
 race, reaching back to that period of the earth's 
 Ijistory when life and light struggled out of 
 
 I — 2 
 
THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 chaos, and expanding onward through the 
 ascending stages of the animal and vegetable 
 creations, until, in the fulness of time, a man 
 appeared in the image and after the likeness 
 of his Creator, and was endowed by Him with 
 dominion over all the other works of the 
 Creation. If this history be true, if the Bible is 
 — what it assumes to be — the word of truth, it 
 would be strange if the lamp of science — ^which 
 reveals in the dust and stones beneath our feet 
 a deeply interesting and instructive history of 
 their own past existences, and the relics of 
 ancient art, which are now speaking intelligibly, 
 and with authority, from their long neglected 
 graves — did not shed some rays of light on its 
 old records, to develop their teachings, and mul- 
 tiply the proofs of their truth and inspiration. 
 
 The Bible is a book which is radically differ- 
 ent from every other written document, ancient 
 or modern ; and even irrespective of its claim to 
 be of divine origin, and of its sacred truths 
 which lead from time to eternity, it is, in a 
 secular point of view, worthy of the most 
 critical study and serious attention, of the wisest 
 philosophers. It has been well observed that 
 
THE DISPERSION. 
 
 it is the oldest book in existence, and yet it 
 never grows old. 
 
 " Unchanged, unchanging — old without decay," 
 
 it speaks to the present generations of mankind 
 as intelligibly as it has spoken to all generations 
 since it was written. The world has progressed 
 from small beginnings to its present dimensions ; 
 nations have been born, waxed strong, and 
 died out ; advancing knowledge has established 
 true, and obliterated many false, theories; but 
 the records of the past and the predictions of the 
 future that are preserved in the pages of Holy 
 Writ, though often questioned, have never been 
 falsified. The Vedas and the Zendavesta, 
 the sacred books of the Brahmans and Zoroas- 
 trians, are proved by severe criticism to be as 
 old, or nearly as old, as the books of Moses, 
 and are deeply interesting and instructive as 
 submitting to modern consideration the ancient 
 thought of the great Aryan progenitors of the 
 Hindoo and Persian ; but there is nothing that 
 authenticates them as containing outpourings 
 of a supernatural influence. , They propound 
 no cosmogonies that have not been disproved by 
 the discoveries of science — no histories that are 
 
THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 intelligible and instructive — no prophecies that 
 were to be verified by subsequent events. There 
 are no witnesses to attest a divine origin of these 
 writings, as the outcast Jew and the restless 
 Ishmaelite, the desolations of Palestine, the 
 ruins of Babylon and Nineveh, the barren sites 
 of Tyre and Sidon, and the degradations of 
 Egypt, attest the inspiration of the Hebrew 
 prophets, from Moses to Malachi. They are 
 essentially human, and wholly devoid of any 
 divine element. i 
 
 The early histories of all people and com- 
 munities, except that of the Jews and Arabs, are 
 mythological and unhistorical ; and the inclina- 
 tion of the neologians of the present day is to 
 relegate the early chapters of the Book of 
 Genesis, from the Creation to the Dispersion at 
 Shinar, to the same category of unreality. The 
 calling out of Abraham is supposed by them to 
 be the commencement of Semitic history, as the 
 first Olympiad (jy& B.C.) is admitted to be the 
 commencement of genuine Grecian history. But 
 it will be found that every science that springs up 
 around the paths of progressing humanity, and 
 every new fact that is brought to light by the 
 inquiring sons of Japhet, confirm and establish 
 
THE DISPERSION. 
 
 the history of these primeval events that have 
 been preserved for us in the first eleven chapters 
 of Genesis. 
 
 Two sciences of recent growth — geology and 
 comparative philology — have contributed much 
 to the elucidation and authentication of this 
 portion of the Scriptures ; though in their infancy 
 they were upheld by the sceptic, and denounced 
 by the believer, as destructive of the claims of 
 the Mosaic record to inspiration. The geologist 
 has, from the stones, clays, and gravels that form 
 the crust of the globe, compiled a history of the 
 divine modus operandi in the formation of our 
 earthly abode, and elucidated the order in which 
 the various forms of animal and vegetable 
 organisms with which it has been furnished 
 came into existence. The comparative philo- 
 logist has, in like manner, from words and 
 grammar that lay unheeded around, like the 
 stones of the geologist, traced the pedigrees of 
 the human familie? of the world to their re* 
 spective sources. By the former, therefore, we 
 can test the Mosaic record of "the Creation ; and 
 by the latter, the primeval history of Adam's 
 race, preserved in Genesis. The labours of the 
 archaeologist have also contributed valuable infor- 
 
8 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 mation regarding the early career of mankind, 
 which will be found to assist in guiding us through 
 the misty ways of their primeval history. 
 
 For centuries, all Christendom, with few excep- 
 tions, believed that God had made the world and 
 all things in it in a period of six natural days. 
 The Bible was supposed to have stated such 
 to be the fact, and few believers conceived that 
 there could be any doubt upon the subject. The 
 first chapter of Genesis treats of the creation of 
 the world and its inhabitants. The science of 
 geology instructs us as to the mode in which our 
 globe was formed, and the order in which its vege- 
 table and animal organisms came into existence. 
 When the science was in its infancy, it was gene- 
 rally supposed that the teachings of Genesis and 
 geology were wholly irreconcilable ; but since it 
 has struggled into its present state of maturity, 
 it has been found that the order in which created 
 beings have been shown by the geologist to have 
 come into being, is in truly wonderful accord- 
 ance with that presented to us in the first 
 chapter of Genesis, and proves the truth and 
 inspiration of the Mosaic record — subject only 
 to the condition that we read the word " day," 
 in that chapter, as indicating a long geologic 
 
THE DISPERSION. 
 
 period of time, and not a mere natural day of 
 twenty-four hours. And, accordingly, there 
 being satisfactory evidence within the pages of 
 the Bible, that the Hebrew word may be so un- 
 derstood, few persons of enlightened understand- 
 ing have hesitated to adopt that rendering of 
 the word "day," and to appropriate the irresistible 
 evidence of inspiration that it carries with it. 
 Those who still desire to adhere to the natural 
 day reading, lose the valuable testimony that 
 geological science has contributed to the authen- 
 ticity of Holy Writ. 
 
 Again, the Mosaic narrative of the Flood was 
 long considered as recording that all the dry 
 land on the face of the earth had been submerged 
 beneath the waters, and that the overflow had 
 carried destruction to every living creature, from 
 east to west and from pole to pole; with the 
 exception of Noah's family and the few animals 
 that were with them in the ark. The knowledge 
 of later days has corrected our notions in this 
 respect, by showing that such an occurrence as 
 a universal submersion of the dry land could 
 not have taken place within the last six thousand, 
 or even sixty thousand years; but there are 
 indications that a partial, though in itself an 
 
lo THR BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 extensive subsidence and submergence, did pro- 
 bably take place in the countries surrounding 
 Ararat and the Caspian Sea, at no distant period 
 of time, destructive of caurse to all the animal 
 creation within its sphere, unless so far as some 
 may have been preserved by human exertion. 
 Besides, it is manifestly an impossibility that 
 every known species of terrestrial animal could 
 have been congregated from arctic and tropical 
 climes to one spot in Southern Asia, and from 
 thence diffused, over mountains and across seas,, 
 to the remote bounds of the earth where they 
 are now found.* And accordingly it has been 
 shown that the Hebrew text of the record of the 
 Flood does not represent and necessitate a 
 belief that the Noachian deluge was more than 
 
 * In a recent discussion in a scientific institution on the extent 
 and effect of the Noachian deluge, it was admitted by those who 
 contended for its universality, that such a construction of the 
 sacred narrative necessitates a new creation and redistribution of 
 animals throughout the earth after the event ; and it was 
 suggested by the Chairman, that by the application of Darwin's 
 theory to a limited extent, we might, for anything that science 
 shows to the contrary, account for all the various animals now 
 distributed over the face of the earth, from those species that 
 were preserved in the ark. This admitted alternative of conse- 
 quences — a new creation, or multiplication of species by natural 
 selection — is a sufficient refutation of the doctrine of a universal 
 deluge. — Journal of the Transactions of the Victoria Institute^ 
 April, 1870. 
 
THE DISPERSION. ii 
 
 a partial or local catastrophe, or that it prevailed 
 over any part of the earth's surface more exten- 
 sive than that occupied by the race of Adam at 
 that early period of their history, and destroyed 
 them, with the exception of Noah's family, and 
 the comparatively few species of the animals 
 with which they were surrounded in that country. 
 
 We now approach the narrative of another 
 event recorded in the early chapters of Genesis, 
 which has not met with as much consideration 
 and discussion as the records of the Creation and 
 Flood ; but which, when read by the light of 
 comparative philology, will be found to supply 
 another proof of the truth of this primeval record 
 of our race. After the waters had swept over 
 the abode of Adam's race, it became the mission 
 of Noah's family, consisting of eight persons, to 
 replenish, or colonize, the earth with their 
 descendants. How that mission was to be ful- 
 filled, and how that the arm of the Lord was 
 stretched out to effect His purpose, is recorded 
 in the narrative of the confusion of tongues, and 
 the dispersion of the confederated descendants 
 of Noah on the plains of Shinar ; and this record 
 we shall now proceed to verify. 
 
 The localities of the three leading events of 
 
12 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 primeval history — the creation of Adam and his 
 fall, the flood, and the confusion of languages 
 — are marked on the map of the world by the 
 confluence of two rivers, by z. mountain, and by 
 a plain. Euphrates and Hiddekel, or the Tigris, 
 meet on the site of Eden, the scene of Adam's 
 creation and fall ; the mountains of Ararat look 
 •down upon the lands that were covered by the 
 flood in the days of Noah ; and the plain of 
 Shinar witnessed the confusion of speech which 
 caused a severance of the family of that patri- 
 arch that has never been restored, and continues 
 to the present hour. We are thus led to 
 Mesopotamia, in South-western Asia, the coun- 
 try of the two great rivers, Euphrates and 
 Tigris, which descend from the mountains of 
 Ararat, in the high lands of Armenia, water the 
 plains of Shinar, join their streams where Eden 
 bloomed, and pour their combined waters into 
 the Persian Gulf. From the regions of Ararat 
 the families of Shem, Ham, and Japhet jour- 
 neyed instinctively down the banks of the 
 Euphrates, or of the Tigris, until they reached 
 the plains of Shinar, or Babylonia ; and there 
 they commenced to build a tower, or temple, of 
 bricks and slime ; and there it was that the 
 
THE DISPERSION. 13^ 
 
 Almighty effected a separation of the three 
 tribes, by confounding their common language, 
 so that they could not understand each other's, 
 speech ; and they left off to build the city, and 
 were scattered abroad on the face of the earth. 
 
 To understsmd and appreciate the nature, 
 object, and effect of this divine visitation on the 
 forefathers of our race, it will be necessary to> 
 revert to that period of the family history when 
 their progenitors, few in number, were congre- 
 gated at, or near to, Ararat, before they had 
 commenced their pilgrimage down the Euphrates 
 to Mesopotamia. Then it was that Noah ut- 
 tered that prophecy of the destinies of each of 
 his three sons and their respective descendants, 
 which has had its fulfilment in the history of the 
 civilized world from that hour to the present : — 
 
 Cm-sed be Canaan ; a servant of servants shall he be unto his 
 brethren. 
 
 Blessed be the Lord God of Sham ; and Canaan shall be his 
 servant. 
 
 God shall enlarge Japhet ; and he shall dwell in the tents of 
 Shem ; and Canaan shall be his servant. 
 
 This declaration of the future of the three- 
 sons of Noah' is followed by a short description 
 of the regions which were to be occupied by 
 each of the three families ; and which were, no. 
 
14 THE BlflLDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 doubt, so occupied at the time it was written. 
 The progeny of Japhet were to have the pos- 
 session of certain specified districts ; the Hamites 
 were to appropriate others ; and to the Shemites 
 were allotted other regions for their dwelling- 
 places. It was plainly in the counsels of God 
 that the tribal identity of each of the families of 
 Shem, Ham, and Japhet, should be preserved, by 
 a tribal separation, in order that the realization 
 of Noah's prophecy might be ensured and 
 conspicuous ; and this was accomplished by the 
 confusion of tongues, which eventuated in their 
 dispersion or severance, as recorded in the 
 eleventh chapter of Genesis. The accomplish- 
 ment of the prediction, which will appear to 
 have been fulfilled to the letter, required that 
 the three families or tribes should not only be 
 severed, but that their posterity should be kept 
 separate and distinct from each other. And it 
 is impossible to conceive any means better 
 calculated to ensure such a result, than the 
 endowment of each of the families with a 
 language that was unintelligible to the others. 
 No more effectual link could have been devised 
 to bind the members of the same tribe together 
 than the tie of a common language ; while the 
 
THE DISPERSION. 15 
 
 object of keeping the three distinct from each 
 other could not have been more surely attained 
 than by rendering them mutually unintelligible. 
 Thus the dispersion at Shinar was a tribal 
 separation ; and they were divided, as the 
 Scripture record declares, " according to their 
 Jangitages." 
 
 The tenth chapter of Genesis assigns with 
 sufficient certainty the countries in which the 
 early Hamites, Semites, and Japhetites were 
 respectively located after their separation. The 
 Hamites occupied the region which extended 
 from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf, 
 including Palestine, Babylonia, Arabia, and 
 Egypt. The descendants of Shem had pos- 
 session of the countries to the north and east of 
 Babylonia — Assyria, Elymais, and Kurdistan ; 
 while the Japhetites were settled in Greece, Asia 
 Minor, and Armenia. 
 
 The enlargement of Japhet purports, not only 
 an increase of population of that particular 
 tribe, but its accompaniment, a territorial ex- 
 pansion by migration, or colonization of other 
 lands throughout the earth. Such was the 
 declared destiny of Japhet's descendants. 
 "Blessed be the Lord God of Shem," was a 
 
i6 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 blessing on the Semite as a people who should 
 from the beginning be signalized as acknow- 
 ledging and worshipping the only true God, the 
 King of kings and Lord of lords. Such was 
 the destiny of the progeny of Shem. Ham had 
 no blessing, and no part to perform, either 
 politically or religiously, on the stage of the 
 world's history. His descendants had no defined 
 destiny to fulfil, beyond the predicted servitude 
 of Canaan to Shem and Japhet. 
 
 Now, if this Scripture record be true — if 
 Noah's prophecy defines, affirmatively or nega- 
 tively, the future of these three tribes — if the 
 Bible account of the confusion of language and 
 the dispersion had any reality, the history of 
 the world, from its earliest date, should be an 
 echo of Noah's prediction, and present to view 
 three tribes or varieties of civilized man, all 
 ethnographically of the same race, and yet 
 plainly distinguishable from each other by their 
 respective languages, which involves, as will be 
 found, a distinction in their moral and intellectual 
 qualities and instincts. And while one of these 
 tribes was to be conspicuous for a tendency to 
 enlarge their borders, by colonizing and diffusing 
 themselves throughout the earth, a second was to 
 
THE DISPERSION. 17 
 
 be remarkable as recipients of the testimonies and 
 .oracles of the true God, who is ultimately to be 
 blessed, or recognized and acknowledged by all 
 mankind, as the Lord of the whole earth ; and a 
 third, politically superior to the other two in 
 their early days, and in the occupation of the 
 all-important site of Babylon, the capital of the 
 mighty Nimrod's kingdom, was to disappear, 
 after a short-lived supremacy, from the great 
 procession of progressing humanity, losing their 
 identity as a separate people in the onward 
 march of civilization and religion. Such ought 
 to be the aspect of humanity presented by 
 history, if this primeval prophecy be, what it 
 purports to be, the well-spring of the events 
 which constitute the history of the civilized 
 world. And if that history is found to be conform- 
 able with the prediction, we shall be furnished 
 with another sensible and convincing proof of a 
 special Providence in the affairs of mankind and 
 of the truth and authenticity of Holy Writ. 
 
 A survey of the globe, and a consideration of 
 its ethnic condition, establish the fact that its 
 various continents and islands are, and have 
 been from time immemorial, inhabited by races 
 of mankind, distinguishable from each other bjy 
 
 2 
 
1 8 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 their complexions, physical conformations, and 
 by moral and intellectual attributes, which present 
 every variety of the human form a;nd capacity, 
 from the low and brutal Australian, Hottentot, 
 and Fuegian, to the highest specimen of the 
 highly-cultured European. Of these various 
 races, there is one that is manifestly superior to 
 all the others in everything that constitutes 
 superiority and pre-eminence in humanity, com- 
 monly known as the Caucasian ; and their 
 geographical position is well defined on the map 
 of the world. They have long been the inhabi- 
 tants of all the countries that constitute the 
 continent of Europe, the northern shores of 
 Africa, and southern Asia, froni the Mediter- 
 ranean to the Ganges. In later years, they have 
 been extending their borders westward through- 
 out the vast expanse of America, and all other 
 lands which have been colonized by the Euro- 
 pean, in his progress to fulfil his mission to 
 multiply and replenish the earth. The Mongol 
 and Malay races border them on the north and 
 east, the Negro races on the south, and the 
 American Indians on the West. This pre- 
 eminent race, obviously and admittedly the 
 descendants of one pair of ancestors, have, from 
 
THE DISPERSION. 19 
 
 the dawn of history, been supposed to consist of 
 two branches, distinguishable from each other, 
 not only by their languages, but by moral and 
 intellectual qualities which have never been 
 known to change throughout all their genera- 
 tions. One of these is known as the Semitic 
 family ; the other has been designated by his- 
 torians as the Aryan, by philologists as the 
 Inido-European, and by religionists as the 
 Japhetic — all denoting one and the' same people. 
 But by whatever name they are known, the 
 Caucasian Semites and Japhetites are the only 
 people who have taken and retained an his- 
 torical position in the procession of humanity, 
 from the tents of their nomad ancestors on the 
 banks of the Euphrates, to the palaces and 
 temples of European civilization and religion. 
 No others have ever risen above the level 
 of their remotest progenitors. Mongols and 
 Malays, who, physically and morally, approach 
 nearest to the Caucasian type of mankind, are 
 as they have been from the beginning, neither 
 raised nor lowered in the scale of humanity ; 
 and if no other race of a higher degree had 
 existed on the earth, all experience declares that 
 mankind, humanly speaking, would have been 
 
 2 — 2 
 
20 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 without a history, and without any true con- 
 ception of a God. The fertilizing stream of 
 human development would have remained stag- 
 nant ; no Japhet would have been enlarged, and 
 the Lord God of Shem would have had no 
 worshipper. 
 
 All the inflectional languages that are spoken 
 within the Caucasian area, with a very /ew 
 exceptions,* belong to two families of speech, 
 the Semitic and the Indo-European — sometimes 
 called the Aryan, and sometimes the Japhetic — 
 which have been in contrast ever since the dawn 
 of the historic era. Hence it has long been 
 considered as a well-settled principle, that these 
 two branches of the Caucasian race had, from 
 the first, divided the whole world of history 
 between them. But recent research of pre- 
 historic archaeologists has- shown, that another 
 once vigorous but short-lived race, known as the 
 Hamite, are entitled to claim a share in the 
 great work of civilization. There is abundant 
 evidence of their having existed as a once 
 powerful and all-important people; but their 
 relics have been, until of late, erroneously 
 
 * The Basque and the Hungarian, which are of Turanian 
 origin. 
 
THE DISPERSION. 21 
 
 ascribed to the Semites, by reason of their 
 having been in occupation of territories now 
 and long in possession of people speaking 
 Semitic languages. But they are found, on a 
 closer acquaintance, to have been very different, 
 in all the essentials of social and political life, 
 from the true descendants of Shem, who are now 
 represented by the Hebrew and Arab, the pro- 
 geny of Abraham. The remnants of their works, 
 which enlightened research is daily bringing 
 into light, and the historical notices of this 
 obscured, and nearly extinct, race, though scanty, 
 are sufficient to constitute a marked distinction 
 between them and the true Semites, as will 
 presently more fully appear. 
 
 The leading characteristic that has ever 
 distinguished the Semite from the Aryan, or 
 Japhetite, is a devotional tendency that has 
 coloured their whole existence, and has led 
 them, under the Divine guidance, from the days 
 of Noah, to uphold the worship of the one God 
 — the God of the Hebrew, the Christian, and the 
 Mussulman. The simplicity of their idea 6i a 
 Supreme Being, separate and distinct from the 
 works of the Creation, has been instrumental in 
 preserving them from the mythological fantasies 
 
THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 that prevailed among the Japhetites, whose 
 rationalistic imaginations effaced the boundaries 
 between divinity, humanity, and the universe — 
 mingling gods and men in the mazes of poly- 
 theism. The Semites could not comprehend the 
 intellectual tastes and tendencies of the Aryans^ 
 and were almost strangers to science and philo- 
 sophy, which were the peculiar acquisitions of 
 the Japhetite, and the secret of the expanding 
 force which is operating to enlarge their borders 
 throughout the earth. The same character of 
 simplicity pervaded the whole social and political 
 life of the sons of Shem. Their system was 
 patriarchal, their associations that of the tent 
 and the tribe. They knew nothing of great 
 empires and absolute monarchies. They had no 
 tendency or desire to engage in commerce, nor 
 had they any knowledge, properly speaking, of 
 the fine arts, with the exception of music. 
 Questions concerning aristocracy, democracy, or 
 feudality, which are the foundation stones of 
 Japhetite history, were unintelligible to the 
 Semite, whose nobility was wholly patriarchal, 
 having its source in the blood, and owing nothing 
 to the strong arm of the conqueror.* The 
 * " Etudes d'hist. religieuse." Renan, p. 88, 2nd ed. 
 
THE DISPERSION. 23 
 
 Hebrews, it is true — at an advanced era of their 
 development, when by reason of their increasing 
 numbers and political situation, patriarchal 
 government had become inconvenient — aspired 
 to monarchy, and desired a king to reign over 
 them ; but the change was adopted from a 
 supposed political necessity, and rather in 
 imitation of other peoples, that they might be 
 " like all the nations,"* than in Obedience to their 
 natural instincts. The culture of science and 
 philosophy also, that characterized the reign of 
 Solomon, was wholly opposed to Israelitish 
 ideas, and drew them away for a time from their 
 religious destiny. And thus it was, that the 
 literary labours and accomplishments of that 
 wise king of Israel were soon neglected and 
 forgotten by his successors ; and his large con- 
 ceptions of civilization and progress disappeared 
 before the influence of the monotheistic pro- 
 phets, who from thenceforth represented the 
 mind of the Hebrew. And we may add, that 
 the political discord and confusion that marked 
 the kingly period of Judah and Israel, show how 
 little suited that people were for such an institu- 
 tion ; while the quick descent from the material 
 
 * I Sam. viii. 5 — 20. 
 
24 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 prosperity of Solomon's reign, which flowed from 
 his adoption of literature and commerce, shows 
 their inaptitude for those accomplishments. 
 
 The Semite never possessed that expanding 
 force which has distinguished the Aryan sons 
 of Japhet, and urged them forward to subdue 
 and retain possession of new territories, to fill 
 them with their increasing civilization. The 
 Mussulman invasions in the seventh century, 
 when the Arabs, under the influence of religious 
 zeal, burst forth from their desert homes, and 
 obtained by force of arms possession of all the 
 countries that extend from Spain to Ceylon, 
 were ijot originated or continued through a 
 desire of acquiring territory and political power. 
 They were actuated by a proselytizing zeal 
 that was their incentive and guiding star; and 
 when their object was attained, and their re- 
 ligious ideas planted in the new soil, they 
 withdrew to their former abode, renewed their 
 previous habits of life, and have ever since been 
 fulfilling their predicted destiny as a nomad and 
 lawless race, without a government, or any con- 
 ception of legitimate sovereignty. Such as he 
 was from the beginning, such is the Arab still — 
 
THE DISPERSION. 25 
 
 "a wild man, his fiand against every man, and 
 every maris hand against him" 
 
 The progress of these three tribes or families, 
 members of the same race, from the days of 
 Shinar, is as distinct, in the history of the world, 
 as the channels of three rivers flowing in different 
 directions from the same fountain. The object 
 of the following pages is to trace the history of 
 each, and show that they have respectively 
 fulfilled, and are fulfilling, the destinies assigned 
 to them by the prophetic declaration of the 
 patriarch Noah. 
 
( 26 ) 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 3iain. 
 
 " Cursed he Canaan." — Gen. ix. 25. 
 
 Of the three families that sprang from the 
 patriarch Noah, the Hamite, better known in 
 ancient times as the Cushite, the Egyptian, the 
 Canaanite, and the Phoenician, occupy the most 
 imposing position in the early histories of 
 civilized communities, as if to compensate for 
 their subsequent obscurity, or, it may be, to 
 render their eclipse more remarkable and signi- 
 ficant. The Scripture record enumerates thirty- 
 one of the immediate descendants of Ham, all of 
 them heads of tribes or political confederations ; 
 while Shem had twenty-six ; and fourteen only 
 were attributed to Japhet. Their history, as 
 propounded in the tenth chapter of Genesis, is 
 more imposing and circumstantial than the 
 
HAM. 17 
 
 histories of the other two families. It would 
 appear, therefore, that when that chapter was 
 written, the Hamites were more powerful and 
 considerable than the other tribes ; while Japhet, 
 who had the promise of enlargement, was, in all 
 probability, inferior, numerically and politically, 
 to both the Hamites and Semites. 
 
 In that record, Nimrod, the son of Cush and 
 the grandson of Ham, is described as beginning 
 "to be a mighty one in the earth" "a mighty 
 hunter before the Lord ;" and the commence- 
 ment of his kingdom was the tetrapolis of Babel, 
 and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land 
 of Shinar. In this description, we recognize 
 Chaldasa, or Babylonia, in Mesopotamia, which 
 all profane history and tradition proclaim to have 
 been the site of one of the most ancient known 
 kingdoms of the world. This dynasty was 
 erected in the fourth generation from Noah, 
 Nimrod being his great-grandson. The disper- 
 sion did not take place until the days of Peleg, 
 who was the sixth in discent from the same 
 ancestor. " In his (Peleg's) days was the earth 
 divided." It follows, therefore, that Nimrod's 
 kingdom of Babylon, the ancient kingdom of 
 Chaldaea, was founded before the dispersion, and 
 
28 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 all the descendants ofShem, Ham, and Japhet, 
 collectively, were its subjects up to the date of 
 the dispersion. They were all of them the 
 Builders of Babel. Bounded by the Indian 
 Ocean on the south, and traversed by two 
 great rivers, the Euphrates and the Tigris, 
 Nimrod's kingdom was well situated for com- 
 munication and commerce with other parts of 
 the globe; and promised a lasting enjoyment 
 of worldly prosperity and supremacy, if local 
 advantages could uphold a people from whom 
 had been withheld the dew of God's blessing, 
 which had been extended to the families of Shem 
 and Japhet by the mouth of their father Noah. 
 
 Here, beyond doubt, was the scene of the 
 events recorded in the eleventh chapter of 
 Genesis. The whole country of Mesopotamia 
 presents an expanse of alluvial soil, deposited in 
 past ages by its two great arteries, the Euphrates 
 and Tigris. No stone .for building, or lime for 
 mortar, are to be found within its borders. 
 It is notably the land of bricks and bitu- 
 minous slime to this hour, and was the same 
 when Babel reared its arrogant head to the 
 heavens, and drew down the wrath of the 
 Almighty on the presumptuous architects and 
 
HAM. 29 
 
 builders. Nothing in these plains now meets the 
 eye of the traveller but solitary mounds, the 
 remains of ruined cities, silent witnesses for the 
 truth of prophecy for the last two thousand 
 years ; but which have revealed, in these latter 
 days, to the enterprizing research of European, 
 investigators, a history of the past that has, to 
 some extent, dispelled the clouds that rested on 
 the ancient Babylonia, till now one of the most 
 obscure chapters in the world's history, and 
 discloses some of its important details. 
 
 The labours of Layard, Botta, Loftus, and 
 Taylor, have brought to light the long-buried 
 cities and temples of Chaldsa and Assyria; 
 colossal edifices of brick cemented with bitu- 
 minous slime ; and on these bricks are stamped, 
 in strange cuneiform characters, the names, titles, 
 and achievements of the monarchs who designed 
 and erected those buildings. Clay tablets and 
 cylinders have also been exhumed in abundance, 
 covered with inscriptions in the same characters ; 
 and those found at Nineveh contain, as Sir 
 Henry Rawlinson informs us, treatises on alniost 
 every subject under the sun — grammar, chrono- 
 logy, astronomy, geography, and history — a per- 
 fect encyclopaedia, as he describes them, of As- 
 
30 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 Syrian science. The deciphering of these has 
 progressed more slowly than was expected. 
 But from the inscriptions, so far as they have 
 been interpreted by the skill of Rawlinson, 
 Hinckes, and other philologists, we learn that 
 in the beginning of the Hamitic kingdom 
 several cities were built in Chaldaea, among 
 which the cities mentioned in the tenth chapter 
 of Genesis are easily recognized and identified. 
 They have discovered, among others, the cities 
 of Babylon, of Warka, of Accad, and Niffer, 
 which are undoubtedly the Babel, Erech, Accad, 
 and Calneh, named in Genesis as the beginning, 
 or nucleus, of the Hamitic kingdom of Nimrod. 
 From these inscriptions we also know that the 
 Assyrian empire of later growth, and situate to 
 the north-east of Chaldsa, comprised four cities 
 as stated in Genesis, of which the exhumed 
 Nineveh was the chief; and whose mysterious 
 and imposing sculptures, roused from their sleep 
 ■of centuries by the enterprise of European 
 travellers, "now exhibit in London, the great 
 metropolis of the West, the ornaments and 
 luxuries of the temples and palaces of the 
 earliest monarchs of the world in the East. 
 The inscriptions on the bricks and tablets 
 
HAM. 31 
 
 have supplied the names of more than fifty 
 Chaldaean monarchs. It is impossible to classify 
 them, as they are dispersed over a lon^ series 
 of ages, and do not^ form a continuous series. 
 One of the earliest of these potentates is Urukh, 
 or, Ur-Hammi,* who styles himself " the King 
 of Ur and Accad," both of which places are 
 mentioned in Genesis — ^the one as " Ur of the 
 Chaldees," the modern representative of which 
 is " Mugheir," from whence the patriarch Abra- 
 ham and his family went forth into the land of 
 Canaan ; and the other is one of the four cities 
 that marked the beginning of Nimrod's king- 
 dom in the land of Shinar. The bricks of 
 Urukh are found on the basement platforms of 
 all the most ancient buildings throughout the 
 cities of Lower Chaldaea, the architecture of 
 which is coarse and primitive as compared with 
 those, evidently of a later date, in the same 
 places ; evincing a rude commencement and 
 rapid progress of culture and civilization in 
 these first-born cities of the Chaldsean empire. 
 
 * This is probably the Orchamus described by Ovid as the 
 seventh successor of Belus : — 
 
 " Rexit Achamenias urbes pater Orchamus, isque 
 Septimus a prisci numeratur origine Beli."" 
 
 n. iv. 212. 
 
32 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 The inscriptions further show that Urukh had 
 a son named Ilgi, who appears to have com- 
 pleted some of the unfinished buildings of his 
 father at Ur. It also appears that another 
 sovereign, Ishmi-Dagon, was the builder of the 
 temple of Oannes, at Ellasar, now Kileh-Sher- 
 ghat, on the upper Tigris, in Assyria. The 
 cylinders at the same place show that Tiglath- 
 Pileser I. rebuilt the temple 701 years after its 
 foundation. A rock . inscription of the great 
 Sennacherib at Bavian fixes the date' of the 
 reign of Tiglath-Pileser I. at 1 100 B.C., which 
 indicates the date of Ishmi-Dagon to have been 
 about 701-1-1100=1801 B.C. Thus we have a 
 king, Ishmi-Dagonj reigning in Chaldsea about 
 the eighteenth century before the Christian era ; 
 and he was preceded by another king, Ilgi, the 
 son of Urukh, but at what intei-val is not known. 
 Nimrod's reign was of an earlier date ; and 
 though not found inscribed on any of the bricks 
 and tablets that have come to light, his name 
 and fame are, as it were, written on the face of 
 the country, and live in the traditional memories 
 and mouths of the inhabitants, by whose fore- 
 fathers he was deified and worshipped as a god, 
 under the title of Bel-Nimroud, the god of the 
 
HAM. 33 
 
 chase. All the most remarkable of the mounds 
 and ruins of Mesopotamia are called after him ; 
 and the early Chaldeans, who were renowned 
 for their, proficiency in astronomy, placed him in 
 the heavens as the constellation Orion, styled 
 "Jabbar," which is the epithet applied to Nimrod 
 in Genesis ; and by the modern inhabitants of 
 the country his name is always mentioned with 
 awe and reverence. He was, beyond doubt, for 
 good or for' evil, among- the foremost men of 
 antiquity ; and his name and repute had passed 
 into a proverb as early as the days of the author^ 
 of Genesis, who adds concerning him, " Where- 
 fore it is said, even as Nimrod the mighty hunter 
 before the Lord."* 
 
 The evidence derived from these inscriptions, 
 and the other monumental remains of Mesopo- 
 tamia, are not sufficient to enable us to construct 
 a history, in the proper sense of the word, of 
 the ancient Babylonian or Chaldsean empire, 
 or even to supply a sure record of the names 
 and order of succession of these kings. But 
 
 * Layard mentions a work called "Kusset el Nimroud" 
 (Stories of Nimrod), which Rich reports that the inhabitants 
 of the villages near the ruins are in the habit of reading and 
 discussing during the winter nights. — Nineveh, p. 24. 
 
34 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 sufficient appears to satisfy us that the Scripture 
 record of the site and founder of the extinct 
 Chaldaean kingdom is true. The commencement 
 of Nimrod's dynasty, according to the Mosaic 
 record, was between 2200 and 2300 B.C. Here 
 again we have the Scripture date wonderfully 
 corroborated by extrinsic evidence. A number 
 of Greek traditions, wholly independent of 
 Scripture authority, unite in assigning to the 
 Chaldaean kingdom an antiquity that strangely 
 accords with the Scriptural date of the same 
 event. Berosus, the native historian, wrote 
 about 336 B.C. His works have been lost ; but 
 his scheme of chronology, preserved in the 
 writings of subsequent authors, and expounded 
 by the ingenuity of a German writer, M. Golds- 
 chmidt,fixes the commencement of the Chaldaean 
 dynasty about the lyear 2234 B.C. In Raw- 
 linson's "Ancient Monarchies,"* where much 
 learning on this subject is found, it is stated in 
 a note, that Simplicius relates that Callisthenes, 
 the friend of Alexander the Great, sent to Aris- 
 totle, from Babylon, a series of stellar obser- 
 vations made in that city, which reached back 
 
 * Rawlinson's " Ancient Monarchies.'' Vol. i. p. 127. 
 
HAM. 
 
 35 
 
 1903 years before that time, which, was 331 B.C. 
 Adding these numbers together (331 + 1903), 
 they give us 2234 B.C., the same date as that of 
 Berosus, and nearly the same as that of Genesis. 
 Again, Philo Bibhus has recorded that Babylon 
 was built 1062 years before Semiramis, whom 
 he considered to have been contemporary with 
 the Trojan war, the date of which is generally 
 supposed to have been about 12 18 B.C. Adding 
 these numbers together (too2 + 1218), the date 
 of the building of Babylon must have been 
 about 2220 B.C., or a little earlier. Further, 
 Berosus and Artidemus are reported by Pliny 
 to have declared that the Babylonians had 
 recorded their stellar observations on bricks for 
 480 years before the era of Phoronoeus, which, 
 according to Clinton, was 1753 B.C. These 
 numbers added together give us 2233 B.C. 
 
 It might be too much to sdy that any one of 
 these testimonies, taken by itself, would be 
 reliable evidence to fix, or even to confirm, the 
 Scripture date of the beginning of the Chaldaean 
 empire. They are each of them only hearsay 
 evidence of a person who' had no personal 
 knowledge of the facts stated, and who only 
 repeated what he had heard from others. But 
 
 3—2 
 
36 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 taken together, their coincidence is remarkable, 
 considering that it was the independent testi- 
 mony of those who knew not, and cared not, for 
 Holy Writ. And thus we have, from purely secular 
 sources, evidences corroborative of what is related 
 in Genesis, that here in Mesopotamia, the land 
 of Shinar, and in. the twenty-third century be- 
 fore the Christian era, was the beginning of the 
 Chaldsean kingdom of Nimrod, whose principal 
 cities were those mentioned in Genesis, now 
 -in extensive ruins that are eloquent of departed 
 greatness and power. 
 
 Babylonia and Assyria are now, and have 
 been for many centuries, the abode of a people 
 speaking Semitic languages, and commonly 
 supposed, on that account, to be descendants of 
 the patriarch Shem. But, irrespective of Scrip- 
 ture, we have reason to know from secular sources 
 that a people, whose language was neither 
 Semitic nor Aryan, inhabited those countries 
 long before the Semitic was its spoken language. 
 Ernest Renan, in his exhaustive history of the 
 Semitic languages, observes as the result of his 
 researches, that there is no doubt but that on 
 the banks of the Tigris dwelt a race known as 
 the Cushite ; and he adds, that it is necessary to 
 
HAM. 37 
 
 admit into the history of the ancient world a 
 third element, which is neither Semitic nor 
 Aryan, but which may be called Ethiopic qr 
 Cushite* The exhumed monuments of Baby- 
 lon and Nineveh make it apparent that the 
 Assyrian civilization had as little resemblance to 
 Semitic as it had to Aryan civilization, and 
 was of an fearlier date than either. It was of the 
 same lineage as that of Egypt, which partook 
 largely of the Cushite element. The student of 
 Scripture has no difficulty in recognizing the 
 authors of this civilization to have been the 
 children of Ham, the subjects of Nimrod and 
 denizehs of Babylon, the most ancient of cities 
 and the origin and type of all the apostasies 
 in the world ; and who were endowed with a 
 language that was essentially different from both 
 the Semitic and Aryan families of speech. Our 
 present object is to trace out how far ancient 
 histories, well-founded traditions, monumental 
 relics, and the other results of scientific research, 
 harmonize with Scripture as regards the ex- 
 istence, career, and fate of the posterity of Ham, 
 and thus to verify the fulfilment of Noah's pre- 
 diction concerning that people. 
 
 * "Hist. Gen. des Langues Semitiques." 4th ed. p. 34. 
 
38 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 The Semitic and Japhetic races have so long 
 monopolized the stage of history, that this third 
 element, which the closer research of modern 
 inquiry is bringing into light, was lost sight of. 
 But the increase of knowledge is changing the 
 whole aspect of ancient history. The existence 
 and nature of this now extinct civilizing element 
 is made visible in the sculptured rocks and inscrip- 
 tions throughout Asia Minor and Arabia ; in the 
 hieroglyphic inscriptions on the catacombs and 
 pyramids of Egypt, now rendered legible by the 
 labours of eminent Egyptologers ; and in the 
 sculptured reliefs and cuneiform characters which 
 record the wars, conquests, and other achieve- 
 ments of the monarchs of Assyria and Babylon, 
 and bring before us the religious ceremonies and 
 domestic habits of their subjects. These mate- 
 rials, with the assistance of a corrected geography 
 of Eastern countries, fragments of ancient history, 
 and mythical legends, will assist us in the identi- 
 fication of the old Cushite or Ethiopic population 
 as the authors of a civilization that preceded that 
 of the Grecians. 
 
 All the knowledge we possess of ancient 
 times, outside the pages of the Bible, has been 
 conveyed to us by the Greeks, who derived it 
 
HAM. 39 
 
 principally from the writings of Eastern his- 
 torians, which have long since disappeared, and 
 are only known to have existed from the frag- 
 ments that are found in the pages of later 
 Grecian historians. According to ,Grote, au- 
 thentic history commences with the first 
 Olympiad, ^^6 B.C. All before that, with the 
 exception of the sacred Scriptures, is legendary 
 and mythical. But these myths and legends of 
 the previous ages, when properly considered, 
 are not without a meaning and use ; and when 
 blended with the fragnlents of history which we 
 possess, and geography, they cannot be regarded 
 as wholly pertaining to the domains of the ideal 
 world. They convey to us glimpses of earlier 
 communities, whose destinies were guided by 
 heroes worthy of high worldly renown, but 
 whose real names and achievements are lost to 
 posterity. Lord Bacon has remarked that " the 
 mythology of the Greeks, which these oldest 
 writers do not pretend to have invented, was 
 no more than a light air, which had passed from 
 a more ancient people into the flutes of the 
 Grecians, which they modulated to such descants 
 as best suited their fancies." The wars of the 
 Titans, the labours of Hercules, the mystic 
 
40 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 flight and wanderings of Bacchus and Ceres, 
 Osiris, and Isis, eastward, and the exploits and 
 sufferings of the heathen gods and other mythical 
 personages, are distorted and exaggerated pic- 
 tures of real events, the true 'records of which 
 are blotted out ; and the legendary tradition of 
 the heroic age of Greece, and of all that pre- 
 ceded it, teaches us' nothing more than that, in 
 the times before the dawn of true Hellenic his- 
 tory, powerful nations and communities struggled 
 and flourished in the East, and men of vigour 
 and genius enacted mighty deeds in the advance- 
 ment of civilization in Southern Asia and Egypt, 
 from whence it flowed onward through Greece 
 and into Europe. 
 
 The people who thus preceded the Aryan 
 Greeks in the march of civilization were known 
 to the Hebrews as Cushites or Hamites, and to 
 the Greeks as Ethiopians and PhcEnicians. It is 
 now generally admitted that in all the literary 
 records of the Grecians, Arabia, or the land of 
 Cush is described as Ethiopia. Great mis- 
 apprehension and confusion have arisen from 
 the mistake that the Ethiopia of the ancients 
 was situate in Africa. The truth is that the 
 countries on the Upper Nile received the name 
 
HAM. 
 
 41 
 
 of Ethiopia because they were colonies or 
 dependencies of Arabia j and when the sway of 
 the Asiatic Cushites, or Ethiopians, sank before 
 the inroad of more powerful peoples, these 
 countries lost their original name, and Ethiopia 
 was confined by the Greeks and Romans to the 
 countries now known as such in Upper Egypt. 
 Strabo asserts " that the ancient Greeks, in the 
 same way as they classed all the northern 
 nations with which they were familiar as 
 Scythians, so they designated as Ethiopia the 
 whole of the southern countries toward the 
 ocean. . . . And if the moderns have con- 
 fined the appellation ' Ethiopians'' to those only 
 who dwelt near, Egypt, this must not be allowed 
 to' interfere with the meaning of the ancients." 
 The testimony of Sir Henry Rawlinson is, that 
 " the uniform voice of primitive antiquity spoke 
 of the Ethiopians as a single race, dwelling on 
 the shores of the Southern Ocean," and "from 
 India to the Pillars of Hercules.'' 
 
 It is well known, that Arabia is described 
 throughout the Scriptures as Cush, or the land 
 of Cush. The Hebrew word Cush is usually 
 rendered in our authorized version, and in the 
 Septuagint, "Ethiopia." The: many texts in 
 
42 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 which the name appears are collected in the 
 Rev. Charles Forster's " Historical Geography 
 of Arabia," and in Dr. Wells' " Historical Geo- 
 graphy of the Old and New Testament." The 
 former says : " It is a matter of fact, familiar to 
 the learned reader, that the names ' Ethiopia ' 
 and 'Ethiopians' are frequently substituted in 
 our English version of the Old Testament where 
 the Hebrew preserves the proper name, ' Cush.' 
 And the name 'Cush,' when so applied in 
 Scripture, belongs uniformly, not to the African, 
 but to the Asiatic Ethiopia, or Arabia."* Thus 
 it is, that when the Greeks,-and the more ancient 
 writers from whom they derived their infor- 
 mation, mention Ethiopia and the Ethiopians, 
 they refer to ancient Arabia and the Arabians. 
 The modern inhabitants of Arabia are, for the 
 most part, the descendants of Ishmael, who 
 succeeded the Cushite descendants of Ham in 
 the possession of the greater part of that 
 country. But the former inhabitants are those 
 that are described in Greek literature as filling 
 a high and important position in the ancient 
 world ; and of whom Heeren, in his " Re- 
 searches," states, that "They still continue to 
 
 * " Hist. Geog. of Arabia." Vol. i. p. 12. 
 
HAM. 43 
 
 be objects of curiosity and admiration ; and the 
 pen of cautious, clear-sighted historians often 
 places them in the highest rank of knowledge 
 and civilization." 
 
 Herodotus, the Greek historian, who wrote 
 about 450 B.C., describes Arabia as the region 
 which produced myrrh, frankincense, cinnamon, 
 and ledanum ; and represents it as the country 
 from which all the rich and luxurious products 
 of the East were imported into Greece. Dio- 
 dorus Siculus, who was a contemporary of 
 Julius Caesar, after an extravagant description 
 of " the perfumes of Arabia, which ravished the 
 senses," and which "were conveyed by the winds 
 to those who sailed near the coast," proceeds : 
 ■" Having never been conquered, by reason of 
 the largeness of their country, they flow in 
 streams of gold and silver ; and likewise their 
 beds, chairs, and stools have their feet of silver ; 
 and all their household stuff is so sumptuous 
 and magnificent, that it is incredible. The 
 porticoes of their houses and temples, in some 
 cases, are overlaid with gold. The like wonder- 
 ful cost they are at throughout their whole 
 buildings, adorning them, in some parts, with 
 silver and gold, and in others with ivory, 
 
44 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 precious stones, and other things of great value, 
 for they have enjoyed a constant and uninter- 
 rupted peace for many ages and generations." 
 A^atharcides, who wrote about 280 B.C., de- 
 scribes them as surpassing in wealth and mag- 
 nificence not only the neighbouring barbarians, 
 but all other nations whatever.* Pliny portrays 
 them as inferior to no other country, and states 
 that, "take them all in all, they are the 
 richest nation in the world." The poet Horace 
 also frequently mentions the wealth of Arabia as 
 proverbial.f 
 
 These descriptions, though somewhat exagge- 
 rated and fanciful, are not wholly the products 
 of imagination.- The Greeks had, no doubt, 
 good grounds for believing that Arabia was 
 the seat of enlightened civilization and con- 
 siderable commercial prosperity from the earliest 
 times. They well knew from whence came the 
 luxuries that were imported into their cities, and 
 the people by whom they were supplied. They 
 were not ignorant of the principle that wealth, 
 and all the material prosperity that accompanies 
 jt, must have flowed broad and deep through 
 
 * " De Mari Erythrseo," 102. 
 
 + Carm. i. 29 ; ii. 12, 24 ; iii. 24. 2 Ep. i. 6 ; i. 7-36. 
 
HAM. 
 
 45- 
 
 the countries that concentrated and diffused the 
 commerce and the manufactures of the East ; 
 and recent discovery is verifying as true much 
 that has been set down, even in our own days, 
 concerning those regions, as speculation and ro- 
 mance. No part of the globe has been so much 
 misapprehended and misdescribed by modern 
 historians and geographers as Arabia. Even 
 Humboldt supposed that "the greater part of the 
 interior was a barren, treeless, and sandy waste." 
 Wellsted, who has more recently visited and ex- 
 plored its coasts, but knew little of central Arabia, 
 compares it to " a coat of frieze, bordered with 
 gold, since the only cultivated or fertilef spots 
 are found on its confines, the intermediate space 
 being filled with arid and sandy wastes." On 
 the other hand, Ptolemy and the Arabian 
 geographer, El Edrisi, have been censured by 
 Mr. Forster for having represented what he styles 
 "the uninhabitable desert," as dotted throughout 
 with towns, and covered with inhabitants. But 
 recent research has proved that the older geo- 
 graphers were the best informed on the subject. 
 
 Mr. Gifford Palgrave, who, in the year 1862-63, 
 travelled through Arabia from the Dead Sea on 
 the north-west, to the Persian Gulf on the south- 
 
46 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 east, discovered the interior to be an extensive 
 and fertile table-land, diversified by hills and 
 valleys, forming a vast oasis surrounded by a 
 circle of desert, and of greater extent than 
 France or Germany. According to the interest- 
 ing description of this enterprising and observant 
 traveller, the provinces of Nejed and Djebel 
 Shomer in this central region of Arabia consti- 
 tute one of the most delightful and richest 
 regions of Asia. 
 
 Elevated considerably above the desert, the 
 climate is cool and invigorating, though on the 
 very verge of the tropics, and abundance of 
 water is supplied from provincial wells and 
 streams that are lost in the desert and never 
 reach the sea. He describes the plain of Kas- 
 seem, which lies to the west of Nejed proper, as 
 stretching to the utmost horizon, " studded with 
 towns and villages, towers and groves, all steeped 
 in the dazzling noon, and announcing every- 
 where life, opulence, and activity. The average 
 breadth of this populous district is about sixty 
 miles, its length twice as much or more ; it lies 
 full two hundred feet below the level of the 
 uplands, which here break off like a wall. 
 Fifty or more good-sized villages, and four or 
 
HAM. 47 
 
 five large towns, form the commercial and 
 agricultural centres of the province, and its 
 surface is moreover thick strewn with smaller 
 hamlets, isolated wells and gardens, and tra- 
 versed with a network of tracks in every direc- 
 tion."* 
 
 Again, the isolated valley of Djowf, which is 
 sixty or seventy miles long and twelve broad, 
 appears to be .well watered, productive, and 
 picturesque. " A broad deep valley, descending 
 ledge after ledge, till its innermost depths are 
 hidden from sight amid far-reaching shelves of 
 reddish rock below, everywhere studded with 
 tufts of palm-groves and clustering fruit-trees in 
 dark green patches down to the farthest end of 
 its windings ; a large brown mass of. irregular 
 masonry croAvning a central hill ; beyond a tall 
 and 'solitary tower overlooking the opposite 
 bank of the hollow, and farther down small 
 round turrets and flat housetops buried amid 
 the garden foliage, the whole plunged in a per- 
 pendicular flood of %ht and heat : such was the 
 first aspect of the Djowf, as we now approached 
 it from the west. It was a lovely scene, and 
 
 * "A Narrative of a Year's Journey through ' Central and 
 Eastern Arabia," (1862-3). By W. G. Palgrave. Vol. i. p. 239. 
 
48 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 seemed yet more so to our eyes, weaiy of the 
 long desolation through which we had, with 
 hardly an exception, journeyed day after day 
 since our last farewell glimpse of Gaza and 
 Palestine up to the first entrance on inhabited 
 Arkbia."— (Vol. i. p. '46.) 
 
 These descriptions are sufficient to show that 
 central Arabia, so far from being an inhospitable 
 and uninhabitable region, without water, verdure, 
 or trees,, is well calculated to have been the site 
 of an extensive commercial community, when 
 Balbek and Petra were flourishing cities in the 
 East. And even in the Syrian desert that is 
 now bounding this fertile oasis, immense ruins, 
 are found covering the surface, which, Mr. Palgrave 
 observes, attest that in old times, and under a 
 better rule, the lands now so utterly' waste were 
 widely cultivated and full of popular life. 
 
 Here there was ample room and verge enough 
 for the emporium of commerce and manufacture 
 that flowed to the outer world of the west 
 through Phoenicia, the traffic of which in ancient 
 times was carried on chiefly by land. Navigation 
 was not sufficiently advanced to admit of long or 
 frequent voyages ; and the extensive steppes of 
 Asia, and the sandy wastes of Africa and Arabia, 
 
HAM. 49 
 
 were the oceans across which commercial opera- 
 tions between the east and west were carried on 
 by means of long caravans of camels, which have 
 been happily described as "the ships of the 
 desert." Aulus Gellius, who wrote in the reign of 
 Augustus, compares them to armies in magni- 
 tude ; and stately and prosperous cities sprang 
 up in the routes they took, as appears by the 
 remains of magnificent temples, colonnades, and 
 amphitheatres, which excite the wonder of 
 travellers throughout the wilds of Arabia. The 
 merchants were Cushites, who instituted and 
 developed the eastern trade and manufactures ; 
 and the carriers were Ishmaelites, who were so 
 employed from the days when Joseph was sold 
 by his brethren to " a company of Ishmaelites, 
 coming from Gilead with their camels, bearing 
 spices, and balm, and myrrh, going to carry it 
 down to Egypt." As time progressed, Arabia 
 was overrun by the increasing Ishmaelite and 
 other Semites of the lineage of Abraham, includ- 
 ing the Amalekites and Edpmites, descendants of 
 Esau, and the Midianites, the descendants of 
 Abraham by Keturah, who had no genius for 
 arts, or commerce, or any of their kindred ac- 
 quirements. The Cushites have almost, if not 
 
 4 
 
so THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 wholly, disappeared from the face of the land ; 
 but that they were the authors of the civilization 
 that formerly pervaded the valleys of the 
 Euphrates and Nile, and the Arabian peninsula, 
 there can be no doubt. 
 
 This subject has been well treated by Ernest 
 Renan, Le Normant, and Baldwin^ an American 
 author, who has investigated the civilizations of 
 antiquity. The latter, after reviewing a large 
 amount of evidence, both ancient and modern, 
 thus concludes :* — 
 
 " It would be unreasonable to deny or doubt 
 that, in ages farther back in the past than the 
 beginnings of any old nations mentioned in our 
 ancient histories, Arabia was the seat of a great 
 and influential civilization. This fact, so clearly 
 indicated in the remains of antiquity, seems 
 indispensable to a satisfactory solution of many 
 problems that arise in the course of linguistic 
 and archaeological inquiry. It is now admitted 
 that a people of the Cushite or Ethiopian race, 
 sometimes called Hamites, were the first civilizers 
 and builders throughout Western Asia, and they 
 are tVaced by remains of their language, their 
 
 * "Pre-historic Nations ."—Baldwin, p. 66. 
 
HAM. si 
 
 architecture, and the influence of their civiliza- 
 tion, on both shores of the Mediterranean, in 
 Eastern Africa and the Nile valley, in Hindo- 
 stan, and in islands of the Indian seas. This 
 people had a country which was the home of 
 their civilization. These civilizers, this "third 
 race," now so distinctly reported by scientific 
 investigators, but not yet well explained, must 
 have been very different from a swarm of 
 nomads, or a flood of disunited tribes moving 
 from region to region, without a fixed country 
 of their own. Those wonderful builders, whose 
 traces reveal so plainly the habit of fixed life 
 and the spirit of developed nationality, were not 
 a horde of homeless wanderers. They had a 
 country of their own, from which their enter- 
 prise and culture went forth to other lands, and 
 this country must have been Arabia." 
 
 This political and commercial prosperity of 
 the ancient Cushites is confirmed to some extent 
 by the Scripture history of the reign of Solomon, 
 whose dominion is reported to have extended 
 "over all the kingdoms from the river (Euphrates) 
 unto the land of the Philistines, and unto the 
 border of Egypt." These boundaries included 
 Arabia ; and the " kings of Arabia " are repre- 
 
 4—2 
 
52 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 sented as offering gifts, or paying tribute* 
 Never before or after that short period of 
 temporal supremacy did a king of any part 
 of Israel exercise dominion over so wide a 
 territory ; and for the first and only time in the 
 history of the Hebrews, a Semitic ruler is found 
 occupied in building a navy of ships, both in the 
 Red Sea, at Ezion-Geber, and in the Mediter- 
 ranean, to trade with foreign countries. And 
 we are warranted in regarding the fact of a 
 Semitic monarch engaging in traffic, so uncon- 
 genial to the vocation of the Semite, as evidence 
 that he had been drawn into it by connection 
 with a neighbouring people extensively, occupied 
 in commercial pursuits, and whose proclivities 
 it was his policy to encourage and imitate. 
 When the Arabians were withdrawn from the 
 dominion of the kings of Judah and Israel, on 
 the death of Solomon, the Hebrews abandoned 
 their short-lived commercial pursuits, and re- 
 turned and thenceforth remained true to their 
 religious vocation. 
 
 The branch of the Hamite race best known 
 to the Greeks, and through them to us, was the 
 Phoenician. From Herodotus we learn that this 
 
 * I Kings X. IS ; Ps. Ixxii. lo. 
 
HAM. 53 
 
 remarkable people dwelt on the Erythrsean Sea 
 (which he explains to be the Persian Gulf), and 
 having crossed over from thence, they established 
 themselves on the coast of Syria (the Mediter- 
 ranean). They were first known to the Greeks 
 as the inhabitants of a small district on the 
 shores of the Mediterranean, of which the chief 
 cities were Tyre and Sidon; and the former 
 was in their possession at the date of the first 
 Olympiad. According to Renan, they were 
 Canaanites, the district they occupied being 
 called by them "Chna," or " Cna" (Canaan). 
 On the other hand. Professor Rawlinson is of 
 opinion, that " the Canaanites and Phcenicians 
 were two distinct races, the former being the 
 original inhabitants of the country, and the 
 latter being immigrants of a later date." But, 
 whatever may have been their origin, they 
 were not Semites in the proper sense of the 
 term. They had nothing in common with the 
 Hebrew or Ishmaelitish Arab, except, perhaps, 
 their language. All their social and political 
 institutions and habits of life were in direct con- 
 trast with those of the true nomadic descendants 
 of Shem ; and whether they were Canaanites or 
 later immigrants from Arabia, they must be con- 
 
54 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 sidered to have been of Hamitic extraction. 
 Professor Rawlinson adds : " Hamite races seem 
 to have been the first to people Western Asia ; 
 whether starting from Egypt or from Babylonia, 
 it is impossible to determine." 
 
 The Phcenicians, when first known- to the 
 Greeks, were confined to a narrow territory on 
 the shores of the Mediterranean, lying between 
 that sea and the mountains of Lebanon, extend- 
 ing from Aradus in the north, to the town of 
 Acco in the south. Sidon, which is mentioned 
 in the tenth chapter of Genesis, was the princi- 
 pal city, until it was destroyed by the Philistines 
 (B.C. 1209). 
 
 It is well known, that the jealousy of the 
 Greeks led them to conceal or distort the truth 
 respecting Phoenician prosperity and greatness ; 
 but sufficient appears to show that this remark- 
 able race was at one time not merely powerful, 
 but supreme throughout the Mediterranean, and 
 even beyond the pillars of Hercules. Tyre sent 
 forth numerous colonies, and founded flourish- 
 ing commercial communities in various parts of 
 the world. Her merchant princes spread their 
 dominion over Cyprus and Crete, and the 
 smaller islands of the Archipelago in their 
 
HAM. 
 
 55 
 
 immediate vicinity. They also made settle- 
 ments in Sardinia, Sicily, and Spain ; and their 
 vessels penetrated as far as the islands of 
 Madeira to the west, and to the British isles 
 and the Baltic on the north. Traces also are 
 found of them, as will presently appear, in India, 
 Ceylon, and onward across the Pacific to the 
 shores of the New World. Carthage, for a long 
 time the rival of the Roman Aryans, was the 
 most flourishing and the last surviving of the 
 Phoenician colonies ;* and the renowned Hamil- 
 car and Hannibal were members of the family 
 of Ham. Cadmus, who was the first to intro- 
 duce letters into Greece, and from thence 
 throughout Europe, was a Phoenician ; and 
 Ninus, the just and wise king of Crete, and 
 who, according to Thucydides,t was the first 
 known founder of a maritime empire, was of 
 the same lineage. But before, the days of Homer, 
 the Greek Aryans had begun to assert their 
 
 * Carthage was founded by Elissa, sumamed Dido, "the fugi- 
 tive,'' whose husband, Zecharbaal, the Lichseus of Virgil, was 
 slain by her brother, Pygmalion, king of Tyre. She conspired 
 with three hundred members of the Senate against Pygmalion ; 
 but failing in the enterprise, she embarked with several thousand 
 of her followers, principally of the aristocratic class, and founded 
 the powerful colony of Carthage on the shores of Afr;ca. 
 
 t Thucyd. i. 4. 
 
56 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 natural superiority ; and from thenceforth they 
 represent the PhcEnicians as mere enterprising 
 mariners, frequenting their seaports, and sup- 
 plying them with the rich products and luj^uries 
 of Eastern countries, trading and filibustering as 
 opportunity offered. 
 
 But there is ample and unimpeachable evi- 
 dence in the Bible that the Phoenicians were a 
 powerful and prosperous people as late as the 
 sixth century before the Christian era. The 
 prophet Isaiah designates her merchants as 
 princes, and her traffickers as the honourable of 
 the earth /* and Ezekiel has supplied a remark- 
 able picture of their political and commercial 
 importance in the twenty-seventh chapter of his 
 prophecies. He describes them as merchants of 
 the people from many isles, whose borders 
 were in the midst of the seas. Their ships 
 were built of the fir-trees of Senir, the cedars 
 of Lebanon, the oaks of Bashan, and the ivory 
 of Chittim ; and Egypt contributed her fine 
 linen and broidered work for their sails. The 
 inhabitants of Zidon and Arvad were their 
 mariners, the wise men of Tyre their pilots, and 
 the ancients of Gebal their calkers. They of 
 * Isaiah xxiii. 8. 
 
HAM. 
 
 57 
 
 Persia, Lud, and Phut were their men of war, 
 and the men of Arvad and the Gammadims 
 were on their battlements. Tarshish traded in 
 their fairs and markets with silver, iron, tin, and 
 lead ; Tubal and Meshech with slaves and ves- 
 sels of brass ; Togarmah with horses and mules ; 
 the men of Dedan with ivory and ebony ; Syria 
 with emeralds, purple and broidered work, fine 
 linen, coral, and agate ; Judah and the land of 
 Israel with wheat of Minnith, and Pannag, honey, 
 oil, and balm ; Damascus with wine and white 
 wool ; Dan and Javan with bright iron, cassia, 
 and calamus ; Arabia and the princes of Kedar 
 with lambs, rams, and goats ; and the merchants 
 of Sheba and Raamah with spices, precious 
 stones, and gold. Haran, and Canneh, and 
 Eden, the merchants of Sheba, Asshur, and 
 Chilmad were her merchants in all sorts of 
 things, in blue clothes and broidered work, and 
 in chests of rich apparel, bound with cords and- 
 made of cedar. 
 
 From this description of the mercantile and 
 manufacturing prosperity of the Phoenicians, 
 about twenty-five years before the subjugation 
 of their capital city by Nebuchadnezzar, we 
 learn that they were the heart to and from which 
 
58 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 all the then existing inland and maritime com- 
 merce of the world flowed and reflowed. Their 
 communications with the west were by sea, and 
 their traffic with the east, north, and south, was 
 carried on by those vast caravans that marched 
 like armies across the deserts of Arabia and 
 Syria. In the days of their prosperity they 
 were the missionaries and vehicles of material 
 civilization, and their position must have been 
 attained by a precocity of intellect, and a genius 
 for enterprise, that distinguished them from other 
 people, until the Greeks and Romans, sons of 
 Japhet, entered as rivals the field of progress, 
 with less selfish ambition and purer principles of 
 action. 
 
 Such were the merchant princes of Tyre six 
 hundred years before the Christian era; and 
 nine hundred years after that time the memory 
 of their high position had not faded away ; for 
 . Dionysius of Susiana, in a geographical poem, 
 entitled "A Description of the Habitable World," 
 thus portrays them : — 
 
 " Upon the Syrian sea the people live 
 Who style themselves Phoenicians. These are sprung 
 From the true ancient Erythraean stock ; 
 From that sage race who first essayed the deep. 
 
JIAU. 59 
 
 And wafted merchandize to coasts unknown ; 
 
 These too digested first the starry choir, 
 
 Their motions marked, and called them by their names. 
 
 These were the first great founders of the world, 
 
 Founders of cities and of mighty, states : 
 
 Who showed a path through seas before unknown. 
 
 And where doubt reigned, and dark uncertainty, 
 
 Who rendered life more certain. They first viewed 
 
 The starry lights, and formed them into schemes. 
 
 In the first ages, when the sons of men 
 
 Knew not which wa;j to turn them, they assigned 
 
 To each his first department ; they bestowed 
 
 Of land a portion, and of sea a lot ; 
 
 And sent each wandering tribe far off to share 
 
 A different soil and climate. Hence arose 
 
 The great diversity, so plainly seen, 
 
 'Mid nations widely severed." 
 
 It is probable that when this fair and flattering 
 description was written in the third century of 
 our era, Phcenician manuscripts were in exist- 
 ence, but which are now lost, that kept alive the 
 memory of this remarkable people, and furnished 
 the poet with the information he has transmitted' 
 lo us in the foregoing lines. 
 
 Tyre was sacked, but not destroyed, 574 B.C. 
 But the proud city was no longer the Queen of 
 •cities : her navy was never rebuilt, and her com- 
 merce never returned. Her king, Ethbaal, and 
 the flower of her nobility, were carried away 
 
6o THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 captives to Babylon and a great portion of the 
 inhabitants fled to Carthage, which thenceforth 
 became the representative city of the Hamites^ 
 and the protector of the PhcEnician colonies. 
 She, too, like Tyre, was renowned for her spirit 
 of enterprise, and the worldly prosperity which 
 accompanies it ; and became a great military, as 
 well as a great mercantile power. But when we 
 look below the surface, and examine more closely 
 the personal characteristics of this people, as de- 
 veloped in their social and religious institutions, 
 we find in their history an instance, that the 
 highest worldly prosperity and the most exten- 
 sive political influence may for a time coexist 
 with the lowest standard of religion and morality. 
 They were worshippers of Baal, or Moloch, and 
 votaries of Astart^, or Ashtaroth, " the goddess 
 of the Zidonians." Moloch, the god of the sun 
 and of fire, was propitiated by human sacrifices. 
 Children, the fairest, the healthiest, and the 
 highest in rank, were the principal victims, 
 voluntarily consigned by their own parents to 
 the outstretched arms of a colossal statue of 
 bronze, which were inclined downwards, so that 
 the children placed upon them straightway fell 
 into a fiery gulf These barbarous sacrifices 
 
HAM. 6i 
 
 "were multiplied on the occasions of public 
 calamity, to appease the wrath of the gods. It 
 is recorded in the Scriptilres, that the. king of 
 Moab, when defeated by the Israelites, took his 
 eldest son, and offered him up for a burnt offer- 
 ing on the wall * And the prophet Jeremiah 
 denounces the Jews for having been seduced into 
 similar practices ; for that " they built the high 
 places of Baal, which were in the valley of the 
 son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their 
 daughters to pass through the fire unto Moloch/'-j- 
 The abomination was carried into all their colo- 
 nies, and became a state institution. When 
 Carthage was besieged by the victorious armies 
 of Agathocles, the tyrant of Syracuse, two hun- 
 dred children of the most influential citizens 
 are reported to have been sacrificed in one day 
 to propitiate their god Moloch. They were ter- 
 ribly in earnest in holding fast by their diaboli- 
 cal creed ; and notwithstanding the urgent re- 
 monstrances of the Greeks and Romans, who 
 repeatedly stipulated, on the conclusion of peace, 
 that human sacrifices should be abolished, these 
 detestable rites were continued until Carthage 
 
 ' * I Kings xi. 8. 
 
 t Jerem. vii. 31 ; xix. 5 ; xxxii. 35. 
 
62 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 was obliterated as a political power from the 
 map of the world. 
 
 The worship of the goddess Ashtairoth was as 
 revolting as that of Moloch, and had a still more 
 degrading and demoralizing effect on its votaries. 
 The ritual combined the grossest sensuality with 
 the gloomiest fanaticism, and its ceremonies Were 
 scenes of debauchery and voluptuousness of the 
 most revolting character. More than once the 
 Israelites were seduced into this degrading 
 apostasy, when they j6ined themselves to Baa,l- 
 Peor ; and on one occasion, Phinehas, the grand- 
 son of Aaron, is recorded as having made an 
 atonement for his people by slaying two persons 
 of distinction, a Simeonite prince (Zimri), and a 
 Midianite princess (Cozbi), who were guilty of 
 the abomination in the sight of Moses, and in 
 the sight of all the congregation of the children 
 of Israel.* 
 
 With such cruel and carnal practices, which 
 appear to have accompanied the Hamites from 
 the earliest days of Babylon, we can well be- 
 lieve the character that is recorded of this 
 people by the Greeks and Romans, who repre- 
 sent the Carthaginians with whom they came in 
 
 * Numb. XXV. 6-15. 
 
J/AM. 63. 
 
 contact, as of a morose and discontented temper, 
 aggressive, and, at the same time, servile ; sla- 
 vishly submissive to their magistrates and rulers; 
 hard-hearted and cruel to their enemies and 
 strangers ; obstinate in anger, and cowards in 
 fear. The expressions " Punica fides," and 
 " Punica mens," were used by the Romans as 
 synonymous with bad faith, and a knavish de- 
 ceitful disposition. This evil reputation and 
 stubborn perseverance in their crooked courses 
 hastened the extinction of Carthage by the Ro- 
 mans in the presence of outraged humanity ;. 
 and with the fall of Carthage, the Phoenician, or 
 Hamitic, civilization ceased to exist. 
 
 Thus, of the four sons of Ham — Cush, Miz- 
 raim, Phut, and Canaan — the progeny of the 
 first remained in possession of Chaldaea, the 
 lower portion of the great Mesopotamian plain, 
 and spread themselves gradually throughout 
 the Arabian peninsula. Mizraim, which is the 
 Hebrew nanie for Egypt and the Egyptians, 
 migrated to that country. The Arabs, to the, 
 present hour, use the name Misr to denote the 
 capital of Egypt and the country itself; and 
 the names of some of the seven sons of Mizraim, 
 enumerated in the tenth chapter of Genesis, can 
 
64 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 be traced in several of the districts throughout 
 the valley of the Nile* The descendants of 
 Phut are generally, and with some reason, sup- 
 posed to be the Berber races who inhabit the 
 northern coasts of Africa, from the Mediterra- 
 nean to the southern limits of the Sahara, and 
 from Egypt to the Atlantic. They consist of 
 four tribes — the Kabyles of Algiers and Tunis, 
 the Shuluhs of Morocco, the Tibboos of Fezan, 
 and the Touaricks of the Sahara. And lastly, 
 Canaan took possession of the land known by 
 that name, including Phoenicia and her colonies. 
 Some of the Canaanites, soon after the settle- 
 ment of the Mizraimites in Egypt, made a de- 
 scent into that country, and remained in posses- 
 sion of a great portion of it for upwards of five 
 hundred years. This we learn from Manetho, 
 the Egyptian historian, a priest of Sebbynetus, 
 who, in the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus, com- 
 piled a history of Egypt from the remotest 
 times, founded on the archives preserved in the 
 temples. His works have been lost, but some 
 fragments have been preserved by Josephus.f 
 He says: "We had a king whose name was 
 
 * " Manual of Oriental History."— Lenonnant, vol. i. p. 202. 
 + "Joseph, cont. Apion," 14. 
 
HAM. 6i 
 
 Timaus, and in his reign we fell, beyond all 
 imagination, under the god's heavy displeasure. 
 There came flowing in upon us a rugged, robust 
 people, out of the east, that made an inroad into 
 the 'province, and there encamping, took it by 
 force, putting our princes in chains, cruelly lay- 
 ing our cities in ashes, demolishing our temples, 
 and miserably oppressing our inhabitants. Some 
 they murdered, and others, with their wives and 
 children, were sent into bondage." The first six 
 kings " were perpetually engaged in wars, and 
 they seemed bent on the . design of utterly ex- 
 terminating the Egyptians." These pvaders 
 were called Hyckshos, or Shepherd kings ; and 
 Manetho records that they kept possession of 
 Egypt five hundred and eleven years, and were 
 ultimately routed by King Alisphragmuthosis, 
 and withdrew to a place named Avaris (the then 
 future Goshen of the Israelites), which they for- 
 tified, and in which they were besieged by Thu- 
 mosis, the son of the former king, who made a 
 treaty with them, and they departed with their 
 families and effects, to the number of two hun- 
 dred and forty thousand, and took their journey 
 from Egypt, through the wilderness,, for Syria, 
 and built in Judaea the city of Jerusalem. This 
 
 S 
 
66 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 description leaves little doubt but that these 
 were the Jebusite branch of the Canaanites, 
 who were the builders of Jerusalem ; and their 
 overbearing and tyrannical conduct towards the 
 Egyptians is consistent and in accordance with 
 the cruelty, and oppression that history and tra- 
 dition report to have been the characteristics of 
 the Canaanites and their colonists in later times. 
 That they were detested and execrated by the 
 Egyptians is evidenced by the fact, that among 
 the ancient relics of that people, shoes are fre- 
 quently found, on the soles of which the figures 
 of the Hyckshos are painted, betokening hatred 
 and contempt. This invasion had probably ter- 
 minated before the entry of Abraham into the 
 Promised Land ; for we are told that when the 
 patriarch departed from Haran to go into Ca- 
 naan, " the Canaanite was then in the land ;" 
 and Mizraim was quieted in his possession of 
 Egypt. 
 
 These are the generations of Ham — a great 
 people and a strong in the early days of Adam- 
 ite history. From Mesopotamia to Egypt in- 
 clusively, and from the Persian Gulf to the Pil- 
 lars of Hercules, they practised and prospered, 
 trading with distant countries and with each 
 
HAM. 67 
 
 other, and sending forth emigrants and colonists 
 as we shall presently find, to the uttermost parts 
 of the earth. 
 
 There is nothing, perhaps, that brings home 
 so forcibly to modern intelligence the fact of the 
 early eminence and ambitious career of this once 
 potent Hamitic race, as the remains of their 
 Cyclopean structures, which excite the wonder 
 of travellers, not only in their own countries in 
 the East, but in some of the remotest parts of 
 the habitable world. These architectural relics, 
 moreover, will be found to enlarge our know- 
 ledge of pre-historic times, and of the migrations 
 of the builders throughout the earth, shedding a 
 light on social, political, and religious institutions 
 that had ceased to exist before the dawn of the 
 historic- era, and of which scarcely any other 
 evidence remains extant. Little remains of 
 Babylon and Nineveh, the great cities of Meso- 
 potamia. They have been truly swept with the 
 besom of destruction ; and with the exception 
 of some unsightly mounds, no visible vestige 
 remains of the stupendous temples and palaces 
 that adorned the Tigro-Euphrates basin in the 
 days of Chaldsean and Assyrian prosperity. 
 One of the most remarkable, and probably the 
 
 S—2 
 
68 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 most-ancient of these landmarks, is a mound of 
 ruins of vast extent, at Borsippa, in Chaldsea, 
 known as Birs Nimroud (the palace of Nimrod). 
 It is supposed, with some reason, to be the re- 
 mains of the Temple of Belus, and to stand on 
 the site of the Tower of Babel. The Temple of 
 Belus is thus described by Herodotus : " It had 
 gates of brass, and was two stadia every way, 
 being quadrangular ; in the middle of the temple 
 a solid tower was built, a stadium in height and 
 breadth, and on this tower was placed another, 
 and another still on this, to the number of eight 
 towers in all. The ascent was on the outside, 
 and was made by a winding passage round all 
 the towers ; and about half up the ascent there 
 is a landing and seats for rest, where those 
 ascending may repose ; and in the highest tower 
 there is a large temple, and in the temple a 
 large bed well furnished, and beside it a golden 
 table ; but there is no statue erected in it ; and 
 by night no one lodges in it, except a single 
 woman of the country, whom the god has selected 
 from the rest, as say the Chaldseans, who are 
 the priests of this god."* 
 , An inscription has been discovered and trans- 
 
 * Herodotus, Book i. c. i8l. 
 
HAM. 69 
 
 lated by Sir H. C. Rawlinson, in which King 
 Nebuchadnezzar boasts of having repaired and 
 completed this tower in honour of his god Me- , 
 rodach. "Behold now the building named 
 ' The Stages of the Seven Spheres,' which was 
 the wonder of Borsippa, had been built by a 
 former king. He had completed forty-two 
 ammas (of the height), but he did not finish its 
 head. From -the lapse of time it had become 
 ruined ; they had not taken care of the exits of 
 the waters, so the rain and wet had penetrated 
 into the brickwork ; the casing of burnt brick 
 had bulged out, and the terraces of crude brick 
 lay scattered in heaps. Then Merodach, my 
 great lord, inclined my heart to repair the 
 building. I did not change its site, nor did I 
 destroy the foundation platform ; but in a fortu- 
 nate month, and on an auspicious day, I under- 
 took the rebuilding of the crude brick terraces 
 and the burnt brick casing (of the temple). I 
 strengthened its foundations, and I placed a 
 titular record in the parts that I had rebuilt. I 
 set my hand to build it up, and to finish its 
 summit. As it had been in former days thus f 
 exalted its head."* 
 
 * Rawlinson's Herodotus, ii. 485. 
 
^o THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 From all this it may be confidently inferred 
 that the mound of Birs Nimroud occupies the 
 site, and exhibits the outline, not only of the 
 Temple of Belus, but probably also of the Tower 
 of Babel. Its present appearance is a large pile 
 of ruins, composed of brick, slag, and broken 
 pottery. On the summit there is a compact 
 mass of brickwork, and the elevation of the 
 whole is 23s feet. It presents the appearance of 
 having originally consisted of a series of seven 
 terraces, rising one above the other, and to have 
 been surmounted by a sanctuary such as that 
 described by Herodotus as crowning the temple 
 of Belus, a dwelling for the priests. This ap- 
 pears to have been the type of all the earliest 
 sacred edifices of the Chaldaean branch of the 
 Hamites — a pyramid built in stages consisting 
 of square terraces, one above the other, decreas- 
 ing in size, so that while the base of the building 
 was extensive, the upper story was comparatively 
 small. The most ancient of the pyramids of 
 Egypt were thus built ; and all throughout the 
 East, and even as far as the New World across 
 the Pacific, we can trace the progress of these 
 builders throughout the earth, by the architectu- 
 ral forms of the temples which have been erected 
 
HAM. 71 
 
 by them in various countries, as will presently 
 appear. 
 
 Egypt has been the most prolific of all the 
 Eastern countries in architectural remains. Its 
 pyramids are well known ; and its great cities, 
 Thebes and Memphis — ^the former of which has ■ 
 been described as presenting the grandest, and 
 most prodigious assemblage of buildings ever 
 erected by the hand of man — were designed and 
 executed by the ancient Hamites. The mag- 
 nificent Hall of Karnak (Thebes), with its obe- 
 lisks, statues, gateways, and adjoining temples, 
 forms a mass of colossal ruins that surpass pro- 
 bably in grandeur and extent any that exist in 
 the known world. "Imagine," says Ampere, 
 " a forest of towers ; represent to yourself 140 
 columns as large as that of the Place de Ven- 
 d6me, the highest 70 feet high (as tall as the 
 obelisk of the Place de la Concorde), and 1 1 
 feet in diameter, covered with bas-reliefs and 
 hieroglyphics, the capitals 65 feet in circumfe- 
 rence; a hall 319 feet long and 150 wide— this 
 hall entirely roofed over, and one of the win- 
 dows it was lighted by still to be seen."* " It 
 is impossible," writes also M. Lepsius, "to de- 
 * " Voyage en Egypte." 
 
72 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 scribe the overwhelming impression experienced 
 upon entering for the first time this forest of 
 columns, and wandering from one range to the 
 other, between the lofty figures of gods and 
 kings on every side represented on them, pro- 
 jecting sometimes entirely, sometimes only in 
 part. Every surface is covered with various 
 sculptures, now in' relief, now sunk, which, 
 however, were only completed by the successors 
 of the builder (Seti), most of them, indeed, by 
 his son, Rameses Miamun.'"* 
 
 The ruins of the far-famed Labyrinth men- 
 tioned by Herodotus remain to verify the 
 historian's report of that extraordinary building, 
 which he describes as formed of " twelve courts, 
 all of them roofed, with gates exactly opposite 
 each other, six looking to the north, and six 
 looking to the south. A single wall surrounded 
 the entire building. There are two different 
 sorts of chambers throughout, h'alf under ground, 
 half above ground, the latter built up on the 
 former. The whole number of these chambers 
 is three thousand, fifteen hundred of each kind. 
 . . . The roof was throughout of stone, like the 
 walls, and the walls were carved over with 
 
 * "Letters from Egypt." Bohn's edition, p. 249. 
 
HAM: 73 
 
 figures. Every court was surrounded with a 
 colonnade, which ^^as built with white -stones 
 exquisitely fitted together. At the corner of 
 the Labyrinth stands a pyramid forty fathoms 
 high, with large hieroglyphics engraven on it, 
 entered by a subterranean passage."* This and 
 many other splendid temples, whose remains are 
 found at Philae, Edfu, Denderah, and other 
 places throughout Egypt, were the handiwork of 
 the Mizraimite branch of the children of Ham. 
 
 tn Arabia and Phoenicia also, the magnificent 
 remains of the cdlonnades, temples, amphi- 
 theatres, and other stately edifices of Palmyra, 
 Philadelphia, and the dties of Decapolis, which 
 were the stations of the great, caravan roads 
 by which the' traffic of the East was trans- 
 ported across the deserts, are still standing to 
 the east of the Dead Sea and the Sea of 
 Tiberias, exciting the wonder and admiration 
 of the traveller, and revealing an amount of 
 commercial and manufacturing activity, and 
 refined civilization in the builders, that contrasts 
 strangely with the desolate aspect and rude 
 habits of the inhabitants of those regions in the 
 present day. Petra, with her imperishable temples 
 
 * Herodotus, Bookii. 148. 
 
74 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 and palaces chiselled out of the solid rock, is 
 also an everlasting record of the persevering 
 energy and artistic skill of this remarkable race. 
 At Balbek some of the stones, shaped and fitted 
 to each other in the remaining walls, are twelve 
 feet in depth and width, and sixty feet ' in 
 length, and the buildings of which they fornied 
 a part must have been truly extensive and stu- 
 pendous ; exhibiting large, and at the same time 
 simple conceptions in the minds of the archi- 
 tects, carried into execution with consummate 
 skill and wonderful power. 
 
 At Ruad, the Arvad of Genesis, in Phoenicia, 
 the gigantic rock-works cover the coast in a 
 continuous line of three or four leagues. Ac- 
 cording to the report of the French ' explorers, 
 Carn^, Antaradus, Enhydra, and Marathos, 
 situate on the shores of ancient Phoenicia, must 
 have formed a closely-connected group of cities, 
 it being now very difficult to define their limits, 
 or to fix where one began and another ended- 
 The ruins disclose that the buildings were all of 
 the same colossal type, and erected probably oa 
 the sites of considerable trade and commerce. 
 E. Renan, who explored these ruins, describes 
 "avast court, 156 feet wide and 180 feet long. 
 
HAM. 75 
 
 hollowed out of the rock in such a manner as to 
 be level with the valley." Another rock-hewn 
 structure is described by him as an immense 
 stadium, about 738 feet long and 100 feet wide. 
 Ten rows of seats surround the area, and the 
 stadium terminated in a circular amphitheatre, 
 from which two parallel passages communicated 
 with the outside, probably to let in the chariots 
 and horses. Ruins of the same coldssal dimen- 
 sions are found in every part of Arabia, from 
 Balbek and Petra to Mareb and Zhaffar ; and 
 the pilgrim and traveller are daily bringing into 
 light dilapidated cities and monuments, which 
 unfold sad tales of bygone unexplained great- 
 ness in these countries. 
 
 Passing on to the east of the Euphrates valley 
 and Egypt to India and Cochin China, and 
 across the Pacific, we find on the western shores 
 of the American continent cogent and persua- 
 sive evidence that these enterprising builders of 
 Mesopotamia and Egypt, who planned and 
 erected the temples and palaces of Babylon and 
 Nineveh, and the pyramids and great cities on 
 the banks of the Nile, were the architects of the 
 stupendous pyramidal structures and tumuli that 
 were found in Mexico and throughout Central 
 
76 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 America by the European invaders of that 
 country in the sixteenth century. AH the animals 
 and plants that met the astonished gaze of the 
 Spaniards on their first entry into that unknown 
 land were of species different from any they had 
 ever seen before. It was, as regards natural 
 objects, what they styled emphatically, a New 
 World. On the other hand, the traditions and 
 usages of the natives had so many points of 
 resemblance to those of the most ancient people 
 of the Old World, that we can scarcely doubt 
 but that their civilization, such as it was, had its 
 origin in Mesopotamia and Egypt, the cradles 
 of Asiatic and European civilization. Among 
 others, they had a tradition of Eve and the 
 serpent, in the goddess Ciocoatl, who was styled 
 by them " our Lady and Mother " — " the first 
 Goddess who brought forth " — " who bequeathed 
 the sufferings of childbirth to woman as the 
 tribute of death " — and " by whom sin came into 
 the world." She was usually represented with a 
 serpent near her, and her name signified the 
 " serpent woman."* They had also a tradition 
 of the flood, the ark, and the dove. They 
 
 * The "History of the Conquest of Mexico."— Prescott. 
 Appendix, part i. 
 
HAM. • 77 
 
 believed that two persons survived the deluge : 
 a man named Coxcox and his Wife. Mr. Prescott 
 informs us that their heads are represented in 
 ancient paintings, together with a boat floating 
 on the waters at the foot of a mountain. A dove 
 also is depicted, with the hieroglyphical emblem 
 of languages in its mouth, which it is dis- 
 tiributing to -the dumb children of Coxcox. 
 There was a further tradition in the same 
 country that the boat in which Tezpi, their 
 Noah, escaped, was filled with various kinds of 
 animals; and that a little humming bird' was 
 sent forth, and returned with a twig in its 
 mouth.* 
 
 There was also a tradition connected with 
 the pyramidal temple of Cholula, that it was 
 erected by a family of giants who had escaped 
 the great inundation, and designed to raise the 
 building to the clouds ; but the gods, offended 
 at their presumption, sent fires from heaven on 
 the pyramid, and compelled them to abandon 
 the attempt. The Cross, which, we may ob- 
 serve^ was a symbol of worship of the highest an- 
 tiquity among the Hamites in Syria and Egypt, 
 long before the Christian era, was found to be 
 * Humboldt. " Vues de Cordill^res,'' p. 226. 
 
78 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 an object of divine worship in Mexico ; and 
 infant baptism by water, which was part of the 
 ceremonial of the old Babylonian religion, and 
 an offering of cakes, which is recorded by the 
 prophet Jeremiah as part of the worship of the 
 Babylonian goddess mother, "the Queen of 
 Heaven," were also found in the ritual of this 
 newly-discovered people. These traditions and 
 observances, which were familiar to the Spaniards 
 in their own county, were the cause of much 
 amazement and perplexity ; and they looked 
 on the whole as the delusion of the Devil, who 
 counterfeited these rites and traditions to allure 
 his wretched victims to their own destruction. 
 There is no need, however, to resort to such 
 fanciful considerations and speculations, when 
 we reflect that all these traditions were known 
 from the earliest date to the Hamitic inhabitants 
 of Babylonia and Egypt, and may have been 
 carried by emigrants from these countries, and 
 planted in their new homes. And that such an 
 event did occur is probable from other, and 
 perhaps more satisfactory, evidence, connecting 
 some of the former inhabitants of these countries 
 with ancient Babylonia and Egypt. 
 
 Later and more careful observers have dis- 
 
HAM. 79 
 
 covered in the oldest buildings emblems that 
 leave no doubt of the sensual phallic worship 
 of the goddess Astart^, which prevailed so 
 inveterately among the Hamites, having been 
 introduced,, at some distant era, into central 
 America. This worship was flourishing in 
 Mexico at the time of the conquest ; and a 
 great number of its odious characteristic ims^es, 
 some formed of clay, and some of stone, have 
 been ploughed up as far north as Tennessee. 
 The human sacrifices . also, which bore so pro- 
 minent a part in the religious rites of the Mexi- 
 cans, may, with probability, be assigned to the 
 introduction of the sanguinary ritual of Moloch 
 by some of its eastern votaries, before its ex- 
 tinction by the advancing civilization of the 
 Japhetite. This mixture of truth and falsehood, 
 and the strange congruity of religious traditions 
 and observances which prevailed between the 
 Hamites of the Old World and the semi-civilized 
 inhabitants of the New World, lead irresistibly to 
 the conclusion that the people who professed and 
 'practised these creeds in the one country were the 
 people who planted and continued them in the 
 other. But there is further evidence of connec- 
 tion between the forefathers of these two races. 
 
8o THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 The rulers of Mexico, at the time of the 
 Spanish conquest, were the Aztecs, whose em- 
 pire was built on the ruins of a more ancient 
 people called the Toltecs. The origin of this 
 latter race is hid in the mazes of mythology ; . 
 but the tradition was that their ancestors had 
 migrated from "the djstant east, beyond im- 
 mense seas and lands." They were designated 
 by Humboldt as the Pelasgi of the Western 
 hemisphere, or the oldest known race in the 
 land ; and Prescott states that their tribal ap- 
 pellation has passed into a synonym for " archi- 
 tect" from the noble ruins of religious and other 
 edifices still to be seen in various parts of New 
 Spain, and which are referred to them. The 
 early forefathers of this people were, no doubt, 
 the builders of the more ancient temples and 
 tumuli in Central America, which present so re- 
 markable a resemblance to the architectural fe- 
 mains of Mesopotamia and Egypt, that anti- 
 quaries have not hesitated to ascribe to them all 
 a common origin. The terraced and truncated 
 pyramid of Cholula, in Mexico, Prescott informs 
 us, was built after the model of the temple of 
 Belus, as described by Herodotus. It was, 
 like its prototype, a series of receding terraces 
 
HAM. 8i 
 
 crowned with an elaborately decorated teocalli, 
 or "House of God " — a sanctuary. Its base was 
 1423 feet long, and its perpendicular height was 
 177 feet. It covered forty-four acres of ground, 
 double the extent of the largest of the Egyptian 
 pyramids, and the platform on its truncated sum- 
 mit embraced more than one. . Its original out- 
 lines have been effaced by the action of time and 
 of the elements, and it now presents, like Birs 
 Nimroud, in the East, a vast mound of ruins and 
 rubbish. 
 
 The great pyramid situate at Xochicalcho, is 
 stated to be scarcely distinguishable from the 
 ordinary type of those in Lower Egypt. " The 
 intermediate slopes are covered with platforms, 
 bastions, pyramidal and rectangular elevations 
 and stages, one above another, all faced with 
 large porphyry stones admirably cut, but joined 
 together without 1 cement. The perpendicular 
 height is estimated to be from 300 to 380 feet. 
 The construction of the storeys is irregular, like 
 the Egyptian style of architecture; the lower 
 parts inclining inwards at an angle of fifteen de- 
 grees for a short distance, and then being sur- 
 mounted with perpendicular courses projecting 
 over the inferior portion. Upon the stones of 
 
 6 
 
82 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 this pyramid are many figures sculptured in re- 
 lief, some representing hieroglyphic signs, and 
 others human figures seated cross-legged, in 
 Asiatic manner, and crocodiles spouting water." 
 
 All the cities and villages of Anahuac, and the 
 provinces to the south of it, were furnished with 
 edifices of a similar character, storied palaces, 
 each of them elevated on a succession of artificial 
 platforms, which were ascended by magnificent 
 flights of steps reaching to the summit ; and all 
 of the same type and pattern as those colossal 
 structures of brick erected by the most ancient 
 inhabitants of the valleys of the Euphrates and 
 Nile. Like them, too, the sides of these Ame- 
 rican structures are adjusted to, and accurately 
 correspond with, the four cardinal points of the 
 compass. In both hemispheres they were pro- 
 bably built partly for astronomical purposes. 
 The walls of the American structures are also, in 
 many instances, embellished, like those in Egypt, 
 with coloured hieroglyphics ; and their internal 
 economy, and the mode of sepulture in their 
 vicinity, are nearly identical. 
 
 Some of the American pyramids and tumuli 
 are to all appearance as old, or nearly as old, as 
 those in the East, and some of them are of a 
 
HAM. 83 
 
 comparatively modern date ; but the primitive 
 pattern was continued unaltered from generation 
 to generation, until the Spaniards introduced 
 European civilization and architecture into the 
 country to supersede the antiquated structures 
 of the extinct Hamites. The marked resem- 
 blance that is thus found to exist between the 
 ancient architectural remains of Babylonia, 
 Egypt, and Central America, combined with a 
 similarity of the religious ideas of their respec- 
 tive builders, leaves little room for doubt that 
 some of the people whose forefathers were the 
 architects of the temples and palaces in the 
 East had at some remote period found their 
 way to America, either by sailing westward 
 across the Atlantic, as Columbus did, or, more 
 probably, by navigating eastward through India 
 and Asia, by Behring's Straits, or across the 
 Pacific, and have left those petrified memorials 
 of a once living and vigorous civilization that 
 has long ceased to occupy a place in the world. 
 
 Nor are we without evidence of the route by 
 which this restless race reached those distant 
 regions ; for turning eastward of the valley of 
 the Euphrates, numerous indications of a mi- 
 gration of these ancient ]\?[esopotamian and 
 
 6 — 2 
 
84 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 Egyptian builders are found to present them- 
 selves in that direction, throughout India, 
 Ceylon, and the countries and islands that lie 
 beyond. It was natural to suppose that a great 
 commercial and maritime people, such as the 
 Arabian and Fhcenician Hamites were, must 
 have monopolized the carrying trade of the 
 Indian Ocean, and visited those eastern countries 
 as traders and colonizers at an early- date. 
 According to Professor Rawlinson, who has 
 carefully considered the subject, "recent lin- 
 guistic discovery tends to show that a Cushite 
 or Ethiopic race did, in the earliest times, extend 
 itself along the shores of the southern ocean 
 from Abyssinia to India. The whole peninsula 
 of India was peopled by a race of this character 
 before the influx of the Aryans. It extended 
 along the sea coast through the modern Beloo- 
 chistan and Kerman : the cities on the northern 
 shores of the Persiaft Gulf are shown by the 
 brick inscriptions found in their ruins to have 
 belonged to this race."* 
 
 The temples excavated out of the solid rock 
 at Elephanta, Salsette, Ellora, Ajunta, Orissa, 
 and other places in India, bear so strong, a 
 * Rawlinson's "Herodotus. Vol. i. Essay 2. 
 
HAM. 8s 
 
 resemblance to the Hamite structures ia 
 Babylonia, Arabia, and Egypt, that no one can 
 doubt but that the architects were all of the 
 same family and studied in the, same school. 
 One of these rock-cut temples at Elephanta, 
 an island in the harbour of Bombay, as described 
 by Niebuhr, is one hundred and thirty feet deep 
 by one hundred and twenty-three feet wide, 
 exclusive of various rooms attached. The roof 
 is supported by five hundred and twenty-six 
 pillars, and sixteen pilasters. At Salsette, a 
 mountain of rock is excavated in every direction ; 
 and at Ellora there is a. still more highly 
 finished and ornamented series of ^ temples, cut 
 out of a semicircular range of rock mountains. 
 Similar excavations are found at Ajunta, Orissa, 
 and other places. 
 
 The pagodas throughout India were evidently 
 designed by the same people. They are 
 pyramidal temples of Cyclopean construction, 
 the walls of which are composed of immense 
 stones placed together in the usual style of 
 such structures; and it is obvious that those 
 who designed and executed these works must, 
 have adopted the same plans as the architects of 
 Petra, Arvad, and Aradus. It is probable that 
 
86 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 many of these have been erected long subsequent 
 to the entry of the Aryans into India; but 
 they were doubtless copied from pre-existing 
 structures of the same description and character, 
 the \York of a more ancient people, and were 
 dedicated to more modern religious purposes. 
 
 In Ceylon, the traces of Hamite occupation 
 are still more abundant. Maurice, who was well 
 acquainted with these antiquities, ascribes their 
 origin to the same people. He says : " At that 
 period, when the daring Cushite genius was in its 
 full career of glory, it was the peculiar delight 
 of that enterprising race to erect stupendous 
 edifices, excavate long subterranean passages in 
 the living rock, form vast lakes, and extend over 
 the hollow of adjoining mountains magnificent 
 arches for aqueducts and bridges. ... It was 
 they who built the tower of Belus and raised the 
 pyramids of Egypt ; it was they who formed the 
 grottoes near the Nile, and scooped the caverns 
 of Salsette and Elephanta. Their skill in 
 mechanical powers to this day astonishes 
 posterity, who are unable to conceive by what 
 means stones, thirty, forty, and even sixty feet 
 in length, and from twelve to twenty feet in 
 breadth, could ever be raised to that wonderful 
 
ffAAf. 87 
 
 point of elevation at which they are seen in the 
 ruined temples at Balbek and Thebais. Those 
 composing the pagodas of India are scarcely less 
 wonderful in magnitude and elevation."* In 
 those countries, too, the worship of Baal and 
 Ashtaroth, the spawn of Babylon, was rooted 
 before the introduction of Brahmanism and 
 Buddhism by the Hindoo Aryans. Baal, or 
 Moloch, was W9rshipped under the form of 
 Siva, whose name does not occur in the Rig 
 Veda, and who was therefore not an Aryan 
 divinity ; and the phallic worship of Babylonia 
 and Phoenicia prevailed in India as the worship 
 of Lingan. The latter has long since dis- 
 appeared as a religion in that country, but the 
 symbols and emblems still remaining on some of 
 the ancient temples testify to its former exis- 
 tence, and to an ancient occupation of the 
 countries to the east of the Persian Gulf by its 
 Babylonian votaries. 
 
 In Burmah, to the east of the Ganges, there 
 are a great number of seved-storied pagodas or 
 temples. They are described and delineated by 
 Mr. Fergusson, in his " History of Architecture ;" 
 and he states that " their real synonyms are to 
 
 * "Ancient History of Hindostan," vol. ii. p. 24I-2. 
 
88 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 be found in Babylon, and not in India." The 
 Birs Nimroud, one of the ruined mounds in 
 Babylonia, and which, as we have stated before, 
 is supposed to have been the temple of Belus 
 described ty Herodotus, is, according to the 
 same authority, like those irt Burmah, a seven- 
 storied temple, with external stairs leading to a 
 crowning cell or sanctuary; and he adds that 
 there is no doubt but that these Burmese struc- 
 tures are the lineal descendants of the Baby- 
 lonian temples, thodgh there are gaps in their 
 genealogies ; and his conclusion is, that " the 
 ethnographic connection between the buildings of 
 Burmah and Babylon is indisputable."* 
 
 Again, in the ruined cities of Cambodia, which 
 lies farther to the east, of Burmah, recent re- 
 search has discovered teocallis like those in 
 Mexico, and the remains of temples of the same 
 type and pattern as those of Yucatan. And 
 when we reach the sea, we encounter at Suku, 
 in Java, a teocalli which is absolutely identical 
 with that of Tehuantepec. With such evidence, 
 Mr. Fergusson is well warranted in his observa- 
 tion, "that as we advance eastward froni the 
 valley of the Euphrates, at every step we meet 
 
 * "History of Architecture." Vol. ii. p. 518. 
 
BAM. 89 
 
 with forms of art becoming more and more like 
 those of Central America."* But for the geo- 
 graphical difficulty, the same author considers 
 that no one could hesitate to admit that the 
 architecture of Central America was borrowed 
 from the Old World. The ocean barrier may- 
 appear to be a great difficulty to those who are 
 unacquainted with the maritime accomplishments 
 of the ancient Arabians and Phoenicians, which ■ 
 are now beginning to be recognized and acknow- 
 ledged ; but to a people whose prowess and 
 energy had enabled them to penetrate to Britain, 
 and trade in the Baltic, before the Grecian Qra, 
 the obstacles in their way by land and sea to the 
 western shores of America would be far from being 
 insurmountable. At all events, the gradual pro- 
 gress of their peculiar style of architecture from 
 the Euphrates eastward to the New World, ren- 
 ders it not only probable, but almost certain, that 
 it was by this route they had circled the globe 
 with their religious worship and their temples, 
 before the increasing power of the indignant 
 Aryans extinguished them everywhere as a 
 people, and trampled out their obnoxious in- 
 stitutions throughout the world. 
 
 * " History of Architecture." Vol. ii. p. 761. 
 
90 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 These widely-spread architectural remains re- 
 veal to us the thoughts and feelings, the accom- 
 plishments and defects, the virtues and vices, of 
 the bygone generations with whom they origi- 
 nated. Like fossils to the geologist, these en- 
 during monuments make known to us the 
 stratum of humanity that lies buried beneath 
 the civilizations of the historic era. The genius, 
 energy, and religious belief of their authors are 
 recorded for our learning in the chiselled rocks 
 and mouldering tumuli that mark the paths of 
 their progress east and west in prehistoric times ; 
 and it is no longer matter of doubt ' that the 
 people, whose dominion originated with Nimrod 
 at Babylon, and who spread themselves into 
 Arabia and Egypt, were a powerful, prosperous, 
 and enterprising community, trading with and 
 colonizing distant countries, when the Japhetite 
 was unknown as a political power, and the 
 Semites were only nomad shepherds in their 
 land of promise. 
 
 The energies of this precocious race appear 
 to have been directed, from their earliest days, to 
 the establishment and extension of that civiliza- 
 tion that grows out of manufacturing and com- 
 mercial pursuits, and to the erection of vast 
 
HAM. 91 
 
 <iities and colossal monuments, the rearing up of 
 which was apparently an instinct of the race. In 
 -Mesopotamia, where no stones were to be found, 
 bricks were elaborated out of the clay of the dis- 
 trict, to enable them to carry out their designs. 
 In other places, their edifices were constructed 
 with stones of immense size, cut out, shaped, arid 
 fitted with an amount of labour and skill that 
 was truly marvellous ; and in others, as we have 
 seen, the solid rock was hewn and carved into 
 palaces and temples. But all were the products 
 of that ambitious frame of mind which animated 
 the congregated Adamites on the plains of 
 Shinar, when they dared " to build a city and a 
 tower whose top might reach unto the heavens," 
 to make " a name lest they should be scattered 
 abroad on the face of the earth." The impious 
 jspirit survived the dispersion in the tribe of 
 Ham, who retained possession of Babylon, and 
 inherited the blighting curses that have been 
 fulfilled to the letter on that degraded city. 
 
 It is now generally conceded that alphabetic 
 writing, which grew out of hieroglyphics — the in- 
 vention of the Egyptian priests — was perfected 
 by the necessities of the Cushite traders and 
 merchants in the carrying on of their commercial 
 
92 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 transactions, and was by them transmitted to the 
 Greeks. Herodotus ascribes to the Phoenicians 
 who came over with Cadmus the teaching of 
 letters to the Greeks ; and the Roman poet has 
 perpetuated the tradition : — 
 
 " Phoenices primi, famse si creditur, ausi 
 Mansuram rudibus vocem signare figuris. 
 
 Lucan's Phars. iii. 220. 
 
 Pliny also has testified : — " Ipsa gens Phoenicum 
 in gloriS. magnd hterarum inventionis." 
 
 But the art, which was probably at first a rude 
 and ill-developed contrivance, remained for a 
 long time in Greece as an occult aft, the privi- 
 leged possession of a few Phoenician families ;* 
 for it was admittedly unknown at the date of 
 the Homeric poems, which were transmitted 
 orally for more than two hundred years after 
 Homer had composed them. Josephus and 
 Strabo state that the Phoenician records were 
 kept with great exactness, and that Phoenician 
 writers were eminent in mathematics, astronomy, 
 navigation, and other branches of science and 
 philosophy ; and yet, strange to say, there is not 
 a trace of Phoenician literature to be found, be- 
 yond a doubtful fragment of their history by 
 
 * "Juventus Mundi." Page 130. 
 
HAM. 93 
 
 Sanconiathon, and a Greek translation of the 
 voyage of colonization and discovery by the 
 Carthaginian Hanno along the Western coast of 
 Africa. Like everything else connected with the 
 doomed Hamitic race, with the exception of 
 some of their architectural remains, all their 
 literature has mysteriously melted away. Their 
 records are ruins ; and desolation and silence 
 have settled down on their past. The only lin- 
 guistic remains of PhcEnicia are monumental in- 
 scriptions, medals, and coins, which have been 
 dug up on the sites of Phoenician territories and 
 colonies in the Mediterranean, none of them 
 older than the sixth century before our era. 
 These show an affinity to have existed at that 
 time between the language of the Phoenicians 
 and the language of the Semites, which has 
 given rise to considerable discussion and mis- 
 apprehension as to the identity of the two 
 races. 
 
 It is probable that at no time did the lan- 
 guages of the Hamite and Semite differ so 
 radically from each other as those of the Semite 
 and Japhetite ; for the family of the Semite 
 Abraham, when they are first introduced to our 
 notice, dweltjn Ur of the Chaldees, which was a 
 
94 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 Hamite territory ; and Abraham and his de- 
 scendants, when sojourning in Canaan, spoke a 
 language that appears to have been intelligible 
 to the Canaanite descendants of Ham. There 
 was apparently a similarity of language, as there 
 was a community of territory, both in Chaldsea 
 and in Canaan, between the Semite and Hamite, 
 that never existed between either of them and 
 the Japhetite. So that though there was at first 
 a marked and decided distinction between the 
 Hamitic and Semitic families of language, the 
 result of close communication was gradually to 
 Semitize the Hamites, so far as their language 
 was concerned, leaving them in all their social 
 and political characteristics distinct as ever from 
 the true descendants of Shem. 
 
 The transition from the Hamitic to the Semitic 
 language appears to have taken place among the 
 Babylonians before the Captivity; for in the book 
 of Daniel we find the two languages spoken by 
 the Chaldseans ; one as the language of litera- 
 ture, and the other of politics. Nebuchadnezzar 
 is represented as directing the master of the 
 eunuchs to have certain children who were well 
 favoured, skilful in wisdom, cunning in know- 
 ledge, and understanding science, instructed in 
 
I/AM. 95 
 
 "ike learning and tongue of the Chaldceans,"* 
 showing that the old Chaldsean or Hamitic 
 language was at that time in use for literary- 
 purposes among the Chaldaeans. But when the 
 same people had occasion to address the king, 
 they are represented as speaking to him in a 
 Semitic language : — " Then spake the Chaldaeans 
 to the king in Syriack, O king, live for ever,"t 
 &c. This establishes the fact of the existence 
 of a Chaldaean or Hamitic language distinct 
 from the Semitic, and also that it had become 
 a dead language among the Chaldaeans them- 
 selves before the date of the captivity of the 
 Jews. 
 
 E. Renan is of opinion that traces of the old 
 Hamitic language still exist among the Berber 
 races in Africa, and also in Abyssinia, and 
 among the Himyarite Arabs. J The land of the 
 Berbers extends, as we have seen, from the 
 Mediterranean to the southern borders of the 
 Sahara, occupying the northern shores of Africa 
 
 * Daniel i. 4. , 
 
 f Daniel ii. 4. 
 
 J "Or, le Berber, le Touareg, et la plupart des langues indi- 
 genes de I'Afrique septentiionale, semblent appartenir i une 
 grande famille de langues qu'on pent apjjeler chamitiques, et dont 
 la Copte serait I'idiome principal."— ^w6 des Langues Simi- 
 tiques, p. 301. 
 
96 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 from Egypt to the Atlantic. They have cities 
 and towns, a good condition of agriculture, 
 political organization, and many of the arts of 
 civilized life. They are a remarkable people; 
 and the Touaricks, who are the purest and 
 proudest of the Berbers, are described by Cap- 
 tain Lyon, in 1 821, as the finest race of men he 
 had ever seen — ^tall, straight, and handsome, with 
 a certain air of independence and pride that is 
 very imposing, which no doubt arises from that 
 sense of superiority that is the offspring of a 
 consciousness of antiquity and purity of race. 
 Everything is consistent with their being a stag- 
 nant deposit of the old Hamitic stock that went 
 forth from Phoenicia to colonize the borders of 
 the Mediterranean ; and, conformable to their 
 destiny, they have had no part in the quickening 
 progress of human civilization. 
 
 The suggestion that the Canaanites br Phoe- 
 nicians were Semitic is now admitted to be with- 
 out foundation. Independent of the Scripture 
 evidence, the distinction between the two races 
 has been always too decided and manifest to 
 admit of such a supposition. Ernest Renan, 
 after stating that from the first the Hebrews ob- 
 stinately spurned all fraternity with the Canaan- 
 
HAM. 97 
 
 ite, observes : — " The peculiar characteristics of 
 the Semitic race were, to possess no industrial 
 enterprise, no political spirit, and no municipal 
 organization. Navigation and colonization were 
 distasteful to them. Their action has continued 
 purely Oriental ; and they have never interfered 
 in the affairs of Europe, except indirectly. Here 
 (among the Phoenicians), on the other hand, we 
 find an industrial civilization, the most active 
 commerce known to antiquity, and a nation in- 
 cessantly spreading out and mixing itself up with 
 the life of the Mediterranean world. In religion 
 we find the same contrast. In the place of rigid 
 monotheism, high notions of divinity, and a pure 
 form of worship, we find, among the Phoenicians, 
 a coarse mythology, low and ignoble gods, volup- 
 tuousness elevated to a religious duty. The 
 most sensual myths of antiquity, phallic worship, 
 and all its attendant abominations, came from 
 Phoenicia ;" and Renan adds, that if he were 
 called on to point at any one of the peoples of 
 antiquity that presented the strongest contrast 
 to the Semites, he would be disposed to name 
 the Phoenicians.* There is no doubt but that 
 the Hamite, under some unknown and mys- 
 
 * " Hist, des Langues S^mitiques." 4th ed. p. 183. 
 
 7 
 
98 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 terious influence, gradually adopted the Semitic 
 dialect in the place of the old Cushite, or Chal- 
 daean language, while all the natural peculiarities 
 and propensities of his race remained inveterate 
 and unchanged. 
 
 The same author notes the difficulty arising 
 from this admitted similarity of language, and 
 the diversity of moral characteristics between 
 the Semites and Phoenicians, and confesses that, 
 in the present state of our knowledge, it is im- 
 possible to account for the occurrence. But, 
 however that may be, it is satisfactory to know 
 that a change of language did occur, as it is an 
 important link in the chain of human events 
 that constitute the fulfilment of the prophecy of 
 Noah. For whatever may have been the time 
 of this transition from one language to another, 
 and the circumstances under which it took place, 
 it was manifestly in furtherance of the Divine 
 will that the Hamite was to have no recognized 
 place in the civil or religious progress of man- 
 kind. The prediction was, that Canaan should 
 be the servant of Shem, and also the servant of 
 Japhet ; and the Canaanite appears, at an early 
 date, to have adopted the Semitic language, and 
 thus to have relinquished one of the mostdistin- 
 
HAM. 99 
 
 guishing characteristics of a separate and inde- 
 pendent race. The change of their language from 
 Hamitic to Semitic was manifestly an important 
 step towards their extinction or ultimate ab- 
 sorption in the families of their more favoured, 
 brethren ; for as long as their spoken language 
 differed essentially from that of the Semite and 
 Japhetite, there could be no amalgamation of 
 the nature implied in the prediction of their 
 servitude ; nor could the personal and political 
 identity' of the Hamite have been obscured, as 
 it has been, so long as the Hamitic language 
 continued to be the spoken language of a 
 people. 
 
 Numerous specimens of the old Hamite 
 language are presented to us in the cuneiform 
 inscriptions on the tablets and cylinders of 
 Babylonia ; but notwithstanding the hopes and 
 expectations of philologists, little or no progress 
 has been made in deciphering them. There are 
 three distinct species of cuneiform inscriptions. 
 One of them, the old Persian, has been deci- 
 phered. But the other two, which are supposed 
 to be Hamitic and Turanian, are still un- 
 explained, and continue to defeat the ingenuity 
 and increase the perplexity of the philologist. 
 
 7—2 
 
THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 It can scarcely be doubted but that they contain 
 records of the old Cushite people, which, if they 
 could be read, might furnish us with valuable* 
 information as to their share in the early history 
 of the world. But it would seem to be destined 
 that we are to know little concerning them, 
 beyond the intelligence that Nimrod and 
 Canaan — the Cushite and the Canaanite — ^held 
 high position in the ancient world, and are no 
 more. Unblessed and unbelieving, their names 
 and deeds are lost in the mists of mythology. 
 Their tale -was told by the patriarch Noah, 
 while they were yet in the loins of their proge- 
 nitor Ham ; and the history of the world has 
 verified its truth. The place they once filled 
 in the East must have been highly influential 
 and important. Nimrod, the mighty hunter, and 
 founder of the kingdom of Babylonia, was great, 
 and his empire was great. The monarchs of 
 Egypt and the princes of Tyre were powerful in 
 their day. But servitude and obscurity were to 
 be the lot of this people, and that lot has been 
 theirs. They founded mighty states ; but their 
 cities are a desolation, a dry land, and a wilder- 
 ness. They instituted and extended commerce 
 
HAM. 101 
 
 and manufactures ; but a sjioil has been made 
 of tJieir riches, and a prey of their merchandise. 
 They invented letters, and had a written lan- 
 guage of their own ; but no page of their 
 literature, and no legible record of their deeds, 
 remains — their memorials have perished with 
 them. Their power and prosperity were linked 
 to moral qualities of the lowest description, 
 and religion of the most degrading character. 
 Cruelty and lust were the text of their ritual. 
 No moral considerations guided or restrained 
 their earthly career, which was essentially 
 worldly and materialistic. The few records 
 that have been deciphered of their deeds show 
 them to have been boastful and tyrannical. 
 Manetho, the Egyptian historian, represents the 
 Hamite Hyckshos, who invaded that country, 
 as rude, rapacious, and cruel ; and the Greeks 
 and Romans, in their myths and histories, have 
 pictured the Phoenicians and Carthaginians as 
 notably unprincipled and oppressive. A better 
 sense of what was due to humanity was rooted 
 in the breasts of Japhet's sons, and expanding 
 with their increasing power, urged them to expel 
 the humbled Hamites from their strongholds ; 
 and when Aryan civilization, which had dawned 
 
THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 in Greece, had spread its light into Italy, the 
 doomed race went down — 
 
 "To the vile dust from whence they sprung, 
 Unwept, unhonoured, and unsung." 
 
 Cradled in Babylon, and nurtured in Arabia, 
 Phoenicia, and Egypt, the Hamite' was thus 
 crushed out of the highways of history by the 
 Aryan Japhetites of Greece and Rome, and were 
 buried in the ruins of Carthage. " Delenda 
 Carthago" was a pagan echo of the divine decree 
 that the Canaanite should be exterminated by 
 their Hebrew invaders. 
 
 Such is the history of the sons of Ham. It 
 was reserved for the increasing knowledge of our 
 own days to restore this first dark page of the 
 world's history, and to revive the bad memory 
 of those earliest civilizers of humanity. Their 
 fate presents a notable example of the visitation 
 of the sins of the fathers upon the children. The 
 patriarch of old represented all authority ; and 
 in that respect was a type of the Supreme God. 
 His jurisdiction was unquestioned — his blessing 
 was a bequest of power and prosperity to the 
 favoured object ; and, on the other hand, his 
 curse must have been a burden grievous to be 
 
HAM. 103 
 
 borne. Ham dishonoured his father, and the 
 impiety was, after many generations^ visited on 
 his posterity. Their days were few in the land. 
 "He was in great power, and spreading himself 
 abroad like a green bay-tree. Yet he passed 
 away, and lo, he was not ; yea, I sought him 
 and he could not be found." 
 
( 104 ) 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 " Blessed he tne Lord God ofShem." — Gen. ix. 26. 
 
 In the preceding pages, some of the leading 
 characteristics which have distinguished the 
 Semites from the two other branches of the 
 Caucasian or Adamite race have been sketched 
 out. As a people, they have had little share in 
 the advancement of the material civilization of 
 the world ; but their part in the moral progress of 
 humanity has been conspicuous and influential ; 
 and in searching out their past and future his- 
 tory, we have a light, to our feet and a lamp 
 to our path in the Scripture record of the lead- 
 ing family of the Semites, who became the 
 chosen channel of the promises made to the 
 patriarch Shem. We have not to grope our 
 way, as in the case of the lost Hamite, through 
 
SHEM. los 
 
 the doubtful pages of heathen history, and the 
 haze of mythological legend with which it com- 
 mences. The patriarch's prediction, "Blessed 
 be the Lord God of Shem" is the key-note of 
 Semitic history, conveying, as it does, a distinct 
 recognition that there was to be a connection 
 between the family of Shem and the religious 
 education of mankind. It was an intimation 
 that, in some sense, the true God, the great 
 Jehovah, was to be peculiarly present with this 
 particular branch of Noah's posterity in their 
 then future worldly progress — a declaration that, 
 sooner or later, their God, the God of Shem, was 
 to be exalted above all gods, and to be the 
 acknowledged Lord of the whole earth. 
 
 The Semites have been divided by Orientalists 
 into two classes — one comprises the Hebrews 
 and the Arabs, commonly known and dis- 
 tinguished as the nomad branch; the other, or 
 political branch, comprises the inhabitants of 
 Phoenicia, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Yemej), or 
 Arabia Felix. But of these, the Hebrews and 
 Arabs, the descendants of Isaac and Ishmael, 
 the children of Abraham, through whom the 
 blessing on Shem was transmitted and continued 
 to posterity, are alone the exponents of the true 
 
io6 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 Semites, as regards the prediction of Noah. 
 The others are descendants of Shem outside the 
 lineage of Abraham, or of Hamite origin. They 
 have been frequently classed with Semites, by 
 reason of their languages being, as we have seen, 
 of that family of speech, though in all moral and 
 intellectual qualities they are widely different. 
 
 The dispersion at Shinar followed fast on the 
 prophecy of Noah, and before the sixth gene- 
 ration had passed away, the three tribes were 
 severed, which was a first step towards its 
 fulfilihent. The next recorded event in the 
 history of the Semite was the emigration of 
 Terah, the father of Abraham, and the eighth in 
 descent from Shem, from Ur of the Chaldees to 
 Haran. Terah and his forefathers had not been 
 faithful to the Lord God of Shem — "they 
 served strange gods on the other side of the 
 flood " (the Euphrates), in Chaldaea. Something 
 was required to restore and secure their allegi- 
 ance to the Most High God, to counteract their 
 perverse tendency to worship the creature in- 
 stead of the Creator, and keep them true to their 
 religious destiny ; and accordingly, a special 
 and personal revelation was vouchsafed to 
 Abraham, accompanied with a promise of the 
 
SHEM. 107 
 
 divine favour to his posterity, that in his seed 
 should all the families of the earth be blessed. 
 Who so worthy of such a distinction as Abra- 
 ham, who is styled in the Scriptures the friend 
 of God ? Great and good in all the relations of 
 life — obedient and submissive to the Most High, 
 and kind and true to his fellow-man — Abraham 
 presents a picture of the man of God in the 
 family and in the world that has never been 
 surpassed. , He preserved the faith while he 
 lived, and after his death the revelation and 
 promise were renewed to the patriarch Isaac at 
 Beersheba, and again to the patriarch Jacob at 
 Bethel. To these he was revealed as God 
 Almighty (El-Shaddai), the Powerful One. And 
 thus it was that the true faith was kept alive in 
 the families of these patriarchs until they went 
 down into Egypt. 
 
 During the bondage of the Israelites in Egypt, 
 the traditions of the God of Shem that were 
 delivered tp them by their fathers must have 
 faded. By the great increase of their popula- 
 tion the patriarchal form of government naturally 
 died out. Other circumstances contributed to 
 the same result. The family and the tribe had 
 grown into a nation,, and required a political 
 
io8 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 head. Moses, the meekest and mightiest of 
 mankind, was the chief chosen to break the 
 power of Pharaoh, and to lead his brethren out 
 of the land of Egypt to the borders of Canaan. 
 To him God revealed Himself at Horeb, by His 
 name Jehovah, the self-existent I AM. Like the 
 previous revelations to the patriarchs, this also 
 was a personal revelation, confined to Moses 
 himself; and no supernatural manifestation of 
 divine power had been made to the descendants 
 of Abraham directly as a people, until the 
 Israelites were congregated for the Exodus, 
 when the power and presence of Jehovah was, 
 for the first time, manifested to the assembled 
 multitude by signs and wonders that they could 
 apprehend and appreciate. The pillar of cloud 
 and the pillar of fire, the passage of the Red 
 Sea, the manna in the Desert, the rock at 
 Horeb, and the voice at Sinai, were manifes- 
 tations to all. Their God was proclaimed aloud 
 in the hearing of all the people, as the God who 
 brought them out of the land of Egypt, and out 
 of the house of bondage ; and by that circum- 
 stance was He to be known to them throughout 
 all generations. Personal revelations were con- 
 tinued from time to time to the rulers, the 
 
SHEM, ^09 
 
 priests, and the prophets of Israel ; and the 
 history of the Semite shows that such divine 
 communications were required to keep them 
 mindful of the Lord God of Shem ; for it is 
 written by themselves of themselves, that " they 
 kept not His covenant, and refused to walk in 
 His law, and forgot His works, and the wonders 
 He had showed them." 
 
 Here it is that the sons of Japhet are prone to 
 stumble. The supernatural has seldom found 
 favour with the quick and inquisitive intellects 
 of their scientific philosophers, who hesitate to 
 adopt as facts anything of which their ex- 
 perience supplies no precedent or prmciple, and 
 seek for explanations that may reduce all results 
 to the ordinary course of natural events. Thus, 
 Ernest Renan, who belongs to this school of 
 thought, in his sketch of the Semite, represents 
 their character as religious, rather than political 
 or philosophical, and admits that the mainspring 
 of their religion is the conception of the unity • 
 of God. But he asserts that this monotheistic 
 belief belongs to the Semitic race by nutural 
 instinct (intuition primitive — une de ses premieres 
 apperceptions)* without which humanity would 
 * " Etude d'Hist. Relig.," p. 86. 
 
THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 never have arrived at the knowledge or worship 
 of the true God. Monotheism was not, accord- 
 ing to his views, a mere scientific tenet, but an 
 intuitive moral conviction which was part of the 
 Semitic nature, so that there was no necessity 
 for a supernatural revelation to impart and per- 
 petuate that religious principle. 
 
 But there is sufficient in the history of the 
 Semite to disprove the existence of any such 
 natural, instinct or intuition, in the proper sense 
 of the word. The proneness of this people to 
 relapse into the most 'degrading polytheistic 
 idolatries and worship of heathen gods, which 
 meets us at every step of their history, from 
 Shinar to their captivity, and from the Exodus 
 to their final expulsion from Palestine, is a fact 
 wholly irreconcilable with such a theory. An 
 instinct is universal and irresistible ; and if the 
 monotheistic- belief of the Semite had been part 
 of their nature, Terah and his forefathers would 
 not have been reported as serving strange gods 
 in Mesopotamia ; nor would that falling away of 
 the posterity of Abraham have occurred, which 
 was witnessed when the molten calves were in- 
 troduced and accepted as the gods of Israel at 
 Sinai, and^afterwards at Dan and Bethel ; and 
 
SHEM. Ill 
 
 again, when they turned so frequently to serve 
 Baal and Ashtaroth, the abomination of the 
 Hamites, and, on various occasions, worshipped 
 the host of heaven, and built them high places, 
 or sanctuaries, on every high hill and under 
 every green tree. £ven Solomon, the wise king 
 of Israel, built a high place for Chemosh, the 
 abomination of Moab, and for Moloch, the 
 abomination of the Ammonites. Such apos- 
 tasies required the constant personal interven- 
 tion of the God of Israel, to keep alive the faith . 
 and secure the allegiance of this favoured, but, 
 wayward and unstable people. 
 
 The adherence, therefore, of the Semites to 
 monptheism, or the worship of the one God, is 
 not due to an instinct of their nature, but to 
 those revelations of God which were made by 
 Himself, from time to time, to the patriarchs, 
 to the people, and to their religious and political 
 chiefs and leaders. It is true that there were 
 among the Israelites many bright examples of 
 pure and unwavering belief in the one God. 
 Such were Abraham and Moses, Joshua and 
 David, Elijah and Jeremiah, and many others ; 
 but their faith- and profession did not spring 
 from a blind instinct, but were the result of 
 
1 12 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 special revelations to each of them. They did 
 not choose God as their God ; but He chose 
 them to be His witnesses, and led them into the 
 knowiedg^ of Himself and His attributes which 
 signalized their lives, and adapted them for His 
 service. 
 
 Renan and his disciples could not deny the 
 purity of the Semitic faith ; and as they could 
 not bring themselves to recognize the super- 
 natural, they were driven to relegate the mono- 
 theism of the Semites to a natural principle 
 that did not exist, and to ignore those special 
 revelations which the Israelites themselves admit 
 to have had existence. 
 
 This reluctance to concede the supernatural 
 element in accounting for phenomena, is an in- 
 stance of the peculiar frame of mind which is the 
 marked characteristic of the sons of Japhet, and 
 the chief distinction between them and the 
 Semites. We have already sketched out some 
 of the most striking traits that have always dis- 
 tinguished those two sections of the Caucasian 
 race. The intellectual qualities predominate in 
 the Japhetite, and the moral in the Semite. 
 Philosophy is the vocation of the one, and 
 religion is the mission of the other. The scien- 
 
SHEM. 113 
 
 tific philosopher, averse to dogmatism and seek- 
 ing to prove all things, is the representative man 
 of the Japhetite race ; and the prophet, hostile 
 alike to kings and priests, and ignoring all politi- 
 cal institutions and associations, is the represen- 
 tative man of the Semitic race. The one, there- 
 fore, investigates facts and deduces conclusions, 
 while the other believes in the one God, and 
 worships undoubtingly. The various phenomena 
 or operations of Nature are the result of a chain 
 of sequences, or secondary causes, leading back 
 to the first great Cause of all ; and the peculiar 
 faculty of the Japhetite, which has ever distin- 
 guished him from the Semite and all other races 
 of mankind, is this inclination or tendency to 
 search out and discover secondary causations, 
 and develop the links that unite effects to their 
 first great; Cause. On the other hand, the Semite 
 ascribes all the phenomena of Nature directly 
 and immediately to God, ignoring the interme- 
 diate physical causes. Their language regard- 
 ing the operations of Nature illustrates this prin- 
 ciple of the Semitic mind. For instance — 
 
 "The voice of the Lord is upon the waters: the God of 
 glory thundereth. . . i The voice of the Lord breaketh the 
 cedars ; yea, the Lord breaketh the cedars of Lebanon."— 
 Psahn xxix. 
 
114 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 " God thundereth marvellously with His voice: great things 
 doeth He, which we cannot comprehend. For He saith to the 
 snow, Be thou on the earth : likewise to the small rain and to 
 the great rain of His strength. ... By the brf ath of God 
 frost is given, and the breadth of the waters is straitened. Also 
 by watering He wearieth the thick cloud : He scattereth His 
 bright cloud : and it is turned about by His councils : that they 
 may do whatsoever He commandeth them upon the face of the 
 world." — Job xxxvii. 
 
 "Who covereth the heavens with clouds, who prepareth 
 rain for the earth, and maketh grass to grow upon the motm- 
 tains. ■ He giveth snow like wool : He maketh the hoar-frost 
 like ashes : He casteth forth His ice like morsels : who can 
 stand before His cold? He sendeth out His word, and 
 melteth them. He causeth the wind to blow, and the waters 
 to flow." — Psalm cxlvii. 
 
 Everything is thus ascribed by the Semite 
 immediately and directly to the Supreme God. 
 He is, to the Semitic mind, the Alpha and 
 Omega, of all the operations of Nature, regard- 
 less of the means He has thought proper to use 
 to effectuate His purposes; but which the in- 
 quiring Japhetic mind seeks out and exposes. 
 
 It is God who giveth and withholdeth the rain 
 and the dew, the snow and the frost. It is God 
 -whose voice is in the thunder ; who sendeth 
 forth the lightning and the wind from His 
 treasury ; who spake, and it was done ; who 
 commanded, and they were created. On the 
 other hand, the Japhetite traces the intermediate 
 causes of the various natural phenomena that 
 
SHEM. 
 
 "S 
 
 present themselves. He interrogates Nature, 
 and forces her to reveal the secret laws which 
 regulate her operations. In his prosaic mind, 
 the thunder is not the voice of God ; nor is the 
 lightning laid up in His treasury. He has 
 searched them out, and finds that they are 
 produced by the unseen agency of a power 
 ■ which he calls electricity. The rain and the 
 dew, the snow and the frost, he has discovered 
 to be the products of caloric and gravitation. 
 Storm and wind, and other earthly phenomena, 
 and even the moveqients of the heavenly host, 
 are found by the Japhetite philosophers to be 
 regulated by the same invisible forces." And 
 onward still they are seeking continually for 
 further causes, short of the will of the Omnipo- 
 tent, to account for electricity, heat, gravitation, 
 and other elementary forces. And though the 
 philosopher may admit that, no matter how 
 long may be the chain of causation, or how 
 numerous the links of second causes, the will 
 of the Almighty must be the commencement, 
 the tendency of his mind is to multiply those 
 connecting links, and detect and define the laws 
 of Nature, and then to utilize them for the 
 expansion of civilization. 
 
 8—2 
 
ii6 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 It will appear, when we come to discuss the 
 history of the Japhetite, that the exercise of this 
 peculiar faculty has been the means of con- 
 tributing largely to the material prosperity and 
 moral advancement of mankind, placing new 
 powers in human hands that transcend the 
 wildest dreams and fables of antiquity, and 
 ,which are producing eiTects startling and as- 
 tonishing to the thoughtful mind that compares 
 thC/past with the present. Without the Japhetite, 
 the fabric of civilization that now exists would 
 not have been raised ; and without the Semite, 
 the revelations of God to the Israelites would 
 not have been received or perpetuElted for the 
 instruction of posterity. Pantheism and Pagan- 
 ism were the religion of the sons of Japhet — 
 their God was an unknown God — until the light 
 to lighten the Gentiles had dawned on the earth, 
 and they were invited by the Apostle of the 
 Gentiles to enter and dwell in the tents of Shem. 
 Another phase of the supernatural in the 
 history of the Semites is presented in the pro- 
 phetic element which pervaded that race, and 
 that race alone, from the earliest date. The 
 prophet (Nabi) was, as we have observed, the 
 representative man of Semitism. The school of 
 
SHEM. 117 
 
 the prophets, mentioned in the book of Samuel, 
 was a purely Semitic institution. Nothing of 
 the kind has ever been found among the 
 Japhetites ; for the ambiguous utterances of the 
 Sibyls, and the equivocating oracles of heathen- 
 dom, were mere diabolical imitations of the 
 divinely-ordained spirit of prophecy. The pro- 
 phet was the messenger of God ;* and the 
 episode of Balaam and Balak proves his inability 
 to utter anything but the divine message en- 
 trusted to him. " If Balak would give me his 
 house full of silver and gold, I cannot go beyond 
 the commandment of the Lord, to do either 
 good or bad -of mine own mind; tut what the 
 Lord saith that will I speak." His office was 
 not confined to predictions of future events ; but 
 he had to keep the unstable Semites true to 
 their mission ; and, in the interests of the 
 people, he had often to withstand and control 
 both kings and priests. Almost every Semitic 
 monarch, both before and after the severance of 
 Judah and Israel, was rebuked and restrained 
 by some " Man of God," who appeared on the 
 scene suddenly and mysteriously, and dis- 
 
 * See Exodus vii. i, 2, where Aaron is ordained to be the 
 prophet, or messenger, of Moses to speak to Pharaoh. 
 
Ii8 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 appeared in like manner when his duty was 
 performed. Prophets, priests, and kings were a 
 sort of triumvirate, conservative of Semitic 
 ideas, and of the rights, privileges, and duties 
 of the people ; and in their combination, they 
 were typical of the great Ruler of all Israel, who, 
 when He comes in His kingdom, will combine 
 in His own person the three offices of Prophet, 
 Priest, and King. 
 
 All the principal characters of the Old 
 Testament were among the prophets. Noah 
 and Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Moses and 
 Joshua, Samuel and David, Elijah and Elisha, 
 and the sacred band of the greater and lesser 
 prophets, whose writings fill so important a place 
 in the canon of Scripture, from Isaiah to Malachi 
 — all spoke and wrote by divine inspiration ; 
 and the close of the old dispensation prophecies 
 coincides with the close of the Old Testament 
 history of the Israelites, at the death of 
 Nehemiah, about 415 B.C. At this time the 
 sacred record is suspended, and a curtain falls on 
 the history of the Jews, through which we obtain 
 a few doubtful glimpses of their career, until the 
 accession of Antiochus Epiphanes (175 B.C.), 
 when the glorious struggle for their national 
 
SHEM. 119 
 
 existence and the preservation' of their faith in 
 the Macchabaic wars, prolonged their existencr 
 as a people until the advent of the Saviour. 
 Then it was that the spirit of prophecy, which 
 had remained inactive for four hundred years, 
 was revived in John the Baptist, Jesus Christ, 
 and His apostles, closing with the Revelation of 
 St. John, which extends to the consummation of 
 all things. Since then the voice of prophecy has 
 been silent. As a race, the children of Abraham 
 are outcasts, and the divine presence has been 
 withdrawn until they shall be restored to the 
 favour of the Lord God of Shem. 
 
 Thus the supernatural element in Semitic 
 history was presented in a twofold aspect. 
 First, in the direct personal revelations by God 
 of His name and attributes to the early Semites; 
 and second, in the prophetic powers accorded 
 to the most distinguished of the same people, 
 and which have been verified by the fulfilment 
 of their predictions in subseqiient events, such 
 as the -present state of Babylon and Nineveh, of 
 Tyre and Sidon, of Egypt, Judaea, Jerusalem, 
 and of the Semites themselves. The former was 
 the evidence which the Israelites had of the 
 presence and power of Jehovah. The latter is 
 
I20 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 the evidence vouchsafed to subsequent believers, 
 that holy men of old spake by the Spirit of God 
 — the Lord God of Shem. Provision was thus 
 made, through the Semite, for the instruction of 
 all generations in the knowledge of Jehovah. 
 As the spirit of prophecy grew full and strong 
 in Israel, the direct and miraculous revelations of 
 divine power died out. "They fade away as the 
 history of the tribes under their king's pro- 
 gresses ; and in the closing books of Jewish 
 history, Ezra, Nehemiah, and, Esther, nothing of 
 a miraculous nature is recorded. On the other 
 hand, as the time for the fulfilment of the 
 prophecies began its course, the spirit of 
 prophecy . died out, and has ceased to exist. 
 Thus God has never left Himself without a 
 witness ; for if He was manifested through the 
 patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to their 
 children and families ; and to the enlarged 
 Israelites by the signs and wonders which were 
 displayed at the Red Sea, in the wilderness, 
 and in the Promised Land, He has also been 
 manifested to the sons of Japhet by the testi- 
 mony which the whole aspect of the world has 
 ever presented to those who do not close their 
 eyes to it, of the truth of the Holy Scriptures, 
 
SHEM. 121 
 
 and of all that the prophets have spoken of 
 events that were then in the womb of time. 
 
 The peculiar characteristics of the Semitic 
 mind, which adapted that people to be the recep- 
 tacles of the name and nature of the Lord God 
 of Shem, and the depositories and guardians of 
 His oratles, were formed and strengthened, partly 
 by this early and continued communiori-with God, 
 and partly by the influence of their language. 
 Some of the mental qualifications of their great 
 progenitor Abraham, who was styled the friend 
 of God, were transmitted to his descendants, as 
 the physical traits of the Jew, which ha;ve been 
 perpetuated for centuries, were no doubt deKved 
 from the same source. The dignified and de- 
 votional demeanour of the nomad patriarch, 
 dwelling in a tent, and yet the respected associ- 
 ate of the kings of the countries through which 
 he was moving with his flocks and herds, has 
 never been wholly lost in his posterity. His 
 single faith and simple habits have been in a 
 greater or lesser degree reflected in his blood 
 descendants from generation to generation. The 
 noble features and strong and active frame of the 
 wild Arab emanated from the same source ; 
 and while their lawless and hostile habits of life 
 
122 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 were by God's decree entailed on them as the 
 progeny of Ishmael, the devotional frame of 
 mind which rendered them the disciples and 
 dupes of the monotheistic Mahomet was an in- 
 heritance from their progenitor Abraham. 
 
 To comprehend and appreciate the influence 
 of their language in the formation and preser- 
 vation of the character of the Semite, it will 
 be necessary to recur to the Scripture record of 
 the confusion of language at Shinar. The 
 meaning of that event, as we have already 
 shown, is that the tribal severance of the three 
 families of the three sons of Noah was effected 
 by the severance of the one language, thereto- 
 fore spoken by all collectively, into three lan- 
 guages, corresponding to the three well-defined 
 races of mankind, which have been the rulers 
 of the worlJ of history from its earliest date. 
 The fact of tlie existence of the Semitic race, 
 the Japhetic (better known as the great Aryan 
 race), and the Hamitic race, and of the three 
 corresponding families of language, difiering 
 from each other in vocabulary and in grammar, 
 is beyond dispute. The existence of the Hamitic 
 language in the early ages of the Babylonian 
 empire is evidenced by the lately-discovered 
 
SHEM. 123 
 
 inscriptions on the bricks, slabs, and cylinders 
 of ancient Babylon and Nineveh ; and traces of 
 it are still to be found, according to the best 
 authorities, in the language of the Himyarite 
 Arabs, the Galla dialect of Abyssinia, and of the 
 Berbers in Northern Africa. The last record 
 we find of it in authentic history is- in the Book 
 of Daniel, where it is mentioned as the " tongue 
 of the Chaldaeans " — the language of literature 
 at the court of Nebuchadnezzar, 600 B.C.* We 
 shall now proceed to show that all the other lan- 
 guages of the Caucasian race belong to one or 
 other of the two great families of language known- 
 as the Semitic and Japhetic, or Indo-European 
 family of languages. And here, comparative 
 philology, or the science of language, one of the 
 products of the increase of knowledge in these 
 latter days, comes to our aid. 
 
 The science of language, or comparative 
 philology, has preserved, and now discloses, 
 secrets of the past concerning the origin and 
 ancient history of mankind that could not have 
 been discovered by any other means. It is; like 
 geology, a science of modern growth, not much 
 older than the present century. It may be said 
 
 * Ante, p. 94. 
 
124 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 that it never assumed the form of a science until 
 after the Sanskrit language — the language of 
 the Eastern Japhetites — was brought into notice, 
 towards the close of the last century, Words and 
 grammar had lain unheeded and unquestion'ed 
 around, like the stones and fossils of the geologist 
 before his science of geology had detected and 
 developed their history, until the comparative, 
 philologist interrogated and reduced them into 
 order, extracting from the apparently chaotic 
 mass a history of primeval times and events 
 that had never been known before ; and es- 
 tablishing as an undoubted fact, that at some 
 distant period of time the two families of the 
 languages of the civilized world — the Semitic 
 and the Japhetic — started up on the stage of 
 history in a sudden and unaccountable manner, 
 and have ever sinCe been confronting each other. 
 Language is the product of a mental power 
 peculiar to the human race, the instrument and 
 embodiment of thought, and the vehicle by 
 which the ideas in the mind of a man are 
 communicated to his fellow-men. To think, is 
 to speak low, as it were to oneself; to speak, is 
 to think aloud ; and in Scripture Adam is 
 represented as using words to distinguish and 
 
SHEM. 1 25 
 
 designate objects before he had a helpmate with 
 whom to communicate and interchange his 
 thoughts and feelings. Words and grammar 
 are the components of all languages. Words 
 have been happily described as the stuiif or mat- 
 ter of language, and grammar its fashioning 
 or form. Both are the products of human inven- 
 tion, and must have been framed in the very- 
 infancy of society, and to some extent, it may 
 be, before the existence of society ; as in the 
 case of Adam giving names to the animals that 
 surrounded him in the gardei;i.of Eden. 
 
 Now let us picture to ourselves a small com- 
 munity, such as the family of one of Noah's 
 sons at the time of the dispersion at Shinar, of 
 one language, and congregated together on some 
 spot in the south-western district of Asia. 
 The language in which their daily intercourse 
 was carried on must have been a divine gift, 
 or invented by themselves, or inherited from 
 their forefathers; and was a' language that 
 gave tbne to their thoughts, and derived a 
 character from the people who spoke it ; for 
 language is, not only one of the distinguishing 
 characteristics of the human race, but the par- 
 ticular quality of it indicates the degree of 
 
126 THE BtriLDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 intellect and civilization of those who use it. 
 In every language, in its infancy, there are of 
 necessity words expressive of the common re- 
 lations of life, such as father, mother, son and 
 daughter, husband and wife, and of the different 
 members of the human body, of implements of 
 hunting, of agriculture, and other primitive arts, 
 when invented, of the heavenly bodies, of 
 numerals, and other matters that must have 
 come into daily observation and use. These 
 may be termed the framework of every lan- 
 guage. Beside these, some sort of grammar, 
 or definition of nouns and verbs, declensions, 
 moods, tenses, and voices, must have been used 
 to express and convey the relationship of words, 
 or the things they represent, to each other ; and 
 this production must have been an individual 
 act — the invention of an individual, or of a smalj 
 number of individuals, in constant daily com- 
 munication and intercourse, like the members of 
 a family ; for it is impossible to conceive an 
 extensive community, or a congregation of com- 
 munities, or their representatives, coming to- 
 gether to agree upon the adoption of certain 
 words to designate certain ideas, or to frame a 
 grammar ■; inasmuch as such a confederation for 
 
SHEM. 127 
 
 any purpose presupposes the existence of a 
 language as a medium of communication for 
 the attainment of the common object. 
 
 Let us now contemplate this small community- 
 enlarging the number of its population. The 
 same language would be its spoken language. 
 The children would learn it, as children now 
 learn language, from their parents, and would 
 again teach it to their children from generation 
 to generation. The words, or some of them, 
 might be gradually and insensibly altered by 
 reason of the mental and physical peculiarities 
 of different families or tribes ; but the roots 
 from which they sprang would be generally 
 traceable, and the character of the grammatical 
 formations would remain unchanged. Let us 
 now advance in time and space, and regard the 
 piembers of this enlarged community breaking 
 up its bond of union, some of them going forth 
 from their birthplace to colonize other and 
 distant lands, never to return to the home of 
 their forefathers j and we behold them carrying 
 away to their new abodes the dialects of their 
 first ancestors, as an inheritance to be preserved 
 and transmitted by them to their posterities. 
 Some remain in or near to their early home. 
 
128 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 while others, more enterprising, are seeking 
 new and more distant habitations. Some direct 
 their steps eastward, some to the south, some 
 westward, and some to the north. But all are 
 accompanied by the language of their pro- 
 genitors, by which, in climes far removed, and ■ 
 in ages to come, their enlarged posterity may 
 be.challenged, and admitted to be members of 
 the family circle that was once covered by a 
 tent in the early Asiatic dwelling-place of their 
 forefathers. 
 
 Advancing still farther in time, and reversing 
 the picture, let us survey the map of the world 
 in the present day; and if we find Europe 
 inhabited by peoples who all use similar words 
 to designate the things that must, as already 
 observed, have been familiar and present to the 
 minds of men at all times, and in all stages of 
 society, and binding them together with the 
 same grammatical forms, then we may rest 
 assured that all these people are, primd, facie at 
 all events, the flesh-and-blood members of one 
 family, and descendants of the same ancestors. 
 It is not conceivable that they should have 
 become possessed of their language in any other 
 way ; for though a strange people might adopt 
 
SHEM. 129 
 
 words used by olhers,, such words would be 
 words designating ideas new to them, such as 
 newly-discovered metals, or the recent products 
 of arts and sciences, an^ not the old familiar 
 household words, such as father, mother, brother, 
 sister, to which we have alluded. And however 
 it might be with respect to vocabulary, no 
 alteration in the grammar of a people could be 
 effected as long as they were allowed to exjst as 
 such. 
 
 The languages of the inhabitants of the 
 countries composing the central and northern 
 Europe range themselves under the Celtic, Teu- 
 tonic, and Sclavonic families of speech. The 
 Celtic is found to the far west of Brittany, 
 Wales, Ireland, and Scotland. The Teutonic 
 extends throughout England, Germany, Holland, 
 Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Iceland. And 
 the Sclavonic is the language of Bohemia, 
 Poland, Russia, and the other nations and 
 peoples to the east of Europe. To the Latin 
 belong the French, Italian, Provencal, Spanish, 
 and Portuguese, commonly called the Romance 
 languages. And the Greek is cqnfined to 
 Greece. All these families and sub-families of 
 language were long known to have resemblances 
 
 9 
 
I30 THE BUILDERS OF BASEL. 
 
 and relationships to each other ; but the precise 
 degree of relationship was never ascertained and 
 fixed until the discovery of the old Sanskrit of 
 India, at the close of the last century, the first 
 glimpse of which changed the whole aspect of 
 the science of language, and reduced it to a 
 system. 
 
 This language was embalmed for more than 
 three thousand years in the sacred books of the 
 Brahmanic Aryans, whose ancestors brought it 
 from their primitive abode in southern or central 
 Asia to their adopted home in Arya-varta, or 
 Hindostan, more than two thousand years before 
 the Christian era. The eastern emigrants, like 
 their brethren the early colonizers of Greece, were 
 the pioneers of civilization ; and the monuments 
 of their existence that remain attest them to have 
 been, what may be termed, the aristocracy of 
 humanity. No better evidence of their superiority 
 could be found than that contained in their old 
 Sanskrit language, which has preserved, and re- 
 veals, their thoughts and achievements to men of 
 this distant generation. Sir W. Jones, in his first 
 introduction of it to the notice of the Asiatic 
 Society, in 1782, describes it as of a wonderful 
 structure, " more perfect than the Greek, more 
 
SHEM. 131 
 
 copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely re- 
 fined than either." When this ancient language 
 ■came in view, and was submitted to the critical 
 ■examination of European philologists, all the 
 languages of Europe, to the west of Shinar, and 
 the Zend, the parent of the Persian, with the Sans- 
 krit and its descendants, the modern languages 
 of India, to the east of Shinar, were recognized 
 to be members of the one family, and flowing 
 from one fountain head. The grammer was 
 nearly identical, and their words generally trace- 
 able to the same roots. They fell into their 
 proper places, their pedigree was manifested, 
 and they stood forth in the relationship of sisters 
 to each other, the descendants of some single 
 language now extinct, which was their common 
 ancestor. And as all the people by whom these 
 languages are spoken are of the Caucasian race, 
 it is plain that they are the blood descendants 
 of a single family, whose home could not have 
 been far distant from Mesopotamia. 
 
 It is not necessary to explain how it is that the 
 comparative philologist has been able to define 
 the pedigree of the Japhetic or Indo-European 
 family of languages; and to prove that the Celtic, 
 Teutonic, and Sclavonic, the Latin and Greek 
 
 9—2 
 
THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 the Zend and Sanskrit, stand in the relationship 
 of sister languages to each other, the descendants 
 of a common ancestor, which has become extinct ; 
 and that the Italian, French, and other Romance 
 languages, are descendants of the Latin, in the 
 relationship of parent and children. But the 
 general affinity of all these languages to each 
 other is easily seen. Take, for instance, the 
 word "father" A word to denote the same idea 
 must have had existence in the earliest stage of 
 human speech, wheresoever and by whomsoever 
 spoken. In old German it is "fadhar," in Latin 
 it is "fater" in Greek it is "irarr^p," and in 
 Sanskrit it, is " pitar" — all of them obviously 
 flowing from the one source. In like manner 
 "mother" is in old German "madhar" in Latin 
 "mater" in Greek " fiaTTjp" and in Sanskrit 
 " mAtar." The same resemblances are found to 
 exist with respect to the words brother, sister, 
 son, daughter, widow, dog, cow, heaven and 
 earth, the numerals from one to one hundred, 
 and other words that must have been in daily 
 use, when the whole Japhetic family were col- 
 lected in one spot, and in constant daily com- 
 munication with each other. When a variance 
 presents itself, it is generally found to proceed 
 
SHEM. 133 
 
 from the circumstance of synonyms having been 
 in use in the original language. For instance, 
 the English word " son" is the same as the Sans- 
 krit " sunus," while the Latin is "filius." The 
 one is derived from the root " su" to bring forth, 
 which was adopted by the Teutons and Hindoos, 
 and the other from a root signifying " to suck," 
 •"the sucking one," which was adopted by the 
 Latin and Greek emigrants. 
 
 The personal verb "to be," in its various 
 moods and tenses, is found in all the Japhetic lan- 
 guages. For example, in Greek we have et/xt, et?, 
 60-Tt ; in Lithuanian (a Teutonic language) esmi, 
 £ssi, esti ; and in Sanskrit, it is asmi, assi, asti. 
 How does it happen that a native of Greece, a 
 native of Germany, and a native of India have 
 been using this verb from generation to genera- 
 tion for thousands of years ? The Hindoo did 
 not learn it from the Greek, or the Greek from 
 the Hindoo, or the Teuton from either. But the 
 explanation of the phenomenon is, that they all 
 and each of them, Greek, Teuton, and Hindoo, 
 derived it from a common ancestor, who indi- 
 vidually framed the verb in the patriarchal stage 
 of society, and left it to his posterity as an heir- 
 loom, that has never been lost or alienated by 
 
134 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 them in their journeyings from the home of their 
 fathers, whether their faces were turned to the 
 rising or to the setting sun. It is certain, that 
 when the foregoing, and other words, thus found 
 running throughout all the Aryan, or Japhetic, 
 languages, were first selected from among the 
 many possible words that might have been 
 chosen to denote the same thing, the ancestors 
 of the several people who now speak them were 
 living under the same roof; for how otherwise 
 could selection or common use have been 
 possible? The grammatical articulations, the 
 identity of which, more than the identity of 
 vocabulary, is the criterion of the identity of 
 languages, were in like manner produced, at 
 once and for all, before the first emigrants had 
 separated from the parent stock. They never 
 could have' been formed afterwards; for the 
 Europeans to the west, and the Persians and 
 Hindoos to the east, must have been supplied 
 with that common stock of words and gram- 
 matical forms which has. been transmitted to. 
 their respective posterities, before they left the 
 early abode of the forefathers of their race, never 
 to return. 
 
 Here, then> with the aid of comparative 
 
SHEM. 135 
 
 philology, and without resorting to Scripture, 
 we have the progenitors of all the Aryan, or 
 Japhetic, nations and peoples — European, Per- 
 sian, and Hindoo — compressed, upwards of four 
 thousand years ^o, into a narrow family circle 
 in south-western Asia, between India and Persia 
 on the one side, and Europe on the other. And 
 thus Scripture and science harmonize as to the 
 locality of the goodly tree of the Japhetite,' 
 whose branches extend over the whole of what is 
 known as the civilized world of history, with the 
 exception of the countries that are peopled by 
 their brethren, the Semitic race, whose position 
 on the map, and in the history of the world, has 
 been defined in all ages as distinct from that of 
 the Japhetite. Centuries have swept on their 
 courses, and brought to the sons of Shem 
 seasons of sunshine and seasons of darkness. 
 God's favour and God's wrath have visited them^ 
 but their identity has never been lost, and 
 seldom obscured. The Japhetite has been 
 pouring forth his forces irresistibly throughout 
 the world, absorbing all the other races of man- 
 kind with whom he comes in contact ; but th? 
 Semite has preserved his individuality through 
 all, not only in his own well-defined country. 
 
X36 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 but even when, driven out by the decree of the 
 Almighty, he has, in fulfilment of his predicted 
 destiny, been dwelling in the tents of Japhet for 
 many generations. 
 
 The Semitic languages are the Aramaic, the 
 Hebrew, and the Arabic ; and they are so 
 closely related to each other in dictionary and 
 in grammar, that it is impossible not to re- 
 cognize them as having, like the Japhetic 
 languages, a common origin. As a family, they 
 are wholly different in structure and words from 
 the Japhetic family of languages. Max MiiUer, 
 in his lectures on the science of language, ob- 
 serves that " it is impossible to mistake a Semitic 
 language ; and, what is more important, it is 
 impossible to imagine an Aryan (or Japhetic) 
 language derived from a Semitic, or a Semitic 
 from an Aryan. The grammatical framework 
 is totally distinct in these two families of 
 speech ;" though, as "■he adds, " it is more than 
 probable that the material elements with which 
 they both started are the same ;" and so they 
 were (though this accomplished linguist failed 
 to detect and appreciate the important truth) 
 before the division at Shinar, when all, both 
 Semite and Japhetite, were of one tongue. 
 
SHEM. \yj 
 
 Thus the increase of knowledge teaches us, 
 that there are two existing families of language 
 of the civilized world, spoken by two peoples 
 who are members of the same Caucasian race, 
 and yet so different in structure, and indepen- 
 dent in character, that no ingenuity can derive 
 the one from the other. Each must, at some 
 period of the existence of the Caucasian race, 
 have of necessity originated in, and flowed from, 
 a small community consisting of a few indi- 
 viduals; and therefore, when first framed and 
 spoken, the whole collective population must 
 have been as few in nurhber as the confederated 
 sons of Noah are represented to have been in 
 the plains of Shinar. Philologists have elimi- 
 nated and established the truth ; and, without 
 any reference to Scripture, have brought the 
 two families of language, the Semitic and 
 Japhetic, before us in their irreconcilable 
 diversity, and admit their inability to account 
 for so strange a circumstance. In their blind- 
 ness to what Scripture has disclosed, they 
 describe them as starting up mysteriously and 
 unaccountably in the stage of history, perfect in 
 structure, and fully equipped for the mighty 
 works they had to perform, in replenishing the 
 
138 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 earth with civilization and religion. But when 
 and where the severance was effected, the 
 philosopher leaves in obscurity and without 
 explanation. His experience can furnish him 
 with no precedent — his science can supply no 
 principle for a theory ; and in his despair, he 
 casts the transaction back into the dark un- 
 fathomed depths of past time, rather than ac- 
 knowledge a divine interposition in the affairs of 
 man. The supernatural finds no favour with the 
 Japhetite philosopher, whose creed, as we have 
 already shown, is that all phenomena are to be 
 explained by purely natural causes. 
 
 But to those who will receive it, the Book of 
 Genesis supplies a solution of the difficulty — 
 revealing to us, simply and concisely, that before 
 the building at Babel all the descendants of 
 Noah were of one tongue; and that by the 
 presence and power of the Almighty, and for His. 
 own purposes, that 6ne tongue was severed at 
 Shinar into three separate languages, corre- 
 sponding to the families of Shem, Ham, and 
 Japhet. The Hamitic language has ceased to 
 exist as a spoken language, though it is stated 
 that traces of it are still to be found in parts of 
 Arabia, Abyssinia, and the northern shores of 
 
SHEM. 139 
 
 Africa. The other two languages remain ta 
 attest the truth of the divine record of the con- 
 fusion of speech on the plains of Shinar. The 
 fact as recorded is sufficient to account for all 
 that history has preserved, and scientific research 
 has supplied, with respect to those two remark- 
 able languages, without which, it may be truly 
 said, there would be no history, no science, and 
 no true religion in the world. 
 
 No miracle in the Bible is so well authenti- 
 cated as this description of the one speech of the 
 one people at the time and place recorded in 
 Genesis. The Red Sea and the river Jordan 
 were divided that a way might be made for the 
 ransomed to pass over, and th'e waters closed 
 again in silence, leaving no witness but God's 
 word to vouch for the event. But thi severance 
 of the natural flow of human speech that took 
 place at Shinar has never closed again, and 
 exists to the present hour, to bear witness to the 
 truth of God's word, and to proclaim His 
 guiding presence in the affairs of the children 
 of men. 
 
 Thus the record of God's dealings with the 
 confederated tribes at Shinar is not a fable or a 
 myth, but a true history of an event that oc- 
 
140 THE BUILDERS OF BABELi 
 
 curred at the place, and at the time, alleged in 
 the Bible'; an event that presents itself to this 
 generation, like the sites of Babylon and Nine- 
 veh, like Egypt and Palestine, like the Jew and 
 the Arab, the Israelite and the Ishmaelite, to 
 attest the truth and inspiration of Holy Writ. 
 The unerring testimony of language authenti- 
 cates the event; the bricks and marbles of 
 Babylon authenticate the place; and the dis- 
 interested and unbiassed testimony of Greek 
 and Hindoo historians authenticates the time. 
 What more is required to establish the authen- 
 ticity of the Scripture record as a true history of 
 a primeval event, miraculous as related, and 
 inexplicable except as a miracle. 
 
 But what, it may be asked, was the purpose 
 of God in this visitation on the early ancestors 
 ■of the Caucasian race .' It was not required, 
 as generally supposed, for the dispersion 
 throughout the earth of the descendants of 
 Noah; for such a dispersion would have been 
 the necessary and natural result of increasing 
 population, spreading itself abroad as naturally 
 as a growing tree shoots forth its branches. The 
 necessities of living would have insured the 
 ■expansion of the race throughout the world. 
 
SHEM. 1411 
 
 But God does nothing in vain. And in this- 
 instance, His direct interposition was required 
 to restrain the evil of such a godless dispersion. 
 Experience has shown us that the knowledge 
 of the one God, the Creator and Governor of 
 the world, would soon have been extinguished 
 in the whirl and eddy of the rushing and con- 
 tending streams of worldliness and self-seeking, 
 if the great Jehovah had not ordained and 
 separated a peculiar people to be the deposi- 
 taries and witnesses of His religion, strengthen- 
 ing them by repeated personal revelations of 
 His power and goodness for the performance of 
 the duty imposed upon them. 
 
 The whole current of sacred and profane 
 history attests, that to the Semitic branch of 
 Noah's family were thus committed the oracles 
 of the only true God, and were by them pre- 
 served until the death and resurrection of the 
 Saviour. Since that time the Japhetite has, 
 in the predictive language of the patriarch 
 Noah, been dwelling in the tents of Shem, andS 
 bearing onward the banner of the true faith, 
 which was taken from the hands of the outcast- 
 Semite. God has never left Himself without 
 a witness. " Blessed be the Lord God of 
 
142 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 Shem," was the language of the father of Shem. 
 In the calling out of Abraham, and the rite of 
 circumcision, we read the token and ratification 
 of this privilege to his posterity. The mission 
 of Moses, and the promulgation of the law from- 
 Sinai, established and defined their office. The 
 true spirit of their religion was embalmed in the 
 sweet songs of the minstrel kings of Sion ; and 
 the holy prophets pronounced that though as 
 n nation they were to be outcast, it is only until 
 the times of the Gentiles shall be fulfilled, when 
 the glory shall return to the children of Shem, 
 and, in the language of Isaiah, " they shall be 
 . named again the priests of the Lord, and men 
 shall call them the ministers of our God." Then 
 «hall be the completion of Noah's blessing, that 
 the Lord God of Shem — the God of Abraham, 
 Isaac, and Jacob — shall be exalted to be the 
 acknowledged king over all the earth, and shall 
 set His throne on Mount Sion, "and the Gen- 
 tiles shall 'come to thy light, and kings to the 
 brightness of-thy rising." 
 
 With such a history and such a destiny, we 
 can well conceive that it was in, the councils 
 of God, when He confounded the speech of the 
 family of Noah, and severed them according 
 
SHEM. 143 
 
 to their tongues, that the chosen guardians of 
 His oracles on earth should- be furnished with 
 a language adapted to the high and holy 
 functions imposed upon them, attuniAg and 
 elevating the mind to that divinity of thought 
 and imagination which breathes in the Hebrew 
 text of the Bible. Lessons of faith so pure and 
 precious required, for their conception and pre- 
 servation, language as sublime and inspiring as 
 that which was spoken by Moses and the pro- 
 phets. The biblical Hebrew is, beyond all other 
 languages, adapted for devotional and pro- 
 phetical inspiration. Beautiful and elevating as 
 our English version is, it falls immeasurably 
 " short of the sublimity of the original of the Old 
 Testament ; and yet, even in our translation, 
 the spiritual mind can discern and appreciate the 
 divinity of thought and feeling that inspired the 
 writers and hearers of the original text. For 
 instance, what grand conceptions of the might 
 and majesty of the Most High are conveyed in 
 the 68th Psalm :— 
 
 " Let God arise, let His enemies be scattered : let them also 
 that hate Hun flee before Him. As smoke is driven away, so 
 drive them away : as wax melteth before the fire, so let the 
 wiclced perish in the presence of God. But \i\. the righteous be 
 glad ; let them rejoice before God : yea, let them exceedingly 
 
144 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 rejoice. Sing unto God, sing praises to His name : extol Him 
 that rideth upon the heavens by His name JAH, and rejoice 
 before Him. A father of thft fatherless, and a judge of the 
 widows, is God in His holy habitation. . . . O God, when 
 Thou wentest forth before Thy people, when Thou didst march 
 through the wilderness ; the earth shook, the heavens also 
 dropped at the presence of God : even Sinai itself was moved 
 at the presence of God, the God of Israel. . . . The Lord 
 gave the word : great was the company of those that published 
 it. Kings of armies did flee apace, and she that tarried at home 
 divided the spoil. Though ye have lien among the pots, yet 
 shall ye be as the wings of a dove covered with silver, and her 
 feathers with yellow gold. . . . The chariots of God are 
 twenty thousand, even thousands of angels : the Lord is among 
 them, as in Sinai, in the holy place. Thou hast ascended on 
 high, Thou hast led captivity captive : Thou hast received gifts 
 for men ; yea, for the rebellious also, that the Lord God might 
 dwell among them. . . . Sing unto the Lord, ye kingdoms 
 of the earth ; O sing praises unto the Lord ; to Him that rideth 
 upon the heavens of heavens, which were of old ; lo. He doth 
 send out His voice, and that a mighty voice. Ascribe ye 
 strength unto God ; His excellency is over Israel, and' His 
 strength is in the clouds. O. God, Thou art terrible out of Thy 
 holy places : the God of Israel i^ He that giveth strength and 
 power unto His people. Blessed be God." 
 
 And again, in the 77th Psalm : — 
 
 " The waters saw Thee, O God, the waters saw Thee : they 
 were afraid ; the depths also were troubled. The clouds poured 
 out water : the skies sent out a sound : Thine arrows went 
 abroad. The voice of Thy thunder was in the heavens : the 
 lightnings -lightened the world : the earth trembled and shook. 
 Thy way is in the sea, and Thy path in the great waters, and Thy 
 footsteps are not known." 
 
 The picture of the omnipotence and omni- 
 
SHEM. 145 
 
 presence of God in the various objects of nature, 
 as portrayed in the 104th Psalm, has never 
 been equalled in any language. The Psalmist 
 opens with a sublime description of the greatness 
 and power of the Almighty : — 
 
 " Bless the Lord, O ray soul. O Lord my pod; Thou art 
 very great : Thou art clothed with honour and majesty. Who 
 coverest Thyself with light as with a garment : Who stretchest 
 out the heavens like a curtain : Who layeth the beams of His 
 chambers in the waters : Who maketh the clouds His chariot : 
 Who walketh upon the wings of the wind : Who maketh His 
 angels spirits, His ministers a flaming fire : Who laid the foun- 
 dations of the earth, that it should not be removed for ever. 
 Thou coverest it with the deep as with a garment : the waters, 
 stood above the mountains. At Thy rebuke they fled : at the 
 voice of Thy thunder they hasted away." 
 
 This sketch of omnipotence is followed by a 
 simple and truthful, concise, and at the same 
 time comprehensive view of the life of the ter- 
 restrial globe, and the sustaining omnipresence 
 of God in the works of His creation. Valleys 
 and hills, the refuge for the wild goat, and the 
 rocks for the conies, are refreshed with the 
 springs that God sendeth forth, and are watered 
 from His ^ chambers, to quench tiie wild ass's, 
 thirst, and to give drink to the beasts of the 
 field. The -trees of the Lord are full of sap : He 
 .planteth the cedars of Lebanon, Where the birds 
 
 10 
 
146 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 make their nests, and sing among the branches. 
 He causeth the grass to grow, for cattle, and 
 herb for the service of man, that he may bring 
 forth food out of the earth, and wine to make 
 glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face 
 to shine, and bread which strengtheneth his 
 heart. He appointed the moon for seasons, and 
 with the going down of the sun He maketh 
 darkness, when the beasts of the field creep 
 forth. The young lions roar for their prey, and 
 seek their meat from God. The sun ariseth, 
 they gather themselves together, and lay them 
 down in their dens. The great and wide sea 
 is portrayed with ships on its surface, and 
 leviathan ahd creeping things innumerable in its 
 depths. These all wait upon God, that He may 
 give them their meat in due season. They are 
 troubled at the hiding of His face. He takes 
 away their breath, and they return to their dust. 
 He sends forth His spirit ; they are created, and 
 the face of the earth is renewed. Earthquakes 
 and volcanoes are also from the same Almighty 
 power. He looketh on the earth, and it 
 trembleth; He toucheth the hills, and they 
 smoke. The J^ord is thus represented as re- 
 joicing in all His works ; and in the midst of all, 
 
SHEM. 147 
 
 man is introduced going forth humbly to his 
 labour until the evening. " O Lord, how mani- 
 fold are Thy works ; in wisdom hast Thou made 
 them all : the earth is full of Thy riches." 
 
 In like manner, the Book of Job, while it was 
 written with the moral object of contrasting the 
 weakness of the natural man with the strength 
 of the. spiritual nian, presents us with descriptions 
 of the phenomena of nature which are as ac- 
 curate as they^ are sublime; and all .in im- 
 mediate contact with their great Author. Such 
 thoughts and feelings, and their expressions, were 
 peculiar to the Semitic race at the time they 
 were written. And so far as similar sentiments 
 and aspirations are now found among the 
 Japhetites, they have been learned from the 
 Semite by the in-dwelling of the Spirit of God, 
 through Christ, and are not the natural product 
 of the Japhetic mind. 
 
 Those only who have studied the influence of 
 human speech on human thought and action, 
 can estimate the effect that the endowment of 
 the , sons of Shem with a language like the 
 Semitic has had in preserving, in their purity 
 and integrity, the foundations of the true faith 
 from Adam to Moses, and from Moses to Christ. 
 
 10 — 2 
 
148 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 On the other hand, science, arts, and literature 
 have never been developed and utilized by and 
 through any other but a Japhetic language.. 
 Spiritual edification is rooted in Semitism ; but 
 intellectual and political progress has flowed 
 onward with the Japhetites over the world of 
 history. Both religion and civilization are 
 necessities for the well-being of mankind, and 
 for each other. True religion can find no 
 entrance where civilization does not proceed or 
 accompany it; and the results of civilization 
 without true religion may be read in the fate of 
 Chaldeea and Egypt, of Phoenicia and Carthage. 
 In our own days, experience teaches us that 
 Satan triumphs when civilization enters within 
 the borders of the heathen, unattended by the 
 purifying and restraining influence of religion. 
 Even Japhetic civilization, until the Sun of 
 Righteousness arose, was a period of gross 
 spiritual darkness and lawless violence, and 
 Semitic civilization was ever a weak and sickly 
 plant. Thus it was, that while the knowledge 
 of the true God was confined to the sons of Shem. 
 Aryan civilization did little more for the human 
 race than the civilization of the godless Hamite 
 had done before. But when Japhet began to 
 
SHEM. 149 
 
 •dwell in the tents of Shem, through Christ, and 
 the first seeds of the union of civilization and 
 religion were planted, a brighter day dawned on 
 humanity, to be succeeded by one incomparably 
 more brilliant, when the times of the Gentiles 
 which are running their course, shall be fulfilled. 
 
 The national history of the Hebrew may be 
 said to have closed with the destruction of 
 Jerusalem by the Romans, and the dispersion of 
 the Jews throughout the nations of the world. 
 But though nearly two thousand years have 
 elapsed since that event, their identity has 
 never been lost. The Jew is known in all lands. 
 They are preserved for a future, the outline of 
 which is clearly defined in the same Book that 
 so faithfully records their history from Abraham 
 to Christ, leaving them from that time in dark- 
 ness, but shedding a light on the other side of 
 the gulf that divides them from the restoration 
 and rest that await them in their own land. 
 The residue of their history is inscribed on the 
 pages of prophecy. They are the only people 
 who have an earthly future secured to. them by 
 sacred charter. 
 
 When the prophets of Israel wrote, the great 
 cities of the East were in the zenith of their 
 
ISO , THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 pride. Babylon was powerful and prosperous, 
 living delieiously, and boasting herself to be a 
 Queen among the nations of the earth. Tyre,- 
 was, at the same time, the emporium of the 
 commerce of the civilized world. Her mer- 
 chants were princes, her traffickers the honour- 
 able of the earth. The towers and bulwarks of 
 Zion were then standing round the temple of 
 Jerusalem, the city of the Great King. Peace 
 was still within her walls, and plenteousness 
 within her palaces. But the prophet looked 
 down the stream of time, and read and recorded 
 the secrets of the future. He saw the river of 
 God's providence passing by the site of Babylon, 
 swept with the besom of destruction, without an 
 inhabitant, a possession for the bittern, a place 
 for dragons, and a dwelling for the wild beasts 
 of the desert. Farther on it passes by the 
 place were Tyre had stood, and the foundations 
 of the proud city were swept bare like the top of 
 a rock, where the fisherman was spreading his 
 nets, surrounded by the sea. Farther on, the 
 same river encircles Mount Zion, and lo ! Jeru- 
 salem is trodden down by the Gentiles, her 
 palaces are heaps, her temple is in the dust, and 
 her inhabitants are exiles in all lands, " wanderers 
 
SHEM. 
 
 151 
 
 among the nations." AH this that was visible 
 to the prophet's eye alone when it was written, 
 came afterwards to pass as it was written ; and 
 the predictive power was thus established to be 
 a reality. 
 
 But the prophet looked farther down the 
 stream of time, and behold ! far away, in the 
 last days, he saw the mountain of the Lord's 
 house established on the top of the mountains 
 and exalted above the hills, and many people 
 going and" saying, " Comej go, and let us go up 
 to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the 
 God of Jacob ; for out of Zion shall go forth the 
 law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem." 
 He saw the outcasts of Israel assembled, and 
 the dispersed of Judah gathered in from the 
 four corners of the earth. He saw the spirit of 
 God animating the dry bones of the outcast 
 Israelite, and making Ephraini and Judah one 
 nation in the land upon the mountains of 
 Palestine. If time has set the seal of truth on 
 the threatening of the prophet, must not the 
 same seal authenticate and insure the reality of 
 those pictures of the returning favour of God 
 which are generally presented in the same page ? 
 Their calling and their apostasy, their pardon 
 
152 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 and acceptance are inseparable. The truth and 
 assurance of God's promise of the inheritance of 
 the Holy Land to the seed of Abraham would 
 not be vindicated, if the record of the trans- 
 gression and expulsion of the Jew was not 
 accompanied with the record of his repentance 
 and restoration to God's favour. 
 
 So far the past and present positions of that 
 branch of the Semitic family who are the 
 descendants of Abraham, through Isaac, are 
 wonderfully consistent with Scripture. The 
 history of the other branch. of the same family, 
 through Ishmael, presents them in a light that is 
 even more strikingly in accordance with what 
 the Bible has predicted^ of their future. The 
 Arabs have from time immemorial been divided 
 into two great races. One is known as the tribe 
 of Adnan, and the other as the tribe of Khattan. 
 The former is sprung from Ishmael — the latter 
 claim descent from Joktan, the son of Shem, 
 and have always regarded the tribe of Adnan as 
 intruders. But we have reason to know, that 
 besides these two tribes, the Cushite was for 
 many centuries the occupant of the greater part, 
 if not of the whole, of the Arabian peninsula, 
 and was displaced gradually by the increasing 
 
SHEM. 153 
 
 population of the Semitic Arabs ; though to the 
 present hour some remnants of the Cushite 
 remain, and traces of their language are found 
 lingering around the ruined Hymarite cities. 
 The Khattanites, who probably are the descen- 
 dants of Shem outside the family of Abraham, 
 have long had possession of Arabia Felix, or 
 Yemen, and have lived in towns, cultivating to 
 some extent the arts of civilization ; while the 
 Ishmaelite Arabs have roamed in nomadic 
 freedom through the deserts of Arabia, lawless 
 invaders and plunderers of the property of their 
 neighbours, who have ever regarded them with 
 implacable hostility. 
 
 The Arabs were, for many centuries, a link 
 between the East and West. While the Cushite 
 and Phoenician traders and merchants flourished, 
 they were the commercial carriers that conveyed 
 the products of India and the Eastern Archi- 
 pelago across the desert to Egypt, Phoenicia, 
 and E'urope. Joseph was sold to Ishmaelites, 
 who were thus occupied, as recorded in the 
 thirty-seventh chapter of Genesis. But they 
 were wanderers, without any bond of union, 
 political or religious, for more than two thousand 
 years, until Mahomet, in the seventh century of 
 
JS4 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 our Christian era, bound them, and all the other 
 Arab tribes, in the holy league of Islamism, as 
 professors of faith in the God of Abraham, and 
 in himself as His prophet. A strange fanatical 
 sentiment took possession of these untamed 
 sons of the desert, which issued in a career of 
 conquest that has never been equalled in th$ 
 history of mankind. They proselytized, with the 
 sword. Spoil and Paradise were their battle 
 cry ; and spreading foi;th, -in a very few years 
 they subjugated Syria, Persia, and parts of 
 Europe ; and within a century from the death of 
 Mahomet, his successors had extended their 
 conquests into Toorkistan, Affghanistan, and 
 Northern India, in the east ; and through Africa 
 to the Atlantic, in the west ; and crossing into 
 Spain, they colonized the richest provinces of 
 that country, and occupied Sicily and Malta in 
 the Mediterranean. The religion they planted 
 still prevails among the Aryans in the East 
 and in Africa. But after living for nearly four 
 centuries in unparalleled splendour and luxury 
 throughout their conquered countries, they- 
 retired again to - their tents in Arabia, and re- 
 sumed their simple nomadic occupations, and 
 the predatory habits of their ancestors. Their 
 
SHEM. TSS 
 
 new religion, and long residence in foreign 
 countries, surrounded with the pomp and cir- 
 cumstance of a dominant race, dwelling in 
 magnificent cities, and in possession of fertile 
 lands, had wrought no change in the nature of 
 the Ishmaelite Arab. He became again, like 
 his forefathers, " the wild man, whose hand is 
 against every man, and every man's hand is 
 against him ;" and such he remains to this hour. 
 The Lord God of the Semitic Arab is the God 
 of Abraham, blessed for ever. 
 
 That these sons of Ishmael should have 
 passed through such an ordeal, without losing, 
 their identity, is a testimony to the truth of 
 Scripture that cannot be gainsaid. It was writ- 
 ten, and the history pf centuries has confirmed 
 the truth of what was written, that as Semites, 
 they were to be worshippers of the Lord God 
 of Shem, and as children of Abraham after the 
 flesh, they were to be distinguished by their wild, 
 irregular, and hostile mode of life. The con- 
 tinuance of a people, who combined such ap- 
 parently incompatible characteristics, for more 
 than three thousand years, and under circum- 
 stances that would have changed the- natural 
 propensities and habits of any other race of 
 
55 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 mankind, ought to bring conviction to every 
 reasoning mind, that there is a God who has 
 been guiding and governing the course of the 
 world to the fulfilment of all that He has de- 
 clared by the mouth of His holy prophets from 
 the beginning. 
 
 Thus it is that the history of the world reveals 
 to us that the Hebrew and the Arab, the two 
 families , of mankind who represent the true 
 Semites, have hitherto fulfilled their predicted 
 destinies to the letter. Though differing widely 
 in their religious creeds, the Lord God of Shem 
 is the God of the Jew, the Mussulman, and the 
 Christian. Japhetites are dwelling in the tents 
 of Shem, the Hebrew is homeless, and the 
 Ishmaelite, as ever, is the antagonist of every 
 man. The flood of human events has rolled 
 over and beyond the children of Shem, scattered 
 and peeled, and too often despised and despite- 
 fuUy treated by the dominant and arrogant sons 
 of Japhet ; though all the knowledge of the 
 Most High that the Japhetite possesses, and 
 all their hopes beyond the narrow confines of 
 human life, have flowed down to them through 
 •an exclusively Semitic channel. The whole re- 
 ligious instruction of mankind is contained in 
 
SHEM. 157- 
 
 the Semitic Bible. The Pentateuch, whether 
 written or compiled from older records or 
 traditions, was wholly Semitic. The historical, 
 devotional, arid prophetical canon of Scripture 
 was the exclusive production of Semites ; and the 
 New Testament dispensation, which unveils the 
 mystery of godliness, and 'defines the path to- 
 eternal life, was delivered to us by the children 
 of Shem, who were the only ostensible human 
 medium of intelligence that has ever existed be- 
 tween God and man. 
 
 The race of Adam has had, as , every indi- 
 vidual has had, an infancy, a youth, and a man- 
 hood; and its education has proceeded accord- 
 ingly. As a child is projected and taught by 
 its parent, so was the Adamite in his infancy in- 
 structed by God Himself in the knowledge of 
 His existence. He was placed in a garden for 
 protection, and provided with food fit for his 
 sustenance. He was taught, as a child is taught 
 by its parent, the use of words to designate 
 familiar objects. The necessity of unquestioning^ 
 obedience was inculcated, and he experienced 
 the penalty of disobedience. Though an outcast 
 by transgression, God approaches him again as 
 a friend, encouraging him by visions of hope and 
 
IS8 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 sure promises, as in the case of Abraham, and 
 extending protection and assistance in the person 
 of Moses, a deliverer and a guide from the Red 
 Sea to Jordan. With the exodus from Egypt, 
 the childhood of the Adamite ended. "When 
 Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called 
 my son out of Egypt."* With the giving of the 
 law from Sinai, in the person of the Israelite, 
 the Adamite entered on the stage of discipline 
 which youth requires as the preparation for 
 manhood. The law was their schoolmaster to 
 bring them to Christ, and so continued, as we! 
 are told,_until " the fulness of the time was come 
 when God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, 
 made under the law, to redeem them that were 
 under the law, that we might receive the adop- 
 tion of sons," and become heirs of God and joint 
 heirs with Christ. No longer children, and the 
 period of servitude under tutors and governors 
 having passed away, tJte manhood of the race 
 began. The time for greater action had arrived, 
 when the knowledge of God was to be extended 
 beyond the borders of Semitism, and embrace 
 all humanity ; the sons of Japhet were invited 
 lo dwell in the tents of Shem, and to such of 
 * Hosea xi. i. 
 
SHE AT. 1 59 
 
 them as received Christ, to them gave He power 
 to become the sons of God. 
 
 Such has teen the religious education of our 
 race from the first to the second Adam. It was 
 wholly Semitic, both as to the channels through 
 which instruction was conveyed and those who 
 were taught, until its completion, when the know- 
 ledge of the Lord God of Shem in Christ was made 
 known to the Gentiles and the true standard of the 
 Christian believer was depicted by the apostles, 
 his privileges defined, and his future established. 
 By faith he was to become a son of God, and 
 a joint heir with Christ of the promises made to 
 the Semitic fathers. And yet few of the multi- 
 tudes invited have entered the gates of salvation 
 thus opened to them ; for mediaeval Christianity 
 soon returned to the beggarly elements of sub- 
 jection to ordinances and a sacrificing priest- 
 hood ; and the Gospel doctrines of the glorious 
 freedom of the sons of God were well-nigh 
 extinguished by the retrograde tendency of the 
 Church of the Middle Ages to assume a Semitic 
 character, and re-enact the schoolmaster to bring 
 men to Christ by the works of the law and sacer- 
 dotal mediation. The Saviour had communi- 
 cated to his Semitic apostles, and commissioned 
 
i6o THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 them to communicate to mankind, the saving 
 doctrines of the new dispensation ; and theif 
 mission was authenticated by the gift of power 
 to work miracles ; and signs and wonders fol- 
 lowed their, preaching of the Gospel. But no 
 son of Japhet was ever so commissioned by- 
 Christ, none were clothed with inspiration like 
 the prophets and apostles ; and if any of the 
 early Gentile converts were endowed with super- 
 natural gifts, they died out as the Christian 
 religion subsided into a Japhetic channel. For 
 centuries the Scriptures, the only testimony of 
 the Lord God of Shem and His Christ, were 
 ignored, and the unauthorized dogmas of self- 
 constituted messengers and ministers of God 
 were substituted, to supply new and unscriptural 
 rules of Christian faith. The principle achieved 
 by the Reformation was the assertion of the suf- 
 ficiency of the Semitic Scriptures to supply all 
 the information necessary for salvation, and a 
 denial of any other source of religious know-' 
 ledge, as well expressed in the Fifth Article of 
 religion : " Holy Scripture containeth all things 
 necessary to salvation, so that whatsoever is not 
 read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not 
 to be required by any man that it should be 
 
SHEM. i6i 
 
 believed as an Article of the Faith, or be 
 thought requisite or necessary to salvation." 
 This was the great principle that was revived, 
 after slumbering for centuries, and vindicated 
 by the Reformers — to hold fast the doctrines 
 and precepts delivered to the prophets and 
 apostles, and by them bequeathed to the sons 
 of Japhet ; and sternly to repudiate all priestly 
 pretensions and practices, either by way of me- 
 diation or interpretation, that are not warranted 
 by the letter or true spirit of Holy Writ. 
 
 Preachers there are many, and teachers many ; 
 but the glad tidings proclaimed, and the way of 
 salvation taught, were God's gift to the Israelite, 
 " to whom pertaineth the adoption and the glory, 
 and the covenants, and the giving of the Iaw> 
 and the service of God, and the promises." 
 Whatever vitality and fruitfulness is found in 
 the wild olive-tree of the Gentiles, has grown 
 out of the root and fatness of the good olive- 
 tree of Israel, into which they were grafted. 
 All the religious and moral culture which leads 
 the Gentile to bless the Lord God of Shem, has 
 been derived from the Semite, while the intel- 
 lectual education and social advancement of 
 mankind, which is enlarging Japhet, has been 
 
 II 
 
1 62 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 developed by their own peculiar qualities ; and 
 the perfection of humanity will not be realized 
 until the two streams of religion and civilization 
 shall combine, when all the sons of Japhet shall 
 dwell in the tents of Shem — 
 
 " Where all of good from days of old, 
 By poets sung, by prophets told. 
 
 As then, and yet to come : 
 And all that's pure of love and joy. 
 Without earth's passionate alloy, 
 
 Meet in their heavenly home. 
 When the dead in Christ shall rise, to be 
 The fruit of Israel's ripened olive-tree." 
 
( i63 ) 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 " God shall enlarge Japhet, and he shall dwell in the tents 
 ofShem." — Gen. ix. 27. 
 
 The political existence of the once potent and 
 influential Hamite has ceased, and the religious 
 mission of the Semite has been suspended, for 
 upwards of eighteen hundred years ; and during 
 that interval, the Japhetite has been the only 
 vehicle for the expansion of revealed religion 
 and enlightened civilization throughout the 
 world. This people has been always possessed 
 ■of moral and intellectual qualities, that were 
 not to be found in either of the two other races. 
 Science, arts, literature, and commerce have 
 had in their hands- a quickening influence that 
 has realized enduring temporal blessings for 
 mankind. Their expansion necessitated con- 
 quest ; but the object of Japhetite conquest was 
 
 II — 2 
 
1 64 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 not destruction, like the Tartar conquests, or 
 isolation, like the Chinese^ but reconstruction, 
 and the instituion of a better state of humanity, 
 either by ameliorating the moral and physical 
 condition of the conquered, or, as unhappily too- 
 often the case, by displacing them, and colo- 
 nizing their territories with their own superior 
 race — first in Europe, next in America, and 
 later, on the coast of Africa, and in Australia ; 
 and in our own days, a commencement has been 
 made among the higher races of China, Japan, 
 and throughout the Eastern Archipelago, the 
 issue of which, though it may be protracted, is 
 scarcely doubtful. 
 
 The Scripture record presents the sons of 
 Japhet as numerically and politically inferior to 
 the other two tribes, when they were severed at 
 Shinar ; and they were the latest to appear on 
 the field of the world's history. But it was or- 
 dained that they were to be enlarged ; and they 
 have long surpassed their brethren in extent of 
 population, by their superiority In the moral, 
 physical, and intellectual vigour that constitutes 
 and secures all that is valuable in the progress 
 of humanity. The Bible record of the Japhetites 
 is scanty. Little is there found directly relating 
 
JAPHE7. i55 
 
 to them, beyond the sketch of their migrations 
 given in the tenth chapter of Genesis, by which 
 it appears that their earliest settlements were to 
 the north and west of Shinar. Gomer and 
 Magog, Javan, Tubal and Meshech, Ashkenaz 
 ■and Togarmah, Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim and, 
 Dodanim, and the isles of the Gentiles, point to 
 those parts of the earth now known as Asia 
 Minor, Greece, and parts of Russia. Therefore, 
 before their migrations, the dwellings of their 
 forefathers must have been in or near the high- 
 lands of Armenia, outside the precincts of the 
 Hamites and Semites, to the north of Shinar; 
 and history, tradition, ethnological and philo- 
 logical evidence, conspire to establish the fact 
 that from this quarter all European, Persian, and 
 Indian civilization proceeded. The science of 
 language, as we have seen, enables us to trace 
 back the ancestors of the inhabitants of those 
 countries to their cradle in Asia, with as much 
 certainty as a number of diverging rivers can 
 be traced up to a common source — identity of 
 languages, combined with identity of race, re- 
 duces them all to a single family, whose habi- 
 tation was situate somewhere in those parts 
 of Asia that lie between Europe and Hindostan. 
 
i66 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 If the Scripture story of Shinar be true, the 
 sons of Japhet were^ about four thousand years 
 ago, concentrated 'in a small community, dwell- 
 ing together in the East, not far distant from 
 Mesopotamia, whose destiny it was to be en- 
 larged, and to spread out and colonize the world 
 that surrounded them. The cold and dreary- 
 wastes of central Asia to the north had little 
 attraction for them ; and to the south, from the 
 Euphrates to the Mediterranean, and along its 
 southern shores to .the pillars of Hercules, the 
 sons of Ham and Shem were occupying, and 
 contending with each other for the possession of,, 
 those territories, which have ever since been a 
 barrier between the Japhetite and the African 
 continent. The districts, therefore, which invited 
 the enterprising and colonizing instincts of the 
 Japhetite, were Europe, to the north ' and west,, 
 and Persia and Hindostan, to the east ; and in 
 those countries they are found ; and their identi- 
 fication as the children of Japhet is as certain as 
 the identification of a British or German settler 
 in the backwoods of America, or of a Portuguese 
 or Dutch trader on the shores of Africa, as of 
 European descent, in the present day. Anato- 
 mical structure, mythological legends and tradi- 
 
JAPHET. 167 
 
 tions, and, above all, their languages, pronounce 
 the Persian, the Hindoo, and the European to 
 be all of the same race, commonly known as the 
 Caucasian, and confessedly descendants of a 
 single pair of ancestors. The ancient languages 
 of Persia and India, the Zend and Sanskrit, are, 
 as we have seen, sister laniguages of the Greek, 
 the Latin, the Sclavonic, Teutonic, and Celtic, 
 which comprise all of the European languages. 
 They are all of them, as we have seen, the off- 
 spring of one parent language, framed and spoken 
 by a single family, whose dwelling-place must 
 have been situate between India and Europe, 
 where the early stock of Japhet are located by 
 the record of Genesis. So far, that record is 
 confirmed by all that ethnological and philolo- 
 gical science has discovered. 
 
 To the West of the highlands of Armenia lies 
 the Euxine or Black Sea, mentioned in Scripture 
 as " Ashkenaz." This na:turally interrupted and 
 severed the tide of emigration in that direction, 
 and divided the emigrants into two bands. One 
 wave passed along the southern coast of the 
 Black Sea, through Asia Minor, and broke first 
 upon the shores of Greece, and then of Italy. 
 These were the parents of Greek and Roman 
 
i68 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 civilization. Another flowed northward across 
 the Caucasus, and round the northern shores of 
 the Black Sea into central and western Europe. 
 These were the pioneers of Celtic and Teutonic 
 civilization. While a third wave rolled eastward 
 to the south of the Caspian Sea, through Persia, 
 and onward over the mountains of Affghanistan 
 to the Indus and Hindostan, and carried civili- 
 zation to those countries. And first let us 
 follow the history of these eastern sons of 
 Japhet. 
 
 In Hindostan are found, to the present hour>, 
 the Brahmans, an ancient body or order of 
 priests, who have been, for nearly three thousand 
 years, the sole guardians and ministers of the 
 Hindoo religion. To their custody were com- 
 mitted the sacred literature of the Hindoos, 
 which is written in the far-famed Sanskrit lan- 
 guage, that has ceased to be a living or spoken 
 language as far back as 400 B.C. This ancient 
 literature comprised four Vedas, and other books 
 which were commentaries on, or explanatory of 
 them, the Brahmanas, Sutras, &c. ; and they 
 were kept with such jealous care by the 
 Brahmans, that no person but themselves had 
 access to them until the close of the last cen- 
 
JAPHET. 169 
 
 tury, when for the first time, by the influence 
 and energy of the agents of the East India 
 Company, they were brought into the light of 
 day, and submitted to the inquiring eyes of 
 European philologists. In the hoary leaves of 
 these venerable monuments of the Hindoo race, 
 it is found that their forefathers were emigrants 
 that entered India from the north-west, through 
 Affghanistan and the Punjaub, the country of 
 the five rivers. Hindostan is there styled 
 ^' Arya-varta," or the abode of the Aryans, a 
 name of distinction in the East, comprising the 
 worshippers o'J th'. gods of the Brahmans. The 
 name is derived from a Sanskrit word signifying 
 "noble," and is applied in the Vedas to the 
 superior cartes in India as distinguished from 
 the inferior. But the name is not confined to 
 that country, as all the region between the 
 Indian Ocean and the Indus on the east, the 
 Himalayan Mountains on the north, the Caspian 
 Gates and the Persian Gulf on the west, are in- 
 cluded. Strabo under the name of Anmania. 
 Persia, Elymais, and Media all claimed for 
 themselves the Aryan title. As we approach 
 Europe the traces of the title become fainter, 
 yet are not altogether lost, as the name is found 
 
I70 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 in Greece, and even in Germany. It was ob- 
 viously the distinguishing title of the Japhet- 
 ites before their separation eastward and west- 
 ward from the cradle of their race in Armenia, 
 And thus, those who constituted the grieat 
 Aryan race, so well known and renowned in an- 
 cient history, are the immediate descendants of 
 Japhet in the East. 
 
 Max Miiller has sifted and classified Sanskrit 
 literature, and not only establishes by careful 
 analysis the relative agesof those mystic volumes, 
 but approximates by satisfactory reasoning to 
 the a.ctual age of the earliest of them. The four 
 Vedas are the most ancient of the Vedic com- 
 positions; and of them the Rig- Veda is the 
 oldest, as well as the most voluminous and 
 important. It is a collection of archaic hymns 
 an4 prayers, addressed generally to the per- 
 sonified powers of nature, the Earth, the Sky, 
 the Dawn, the Atmosphere, the Fire, the 
 Storms, and other elementary natural forces and 
 phenomena; and Max Miiller describes it as 
 the most ancient chapter in the history of the 
 human intellect, and the background of the 
 whole Indian world. The other three Vedas, 
 the Yagur-Veda, the Sama-Veda, and the 
 
yAPHET. 171 
 
 Atharva-Veda, are illustrative of the worship 
 taught in the Rig- Veda, and contain ritualistic 
 directions for the priests. The Brahmanas and 
 Sutras are commentaries on the meaning^ and 
 authorship of the sacred hymns. As far back as 
 the sixth century before the Christian era, which 
 is known to be the period of the latest of the 
 Sutras, the Rig- Veda was considered an ancient 
 and sacred book, and regarded with such vene- 
 ration, that one of the Sutras contained enume- 
 rations of its verses, its words, and even of its 
 letteirs ; and as many of the Sutras, and all of ^ 
 the Brahmanas, were composed before that 
 period, to explain what had become by lapse of 
 time obscure or unintelligible in the Vedas, it has 
 been calculated that the Vedic hymns must have 
 been collected at least 1200 years before the 
 Christian era ; and that some of them were com- 
 posed about 300 years before that date, which 
 brings their existence to 1 500 B.C., the time of the 
 exodus. Their authors, therefore, were probably 
 contemporaries of Joshua ahd Moses ; and the 
 Rig- Veda, the most ancient book of the Aryans, 
 may vie in antiquity with the Pentateuch, the 
 most ancient compilation of the primeval records 
 of the Semitic race. 
 
472 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 On the question of the identity of the Aryan 
 colonizers of India with the sons of Japhet, the 
 Rig- Veda, and the Vedic literature in general, 
 are important witnesses. If the Aryans were 
 descendants of Japhet, evidence ought to be 
 found in those ancient books, if anywhere, of a 
 union having existed at some time in the world's 
 Iiistory between them and the Semitic race ; and 
 in those books also we must look for the most 
 ■authentic and primitive representation of the 
 Hindoo religious belief, which . is also an inter- 
 •esting and important subject of inquiry, and cal- 
 culated to throw considerable light on the origin 
 of the professors of the religion expressed in the 
 Vedas. 
 
 However degraded the Hindoo worship has 
 become by the encroaching sacerdotalism and 
 idolatrous innovations of the Brahman priest- 
 hood, the Vedic literature supplies pfoof that the 
 religious belief of the authors of the hymns and 
 invocations of the Rig- Veda, and their disciples, 
 was pure Theism. Their prayers were generally 
 addressed to personified elements of nature, such 
 as Agni, fire; Ushas, the dawn; Maruts, the 
 storms ; Indra, the atmosphere ; Prithivi, the 
 ■earth ; Varuna, the heavens, &c. ; but through all 
 
JAPHET. 1 73-. 
 
 ic is plain that the elements of real religion were 
 in the hearts of the worshippers, and that they 
 had the conception of an almighty, all-wise 
 Creator and Governor of the universe, merciful 
 and forgiving to those who sought for pardon 
 and acceptance, as exemplified in the following 
 touching hymn of the Rig- Veda, addressed to- 
 Varuna (R. V. vii. 89) : 
 
 " I. Let me not yet, O Varana, enter into the house of clay ;; 
 have mercy, Almighty, have mercy ! 
 
 "2. If I go along trembling, like a cloud driven by the wind j 
 have mercy, Almighty, have mercy ! 
 
 "3. Through vi^ant of strength, thou strong and bright god, 
 have I gone wrong ; have mercy. Almighty, have mercy ! 
 
 "4. Thirst came upon the worshipper, though he stood in the 
 midst of the waters ; have mercy, Almighty, have mercy ! 
 
 "5. Whenever we men, O Varuna, commit an offence before- 
 the heavenly host, whenever we break the law through, thought- 
 lessness ; have mercy. Almighty, have mercy !" 
 
 In another hymn, Varuna is thus invoked :. 
 " Thou art the king of all, of those who are gods,. 
 and of those who are men." And again : 
 " Varuna is merciful, even to him who has com- 
 mitted sin ;" and in another, the same deity is- 
 invoked to "absolve us from the sins of our 
 fathers, and from those which we have commit- 
 ted with our own bodies " (R. V. vii. ZG). Other 
 hymns ascribe immortality, not only to God, but. 
 
174 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 to man — eternal life for the good, and a place of 
 punishment for the wicked. The following is a 
 prayer addressed to Soma (R. V. ix, ii3) 7) = 
 
 "Where there is eternal light, in the world where the sun 
 Is placed, in that immortal, imperishable world place me, O 
 Soma ! 
 
 " Where king Vldvasvata reigns, where the secret place of 
 heaven is, where those mighty waters are, there make me im- 
 mortal ! 
 
 " Where wishes and desires are, where the place of the bright 
 sun is, where there is freedom and delight, there make me im- 
 mortal ! 
 
 "Where there is happiness and delight, where joy and pleasure 
 reside, where the desires of our desire are attained, there make 
 me immortal !" 
 
 To the Semitic race, the great Creator was 
 specially revealed by his name " Jehovah." No 
 such revelation was vouchsafed to their brethren, 
 the Japhetites. They had conceptions of one 
 God, the maker of heaven and earth ; but he 
 was to them the " Unknown God," a God with- 
 out a name ; and in their helplessness they in- 
 voked him hy the names they had given to the 
 powers of nature, which were to them the demon- 
 strations of His existence and omnipotence. But 
 rstill the authors of these hymns were conscious 
 that they were only different names for one and 
 the same godhead. For instance, in one of the 
 
JAPHET. 175 
 
 hymns it is said, " They call him Indra, Mitra, 
 Varuna, Agni ; then he is the Tyell-winged, hea- 
 venly Garutmat ; that which is one the wise call 
 it so many ways, they call it Agni, Yama, Mata- 
 risvan." And again, " Wise poets make the 
 beautiful winged, though he is one, manifold by 
 words."* In another hyinn (R. V. x. 121), in 
 answer to the question, "Who is the god to 
 whom we shall offer our sacrifice ?" he is styled 
 " The God above all gods — the Creator of the 
 earth, the righteous who created the heaven, who 
 also created the bright and mighty waters." 
 
 The follojving address to Brahma, from an 
 ancient Sanskrit poem, presents us with high 
 spiritual conceptions of the unity and attributes 
 of Deity : 
 
 " Creator of the world — thou uncreate ! 
 Endless — all things from thee their end await. 
 Before the world wast thou ! each lord must fall 
 Before thee — mightiest, highest lord of all ! 
 Thy self-taught soul thy own deep spirit knows ; 
 Made by thyself thy mighty form, arose. 
 Into the same, when all things have an end, 
 Shall thy great self, absorbed by thee, descend. 
 Lord, who may hope thy essence to declare ? 
 Firm, yet as subtle as the yielding air. 
 
 " Father of fathers, god of gods art thou ! 
 Creator, highest, hearer of my vow ! 
 
 * " Hist, of Ancient Sanskrit Literature," p. 567. 
 
176 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 Thou art the sacrifice, and thou the priest ; 
 Man he that seeketh — thou, the holy feast. 
 Thou art the kttowledge which by thee is taught. 
 The mighty thinkfer, and the highest thought."* 
 
 If this invocation had been addressed to "Je- 
 hovah," it would have been deemed a noble 
 specimen of deep devotional feeling. The pious 
 sentiment was in the worshipper, but the object 
 of his worship was, to him, "the unknown 
 god." 
 
 Dr. Muir has extracted and summarized from 
 Sanskrit texts of the Rig- Veda the conceptions 
 of this ancient branch of the Aryan stock on 
 the subject of a future life, and the union be- 
 tween body and soul, which approach nearer to 
 the Christian creed of " the resurrection of the 
 body, and the life everlasting," than anything 
 that is to be found in the pages of the Penta- 
 teuch : 
 
 "When the remains of the deceased have 
 been placed on the funeral pile, and the process 
 of cremation has begun, Agni, the god of fire, is 
 prayed not to scorch or consume the departed, 
 not to tear eisunder his skin or his limbs ; but 
 after the flames have done their work, to convey 
 
 * " Kumava-Sumbhava." Translated by R. T. H. Griffith. 
 
JAPHET. 177 
 
 to the fathers the mortal who has been pre- 
 sented to him as an ofifering. The eye of the 
 departed is bidden to go to the sun ; his breath 
 to the wind ; and his different members to the 
 sky, the earth, the waters, or the plants, accord- 
 ing to their several affinities. As for his unborn 
 part {ajo-bhdgali), Agni is supplicated to kindle 
 it with his heat and flame, and, assuming his- 
 most conspicuous form, to carry it to the world 
 of the righteous (R. V. x. 16). Before, however,, 
 the unborn part can complete its course to the 
 third heaven, it has to traverse a vast gulf of 
 darkness, leaving behind on earth all that is evil 
 and imperfect, and proceeding by the paths 
 which the fathers trod (x. 14, 7),' the spirit, in- 
 vested with a lustre like that of the gods, soars 
 
 to the realms of eternal light recovers there^ 
 
 his body in a glorified form, and obtains from 
 Yama a delectable abode (x. 14, 8-10), and 
 enters upon a more perfect life (x. 14, 8 ; x. 15, 
 14), which is crowned with the fulfilment of all 
 desires (ix. 113, 9, n), is passed in the presence 
 of the gods (x. 14, 14), and employed in the ful- 
 filment of their pleasure (x. 16, 2)."* 
 
 * "Original Sanskrit Texts on the Origin and History of the 
 People of India, their Religions and Institutions." Vol. V. 
 
 12 
 
178 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 From these archaic muniments, which have 
 thus preserved the thoughts and feelings of the 
 early Aryans in the East for more than three 
 thousand years, we learn that the progenitors 
 of the Hindoos had such a knowledge of the 
 Most High God, and of his relationship to 
 mankind, as we might expect to find in the 
 descendants of one of the sons of Noah, who 
 had gone forth from Shinar with a prophetic 
 patriarchal blessing on his posterity. They had 
 abstract ideas of a Creator — omniscient and 
 omnipotent. They were conscious of their own 
 weakness and sinfulness, and of God's mercy; 
 and they had a belief in their own immortality, 
 the reunion of body and soul, and of a future 
 state of rewards and punishments. But, not- 
 withstanding this purity at its source, the reli- 
 gious history of India is one continued decline. 
 The worship disclosed in the Rig- Veda is simple 
 and patriarchal ; there were no idols. In the 
 later Vedas, it becomes debased by the intrusive 
 and baneful influence of sacerdotalism, bringing 
 with it there, as elsewhere, cumbrous ceremonials, 
 caste, and superstitions, and gradually effacing 
 those finer instincts that prevailed in the minds 
 of the Aryan authors of the Rig-Veda. 
 
JAPHET. 176 
 
 It is a curious and interesting chapter in the 
 history of mankind that traces the origin of the 
 mythology of the Aryan race, and the cause of 
 its absence in the Semitic race, to the influence 
 of their respective languages. The Semites 
 never had a mythology of their own. Before 
 the call of Abraham, they served "strange 
 ^ods " — the gods of strangers ; and after that 
 event, and notwithstanding the many testi- 
 monies of the presence and power of Jehovah 
 with the children of Israel, they are found re- 
 peatedly turning aside, with strange perversity, 
 to worship Baal and Ashtaroth. But such gods 
 were not gods of their own invention or imagin- 
 ing. They were the gods of their Hamite 
 neighbours, the Babylonian, the Canaanite, 
 and Egyptian; and, though worshipped, they 
 were never confounded with their own Jehovah, 
 who was, at the same time, to some extent, an 
 object of their devotion. They halted between 
 two opinions : " If the Lord be God, follow 
 him ; but if Baal, then follow him." We have not 
 sufficient knowledge of the Hamitic language to 
 be in a position to decide the cause of the 
 apostasy of that idolatrous people, whether it 
 was connected, as in the case of the Japhetite, 
 
 12 — 2 
 
i8o THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 with the nature of their language, or was wholly 
 the product of the moral obliquity of their minds. 
 But philologists have shown how it was that the 
 ancient Aryans, though they started with pure 
 conceptions of God and His attributes, and 
 retained themi for a long period^ were at last 
 beguiled by words and names into the multi- 
 plication of gods. 
 
 The names given to the various powers of 
 nature, such as Agni (the fire), Ushas (the 
 dawn), Dyaus (the sky), Maruts (the storm), 
 Indra (the atmosphere), Varuna (the heavens), 
 came gradually, by phonetic corruption, to lose 
 their original signification, and to be used as 
 proper names, designating real p'ersonages. 
 Thus Agni became the being that burned ; 
 Dyaus, the being that thundered; Maruts, the 
 being that blows, &c. The powers of Nature 
 became thus unconsciously personified, and they 
 were regarded and addressed as gods to be 
 invoked and conciliated by prayer and sacrifice. 
 A process of this description could not take 
 place when the language was Semitic, as such a 
 language has no tendency to phonetic corrup- 
 tion, and in it the words that designate natural 
 phenomena are always recognized as appella- 
 
JAPHET. i8i 
 
 tives. Philologists have shown that such words 
 could not enter into any mythological meta- 
 morphoses, like those that are found in India 
 and Greece ; and thus the Semite was never 
 deluded by his language to worship his Jehovah 
 under the name or form of any of the items of 
 creation. The name " Jehovah," and the ever- 
 present consciousness that the words which in 
 their language .designated the phenomena of 
 Nature were appellatives, and did not designate 
 personages, shielded them from the confusion of 
 words and names that gave birth to the multi- 
 tude of legendary myths that constituted the 
 life of the Aryan, both in Greece and India, 
 before the gates of true history had been opened 
 to them. 
 
 But to return. If the Aryans were the de- 
 scendants of Japhet, we might expect to find in 
 their ancient literature traces of the prominent 
 Semitic traditions that are known to have pre- 
 vailed among the Adamite race before their 
 separation — that is to say, before the dispersion — 
 at Shinar ; such as those' of the Creation and the 
 Flood.' The following hymn from the Rig- Veda 
 presents so many points of resemblance to the 
 Mosaic cosmogony, in the first chapter of 
 
i82 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 Genesis, that we cannot avoid the conclusion 
 that the author must have derived it from an- 
 cestors who had carried away the tradition from 
 Shinar ': 
 
 " Nor aught nor nought existed; yon bright sky 
 Was not, nor heaven's broad woof outstretched above. 
 What covered all? what sheltered? what concealed? 
 Was it the water's fathomless abyss ? 
 There was not death — yet was there nought immortal ;' 
 There was no confine betwixt day and night ; 
 The only one breathed breathless by itself, 
 Other than it there nothing since has been. 
 Darhness there was, and all at first was veiled' 
 In gloom profound — an ocean without light. 
 The germ that still lay covered in the husk 
 Burst forth, one nature, from the fervent heat. 
 Then first came LOVE upon it, thq new spring 
 Of mind — yea, poets in their hearts discovered, 
 Pondering, this bond between created things 
 And uncreated. Comes this spark from earth. 
 Piercing and all pervading, or from heaven ? \ 
 
 Then seeds were sown, and mighty powers arose ; 
 Nature below, and power and will above— 
 Who knows^the secret ? who proclaimed it here, ' 
 Whence, whence this manifold creation sprang? 
 The gods themselves came later into being — 
 Who knows from whence this great creation sprang? 
 He from whom all this great creation came. 
 Whether his will created or was mute. 
 The Most High Seer that is in highest heaven. 
 He knows it — or perchance he knows it not."* 
 
 In this we may recognize the Mosaic descrip- 
 tion, that in the beginning, when God had created 
 
 * " Hist, of Ancient Sanskrit Literature," p. 564. 
 
JAPHET. 183 
 
 the heaven and the earth, "darkness was upon the 
 face of the deep." " Darkness there was, and all 
 at first was veiled in gloom profound — an ocean 
 without light." "And God divided the light 
 from the darkness ; and God called the light day, 
 and the darkness He called night,'' is implied in 
 the Sanskrit expression : " There was no confine 
 betwixt day and night!' Professor Wilson re- 
 iriarks that the word " Kama," which is trans- 
 lated "love," in the 13th line, "means desire, 
 wish; and it here expresses the wish, synony- 
 mous with the will, of the sole existing Being to 
 create." If this criticism is correct, the expres- 
 sion will present a strong resemblance to the 
 Scripture phrase, that " the Spirit of God moved 
 upon the water sV 
 
 In the cosmogony of the Zend-Avesta, the 
 ancient Scripture of the Parsees, who were the 
 progenitors of the branch of the eastern Aryans 
 now known as the Persians, the world is stated 
 to have been created in six periods, which 
 together form one year, as in Genesis it 13 
 i"epresented as the work of six days. In the 
 first period, of forty-five days, the heavens were 
 made : in the second, of sixty-five days, water 
 was made : in the third, of seventy-five days, the 
 
1 84 THE BOlLDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 earth was made : in the fourth, of thirty days, 
 the trees were made : in' the fifth, of eighty days, 
 '^he animals were made : and in the sixth, of 
 seventy-five days, man was made. Thus, ac- 
 cording to the Zend-Avesta, the heavens, the 
 water, and the earth were the work of the first 
 three periods of the creation, as in Genesis, the 
 heavens, the earth, and water were the first items 
 of the creation ; and as in the Zend-Avesta, 
 so in Genesis, trees, animals, and man came 
 afterwards in succession. These are remarkable 
 coincidences, and only to be accounted for by 
 the existence of an intimate connection between 
 the two races — the Semitic and Aryan — at some 
 antecedent period of their history. It is well 
 ascertained that- the art of writing was not 
 known to the Semites before their captivity in 
 Egypt, nor to the eastern Aryans before the 
 rise of Buddhism in India, about 600 B.C. There 
 is no allusion to anything connected with the art 
 of writing in the Bible before the Exodus, nor in 
 any of the 1017 hymns of the Rig- Veda — no 
 such words as writing, reading, paper, or pens ;* 
 and therefore the authors of the Rig- Veda and 
 the Zend-Avesta, which were composed one thou- 
 
 * "Ancient Sanskrit Literature," p. 497. 
 
JAPHET. 185 
 
 sand years before they could have been committed 
 to writing, could not have acquired their know- 
 ledge of Semitic traditions through any channel 
 but personal intercourse, and that, too, at a time 
 •when both races spoke the same languagd If 
 the Semitic record of the confusion of language 
 and the dispersion at Shinar be true, then these 
 coincidences of the Semitic and Aryan traditions 
 are intelligible, and capable of simple explana- 
 tion ; for all belonged to the same family, and 
 spoke the same language before that event. 
 But if that event is to be considered mythical 
 and unreal, the admitted facts are wholly inex- 
 plicable, and involved in impenetrable mystery 
 and darkness. 
 
 The Hindoo legend of the Deluge has also 
 many points of resemblance to the record of 
 Noah's flood in Genesis which can scarcely be 
 <;onsidered accidental. It is first related in the 
 Satapatha Brahmana, and again, at greater 
 length, and with some variations, in the Mab- 
 haratta. Manu is regarded, in the hymns of the 
 Rig- Veda, as the father or progenitor of the 
 Rishis, or authors of these hymns, and of the 
 people to whom they addressed themselves. 
 Mr. Muir states that " this testimony to Manu 
 
i86 THE BUILDERS OP BABEL. 
 
 being there regarded as the progenitor of the 
 Aryan Hindoos is sufficiently clear."* Manu 
 therefore corresponds in that particular to the 
 Semitic Noah. The Hindoo legend records, 
 that this Manu, while performing austerities on 
 the banks of the Cherim, was visited by Brahma, 
 in the form of a fish, who announced to him the 
 approaching deluge : " Thou shalt build a strong 
 ship with a cable," said the fish, " and in it thou 
 must embark with the seven Rishis, and take 
 with thee all manner of seeds, and there await 
 my arrival." Manu did as he was directed, and 
 whilst he "floated on the billowy sea in the 
 beautiful ship," the fish arrived, and the cable 
 of the ship was bound to his horn. " The fish 
 being attached to the cable drew the ship with 
 great rapidity over the briny deep, and trans- 
 ported its crew across the ocean, which seemed 
 to dance with its waves, and thunder with its. 
 waters. The ship, tossed by the mighty winds, 
 whirled around like an unsteady, intoxicated 
 woman. Neither earth nor the eight quarters 
 of the globe appeared : everything was water, 
 and firmament, arid sky. Amid this perturba- 
 tion of the universe the seven Rishis, Manu, and 
 • Muir, in the "Journal of R. A. Society," vol. xx. p. 410. 
 
JAPHET. 187" 
 
 the fish were perceived. In this manner the fish, 
 unwearied, drew along the ship for many periods- 
 of years amid the mass of waters ; and at length 
 brought it to the highest peak of Himavat. Then 
 spake the fish, gently smiling, to the Rishis,. 
 ' Bind the ship without delay to the peak of 
 Himavat.' They fastened the ship accordingly ; 
 and that loftiest peak of Himavat is, even to 
 this day, known by the appellation of ' Nabaund- 
 hana' (the binding of the ship)." The fish then 
 revealed himself to the Rishis as Brahma, the 
 superior lord of creatures, and commanded 
 Manu " to create all living beings, gods, asuras, 
 and men, all worlds and all things movable 
 and immovable; a command which Manu ful- 
 filled."* 
 
 In this legend, as in Genesis, the progenitor 
 of .mankind was commanded to build a ship or 
 ark, wherein eight persons (Manu and the seven 
 Rishis) were saved ; and after the waters had 
 sub^ided the ship rested on the highest peak of 
 a lofty mountain, called Ararat in Genesis, and. 
 Himavat in the Mabharatta. As in the Legend 
 of the Creation, so here there are coincidences- 
 which betoken an intercourse, and point to a 
 
 * "Muir's Original Sanskrit Texts." Vol. II. p. 329-331- 
 
i88 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 time when the two races spoke the same lan- 
 guage, and had a common stock of traditions. 
 
 The independent research of several eminent 
 Sanskrit scholars has discovered in these pri- 
 meval records, that the Aryan ancestors of the 
 Hindoos entered India through the narrow 
 passes of the Hindu-Kush, or the Himalaya, 
 about 2000 B.C., which brings it to the time of 
 Abraham, or two or three hundred years after 
 the Scripture date of the dispersion at Shinar. 
 It also appears, from the same records, that on 
 their entry into that country, they found it in- 
 habited by a very inferior race of natives, some 
 of whose descendants, reduced, like themselves, 
 to subjection, and kept by the invaders in that 
 state, are to this day mixed up with, though dis- 
 tinguishable by their aspect and language from, 
 the Hindoos and high caste population in the 
 Deccan and mountain districts to the north. It 
 is probable also, that, as they advanced they 
 encountered and expelled the Hamites, who, 
 as we have seen, had found their way into that 
 country at an early period, and planted their 
 abominable worship in it. ,Here, as elsewhere, 
 they retired before the nobler Aryan race, until 
 they disappeared altogether from the map of the 
 
JAPHEl. i89> 
 
 civilized world, in fulfilment of the Divine de- 
 cree. 
 
 The ancient Hindoos were a nation of philo- 
 sophers. Their sacred monuments evidence the 
 extraordinary precocity of the Aryan or Ja- 
 phetic mind. There are few subjects in lite- 
 rature or philosophy in which they had not 
 made considerable progress. Treatises on gram- 
 mar, metaphysics, mathematics, arithmetic, and 
 medicine, are all found, in the Brahmanical 
 writings. Science had flourished and decayed 
 in the East long before the first seeds of Euro- 
 pean philosophy and literature had germinated 
 on the shores of Greece. Everything proves the 
 eastern Aryans to have been a race of superior 
 attainments, and like their kinsmen the early 
 colonists of Greece, the true salt of civilized 
 and civilizing humanity. But after a few gene- 
 rations, the enervating effects of an Eastern 
 climate relaxed their activity, and converted 
 their philosophy into dreamy speculations ;, 
 while the encroachments of sacerdotalism, seek- 
 ing to establish priestly power and influence, 
 checked and blighted their truly spiritual as- 
 pirations, and planted gloomy and degrading 
 superstitions in their place. Max MuUer has. 
 
ago THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 well defined the distinction between the Hindoo 
 •and European mind, by assimilating the one to 
 2. hothouse plant that grew rapidly, and put 
 forth gorgeous and richly-perfumed flowers, and 
 precocious and, abundant fruit ; and the other to 
 a. sturdy and enduring oak, that, growing in 
 wind and wekther, sends its roots surely down- 
 wards into real earth, and expands and bears 
 fruit slowly upwards in real air, beneath the 
 stars and sun of heaven. A few centuries of the 
 luxurious ease of an Eastern clime exhausted the 
 activity of Hindoo civilization, which became 
 paralyzed, and has long since assumed thd 
 -characteristics of immutability. The Brahmanic 
 Aryan retired into himself, and' became passive 
 and contemplative, speculative and superstitious. 
 Overawed by the imposing phenomena and 
 powers of nature that surrounded him, he bowed 
 -down and worshipped them as gods ; while the 
 European has challenged, encountered, and 
 subjugated them to serve and obey him, and 
 ■coerces them to minister to his wants, and pro- 
 mote the well-being of his daily life. In the 
 meantime, the vital principles of progressive 
 knowledge, of later and slower growth, have been 
 advancing through Europe with the western 
 
JAPHET. 191 
 
 Japhetite emigrants, to whom we now turn our' 
 attention. 
 
 Nearly forty centuries have passed away since 
 the first seed of Caucasian progress was planted 
 on the genial -soil of Europe ; and the branches, 
 foliage, and fruits of the goodly tree of civiliza- 
 tion that has sprung up are strong and vigorous 
 as ever. The mighty host of civilizing Europeans, 
 now occupied in enlarging their borders through- 
 out the earth, were few in number when their 
 faces were turned westward from the home of 
 their forefathprs; but the spirit of enterprise and 
 determination that characterizes their descend- 
 ants accompanied them from the beginning. No 
 other of the many races of mankind that fill the 
 world have made any independent onward move- 
 ment, material or intellectual, within the histori- 
 cal period ; and, none, without the aid of this 
 remarkable people, have advanced a step in the 
 march of the true civilization that has distin- 
 guished the European from the commencement 
 of his history. None have had an era of progress. 
 All has been stationary and petrified where the 
 western Japhetite has not penetrated, and carried 
 with him the example and influence of his civiliz- 
 ing instincts. 
 
192 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 What the Japhetite is, a survey of Europe and 
 of European civilization brings before our eyes ; 
 and how he has progressed to his present state 
 is the subject we propose to investigate by the 
 light of history, so far as it is available, and be- 
 yond that, by the light that scientific research 
 kindles from the relics of remote antiquity. 
 Slow and grfidual has been their advance — stern 
 and persistent their struggle with nature's forces; 
 and all the knowledge of nature and nature's 
 laws acquired by human intellect, and all the 
 triumphs of art and skill which have been realized 
 by such knowledge, are the trophies which have 
 been won by him in this long conflict with 
 nature's elements. 
 
 Civilization is the conquest of nature by hu- 
 man effort, as religion is the conquest of self, 
 or the submission and subordination of human 
 will to the will of a higher power. Where the 
 laws of nature strongly predominate and subor- 
 dinate the human mind, there civilization lan- 
 guishes, or remains stationary. This is the case 
 of the Hindoo Caucasian, who, with all the high 
 qualities that distinguish his race, has bowed 
 down before the overwhelming influence of the 
 phenomena of nature that surrounded him in 
 
JAPHET. 193 
 
 these eastern climes, and has taken no part in 
 the civilizing progress of humanity. Where, on 
 the other hand, the mental energies are active, 
 and triumph over the external world, there 
 civilization is highly progressive and fruitful in 
 result. This is the case of the European, who 
 has been the conqueror of Nature's elements ; 
 and whose triumphant progress is the theme of 
 the world's history. In the enjoyment of high 
 civilization, and of the mental faculties that have 
 raised him to that position, and which are all- 
 powerful to lead him onward in the same direc- 
 tion, it is deeply instructive to contemplate the 
 long and laborious paths which his progenitors 
 had to traverse before they attained the high 
 position on which the cultured European stands, 
 and from which he looks back on a conquered 
 world, and forward to further and greater 
 achievements. 
 
 Of the two bands of Japhetite emigrants that 
 sought the unknown land of Europe, history 
 throws some light on the career of those who en- 
 tered and occupied Greece, and whose descend- 
 ants are found to the south and west of the 
 Danube and Rhine. But what were the fortunes 
 of those pilgrim Japhetites who penetrated, from 
 
 13 
 
194 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 the cradle of their race, over the Caucasus and 
 round the northern shores of the Black Sea into 
 Germany, to the north of the Danube ? His- 
 tory can afford little aid in the inquiry ; for all 
 this part of the world was fable and darkness 
 before the days of Caesar and Tacitus, more 
 than two thousand years after the separation 
 at Shinar. But even at that time, the climate 
 of Germany was very different from the climate 
 of the present day. In the days of Julius 
 Caesar, the Rhine and the Danube were fre- 
 quently frozen over, and capable of supporting 
 the cavalry and heavy waggons of invading 
 armies. Primeval forests and wild morasses 
 extended over the countries now known as 
 Poland and Germany; and the elk and rein- 
 deer, which have long been occupants of the in- 
 clement regions of Spitzbergen and Lapland, 
 were then inhabitants of the Hyrcinian forests* 
 By the removal of the trees and vegetation that 
 shut out the fertilizing rays of the sun, and the 
 draining of the morasses, the rigours ef the cli- 
 mate have been mitigated, and the wilderness of 
 Germany has long since taken its place among 
 the fairest of the fair gardens of modern Europe. 
 • Caesar, de Bell. Gallic, 6, 23, &c. 
 
JAPHET. 195 
 
 But if such was the state of these regions two 
 thousand years ago, what must have been their 
 condition two thousand years before that time ? 
 Their brethren who had departed from the same 
 home for the genial climes of Hindostan to 
 the east, and Greece to the west, developed 
 science, arts, and literature, the natural pro- 
 ducts of the Japhetic mind, with astonishing 
 rapidity. But those who, with the same in- 
 stincts and zeal, sought and found their homes 
 in the cold inhospitable regions of Central 
 Europe, , had to struggle for subsistence with 
 Nature in her most forbidding aspect and un- 
 generous mood ; and the stern discipline they 
 had to undergo for generations, while it reared 
 them to be the hardy, energetic, and persevering 
 race that is now ruling the world, left no oppor- 
 tunity for the exercise of their intellects in the 
 study of letters, the extension of scientific know- 
 ledge, and cultivation of the more refined pur- 
 suits of civilized life. As, therefore, no primeval 
 monuments of civilization of these early fore- 
 fathers of our north-western Europeans - are 
 forthcoming, such as are found on the shores 
 of Greece and in eastern countries, we must 
 
 13—2 
 
196 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 seek for evidences of their early history from 
 other, and perhaps not less reliable sources. 
 
 The inhabitants of Central and Northern 
 Europe,, though all of the Caucasian race of 
 mankind, have, from time immemorial, 'been 
 distinguishable into three sub-families or tribes, 
 characterized by their dialects and certain 
 mental and physical peculiarities. Offspring of 
 the same ancestors, and speaking languages of 
 the same family of speech, climate and time 
 have operated to effect the diversities that are 
 distinctive of the Celt, the Teuton, and the 
 Sclave. All histories and traditions agree that 
 the tide of European population has always 
 been setting from the East to the West. These 
 three members of the great Japhetite family 
 came over Europe like three successive waves 
 from their Asiatic homes. The Celtic stream 
 was the first to invade the land. The Teutonic 
 or Gothic flood has, from the earliest period, 
 been pressing on the Celt, and driving him 
 onward to the setting sun ; and the Sclavonians 
 in the rear are succeeding wherever they can 
 find or make room. The Celt, for ages, spread 
 over, occupied, and has left his impress on the 
 best portions of Europe. Refined in his tastes. 
 
JAPHET. iqr 
 
 impulsive in his nature, submissive to authority, 
 but lacking stability and perseverance, he has 
 slowly .retreated before the encroaching Teuton, 
 who, with his love of freedom and free institu- 
 tions, and with more endurance and persistency 
 of character, has gradually displaced his Celtic 
 predecessors, until they have reached the western 
 shores of Brittany and of the British Isles, where 
 the last remains of their race in Europe are 
 found. The Sclave is in the rear of the Teuton; 
 and the study of the past leads the observing 
 mind to speculate, that as the Teuton has dis- 
 placed the Celt, so the Sclave, though kept in 
 check and often repulsed by the Teuton, is 
 destined ultimately to displace both Celt and 
 Teuton, driving them onwards to the broad 
 domains of the New World beyond the Atlantic. 
 The tide whose source was at Shinar is still 
 rolling westward, and will not cease until civili- 
 zation, to be followed by the knowledge of the 
 Lord, shall cover the earth as the waters cover 
 the sea. 
 
 All this we gather from our knowledge of the 
 
 ethnical state of the world in our own times. 
 
 But we are not without some light to assist us 
 
 n discovering some further particulars of the dim 
 
igS THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 and distant past of Central Europe that pre- 
 ceded the era of civilization ; for geological and 
 archaeological researches have made known to 
 us, that the wide expanse of European -territory 
 that lies between the Alps and the Danube on 
 the south, and the Baltic Sea on the north, was 
 not without inhabitants when the Japhetites left 
 their home in the East to colonize and replenish 
 those inhospitable regions. Stone and bone im- 
 plements, and peculiarly-shaped skulls, found 
 in abundance in the quarternary drift, and in 
 gravels and caves of Western Europe, show that 
 the earliest of those aborigines were as devoid of 
 civilization, and as different in anatomical struc- 
 ture from the Caucasian race, as are the 
 Australian and African savages of the present 
 day. From the position, also, in which these 
 relics have been found, it is evident that a very 
 remote antiquity, far beyond the dispersion at 
 Shiiiar, was the date of their existence. From 
 the same source of knowledge, we also learn 
 something of the habits of those aborigines ; that 
 while some, like the modern savages, were mere 
 troglodyte hunters and fishers, without any places 
 of abode beyond the shelter of the woods and 
 caves of the rocks, there were others of a later 
 
JAPHET. 199 
 
 period, who constructed rude habitations, culti- 
 vated cereals to some extent, and domesticated 
 a few animals. There was something of a pro- 
 gress from lower types of humanity to higher, 
 even before the civilizmg race had entered the 
 land.* 
 
 There is abundance of evidence, also, that at 
 this time the wilderness of Europe was swarm- 
 ing with wild animals, some of them of species 
 long since extinct ; and some of them of species 
 which still exist, but have long since ceased to 
 be inhabitants of these countries. Of those that 
 are extinct, the mammoth, various species of 
 cave lions, tigers, bears, and elephants, different 
 from any now existing in any part of the globe, 
 of vast size and strength, and adapted to live in 
 cold climates, shared the plains and forests of 
 ancient Europe with the oldest of these savage 
 tribes — while the reindeer and elk, no longer to 
 be found in Europe, were the contemporaries of 
 the later uncivilized aborigines, and had not 
 disappeared until after the Japhetites had 
 possessed themselves of the land. One period 
 of these primeval times has been termed by the 
 archaeologist " the Reindeer period," from the 
 • '"Adam and the Adamite."— By the Author, Ch. II. and III. 
 
20O THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 great quantity and variety of weapons, imple- 
 ments, and ornaments fabricated out of the 
 horns of that animal, which are found in the 
 gravels and caves in the West of Europe. 
 
 Thus, when the Japhetite commenced his 
 pilgrimage into Central Europe, he had to 
 encounter his fellow-man in a savage state, as 
 his descendants are, in our own days, encounter- 
 ing similar specimens of uncultured humanity 
 in Australia, Africa, and America. He had to 
 wage a war of extermination with the wild beasts 
 of the field, who tenanted and devoured the 
 lands he came to subdue and cultivate. He had 
 to maintain a constant struggle with the unmiti- 
 gated forces of nature ; and barren plains, dense 
 forests, and deep extensive morasses invoked his 
 energies, and challenged his endurance and skill, 
 to make them yield him food and clothing. 
 Few and simple were his weapons — not much 
 higher perhaps in quality than those of the 
 savages whose territories he was invading. He 
 had probably implements of metal, which had 
 been acquired from the descendants of Cain, who 
 were skilled in metallurgy ; but his r&l superi- 
 ority consisted in those civilizing instincts and 
 powers of expansion peculiar to his race, which 
 
JAPHET. 201 
 
 impelled him to fulfil his, destiny, to increase 
 and multiply and replenish the earth. 
 
 The aboriginal savage has long since dis- 
 appeared, leaving nothing but his rude and 
 primitive weapons to attest that he did exist, as 
 the savages of Australia, Africa, and America 
 are melting away before the advancing steps of 
 the European, and whose simple weapons may 
 tell a similar tale to future archaeologists. The 
 wild beasts that shared the soil with the abori- 
 gines have been driven out by the civilizing man, 
 who engaged in the conflict, not merely to pre- 
 serve sustenance, but to rid himself of neigh- 
 bours that were not only dangerous in themselves, 
 but were also unprofitable consumers of the 
 produce of the soil. By the extirpation of some, 
 and the domestication of others, he carried out 
 the great principle of civilization, that tramples 
 out whatever is noxious and useless, and utilizes 
 all that can be appropriated and rendered pro- 
 fitable to the human races. The primeval forests 
 have been cut down, the morasses drained, the 
 land redeemed from the curse of barrenness, and 
 brought into cultivation, that the coming man 
 might eat his bread in the sweat of his brow. 
 
202 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 until his destiny shall be fulfiUe'd, and the pro- 
 phetic picture of his future realized. 
 
 These were the first steps pf the Japhetite 
 progress in Central Europe, and they gave his 
 energies full occupation for many generations. 
 The time required for the conquest of such 
 formidable antagonists was great in extent ; and 
 while thus engaged, nothing is known of his 
 progress beyond the result. He had no inclina- 
 tion, and no opportunity, for the cultivation of 
 science, arts, literature, or commerce, like his 
 brethren on the sunny shores of Greece and 
 Italy. The Greek, in Jhe occupation of a fertile 
 soil and genial clime, had opportunities for the 
 employment of his mind in acquiring and 
 perfecting those accomplishments, while his 
 brethren, toiling in the school of adversity, were 
 being trained and disciplined for those in- 
 tellectual struggles that characterize the conflict 
 which has ended in the complete triumph of the 
 European of the present day over the forces and 
 powers of nature. In this respect we may 
 regard Greece as the nursery of the Japhetic 
 race, where .the first rudiments of knowledge 
 were acquired and realized, and Central Europe 
 as the school in which the Japhetic mind was 
 
JAPHET. 203 
 
 disciplined and prepared for the active business 
 of manhood, where knowledge is perfected and 
 utilized by self-reliant energies, created, elevated, 
 and stimulated by early and severe training. 
 Following out this \ view, we shall be led to 
 distinguish the different stages of progress in 
 time by the great landmarks of justly admired 
 names, which appear on the highways of history 
 as contributing to our stores of knowledge, the 
 increase of civilization, and the expansion of the 
 Japhetic race throughout the earth, 
 
 Greece, more properly denominated HellaS, 
 was the stage on which the European Japhetite 
 first exercised his civilizing, powers. In terri- 
 torial extent it was a mere speck on the face of 
 the globe, consisting of a few cities on either 
 side 'of a narrow sea, studded with islands 
 scarcely discoverable upon the chart of a 
 continent ; and yet it became, in the hands of 
 the Japhetite, a fortress that withstood the great 
 Eastern powers, and stayed the bad ambition 
 that sought to plant their noxious civilization 
 and unholy institutions in the Mediterranean, 
 and throughout Europe. The name of Grecian 
 ■has been ever held in respect by all who cherish 
 freedom and independence of thought and 
 
204 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 action, and admire the mental qualities and 
 physical energies of the handful of people who 
 beat back the Hamite princes of the East, and 
 secured those blessings for their future genera- 
 tions in the west. Nor will such regard be 
 lessened by the consideration, that those who 
 thus garrisoned the isles of the Gentiles were 
 pre-ordained, by the providence of God, to 
 generate and extend a better civilization, and 
 raise a higher standard of moral and political 
 principle throughout the West, on the ruins of 
 the sensual and selfish Phoenician. 
 
 The earliest of the race who became con- 
 spicuous in history were the Hellenes, who came 
 to replenish the earth in those regions about the 
 time of the exodus, 1500 B.C,, under the leader- 
 ship of Hellen, the son of Deucalion. They 
 entered Greece by the way of the Hellespont 
 and the northern extremity of the country. The 
 lands they came to occupy were then in the 
 possession of a race, or group of races, known as 
 the Pelasgi, whose previous history is veiled in 
 obscurity ; but it is certain that they too were 
 of Aryan or Japhetic extraction, though less ag- 
 gressive in disposition, and more addicted to 
 agriculture and peaceful pursuits than the war- 
 
JAPHET. 20S 
 
 like and impulsive Hellenes. According to 
 Herodotus, the ancient name of Greece was 
 Pelasgia ; and Theocritus and Strabo state that 
 the Pelasgi were the earliest lords of Greece, be- 
 fore the Trojan war, which occurred about 1280 
 B.C. That conflict, as sung by Homer, is gene- 
 rally considered to be a record of the great and 
 final struggle between the Hellenic and the 
 Pelasgic elements, the result of which was to send 
 forth the latter to people the Italian peninsula, 
 and through them the south-western countri& 
 of Europe, with the Aryan race. 
 
 It has been suggested that the Homeric poems 
 perform the same office for the Grecians, or 
 western Japhetites, that the Vedas, the sacred 
 books of the Brahmans, do for those of the east, 
 and the Old Testament Scripture for the Semites, 
 in preserving the thoughts, feelings, and princi- 
 ples that actuated the forefathers of their race. 
 The Iliad and Odyssey are historical, so far as 
 they present us with the ancient manners, cus- 
 toms, and institutions of the early Greeks ; and 
 also as to the chief events and perscmages of the 
 country before, and at the time of, the Trojan 
 war. When critically studied, they bring be- 
 fore us the character, accomplishments, and 
 
2o6 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 action of those pioneers of western progress : 
 " Simple and yet shrewd, passionate and self- 
 constrained ; brave in battle, and gentle in con- 
 verse ; keenly living in the present, yet with a 
 large discourse over the future and the past ; cis 
 he is in body, full-limbed and tall, so he is in mind 
 towering and full-formed." Such is the early 
 Greek, as eloquently and accurately depicted by 
 Mr. Gladstone;* and these qualifications, as 
 compared with those of the neighbouring PhcE- 
 nicians, at once suggest that the time had come, 
 in the history of the world, for a race of higher 
 moral tone to take up and carry on the great 
 work of civilization, which had been more of a 
 curse than a blessing to humanity under the con- 
 duct of the godless atid overbearing Hamites. 
 
 Nevertheless, it must be acknowledged that 
 the germ of the accomplishments of the Greeks 
 was derived from the Phoenician Hamites. There 
 is ample evidence in the Homeric poems, that 
 "the most important works of art named in 
 Homer are obtained from the PhcEnicians. Not 
 only was this the case with the works of metal, 
 but it was from Sidonia that Paris brought the 
 beautifully-wrought tissues that were so prized 
 * "Juvfintus Mundi," p. 70. 
 
JAPHET. 207 
 
 by the royal family of Troy."* Builders of hewn 
 and polished stone (\t^ot KaTwpv^tei) are always 
 found in some relation to the Phoenicians. The 
 far-famed walls of Troy were built by Poseidon, 
 the highly-honoured deity of the Phcenicians. All 
 external navigation and commerce, except that 
 of the islands and coasts of the .^gaean, appears 
 to have been in the hands of the same people 
 at the Homeric period. They were styled by 
 Homer vavaiKKvroi^ or " ship famous ;" and, as 
 we have seen, Greece owed to the Phoenicians 
 the gift of letters and the art of writing, though 
 they did not come into common use until after 
 the time of Homer. 
 
 But whatever of art was learned from PhcE- 
 nicia was purified and quickened when it came 
 into contact with the Greek mind. Their refined 
 taste and intuitive perception of the beautiful 
 elevated and expanded everything they touched, 
 and adapted their knowledge to higher purposes 
 than the mete selfish utilitarianism which in- 
 fluenced the sensual Hamite race in all their 
 dealings with the outer world. With such prin- 
 ciples of action, expanding civilization would 
 have proved a blighting curse, such as civiliza- 
 
 • "Juventus Mundi," p. 123. 
 t " Odyssey," xv. 414 ; xvi. 237. 
 
2o8 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 tion too often proves itself even under Aryan 
 guidance, if unaccompanied with the influence of 
 a higher morality, and that sense of responsibility 
 which flows from a purer and more spiritual re- 
 ligion. The intellectual faculty which leads to 
 the investigation of the secondary causes of 
 natural phenomena was, as we have seen, the 
 characteristic which distinguished the Aryan 
 from the Semite. And it was the increase of 
 knowledge, thus acquired in the field of the 
 physical sciences, that was to be productive of 
 the predicted enlargement of Japhet. 
 
 We have no reason to suppose that the Ham- 
 ites ever made any advance in the physical 
 sciences, with the exception, perhaps, of Astro- 
 nomy. In the clear unclouded skies and genial 
 clime of the East, the ancient Chaldaean and 
 Egyptian could not but contemplate the starry 
 hosts of the heavens, and study their motions. 
 The recurrence of days, months, and years, the 
 periodical return of spring and summer, of autumn 
 and winter, and their connection with the chang- 
 ing positions of the heavenly bodies, must soon 
 have attracted their attention. They formed the 
 heavenly bodies into constellations, and gave 
 them names. They distinguished the planets 
 
JAPHET. 209 
 
 from the fixed stars ; and by keeping a record of 
 the eclipses, they were able, to some extent, to 
 predict their recurrence. It is probable also, that 
 they made use of their knowledge for the pur- 
 poses of navigation ; for the Phcenicians and 
 Arabians are said to have been proficient in the. 
 art of "night sailing," which probably meant steer- 
 ing by the stars. But astrology, which may be 
 said to be the Satanic perversion of the noble 
 science of astronomy, appears to have ultimately 
 become the chief aim and end of their study of 
 the heavens. But, however that may be, no pro- 
 gress was made by the Hamite towards the dis- 
 covery of the laws that regulated the motions of 
 the heavenly bodies. That step was reserved for 
 the sons of Japhet ; and the earliest intimation 
 of a knowledge of the spherical form of the earth, 
 which is the first important astronomical fact at- 
 tained by man, is to be found in the books of 
 Aristotle, about 350 B.C. About two hundred 
 years later, 150 B.C., Hipparchus approached the 
 true conception of celestial phenomena by re- 
 solving the apparent motions of the heavenly 
 bodies into an assemblage of circular motions j 
 but, placing the earth in the centre of the universe 
 he failed to plant his foot on the next step to 
 
 14 
 
2IO THE BUILDERS OE BABEL. 
 
 astronomical truth, which was not attained until 
 after an interval of one thousand six hundred 
 years, as will presently appear. Ptolemy is the 
 next name of note that occurs in the history of 
 this science. He wrote about 150 A.D., and 
 verified and developed the theory of Hipparchus, 
 which thus became known as the " Ptolemaic 
 system," but he carried the science no farther. 
 
 In the science of mechanics, Archimedes, who 
 lived about 250 B.C., established the doctrine of 
 the lever, the parent of all the mechanical powers, 
 which multiplies force, gives the thews and sinews 
 of giants to the feeblest man, and enables him to 
 conquer nature, and perform with facility and 
 simplicity the most stupendous works. The 
 same philosopher discovered some of the most 
 important properties of the centre of gravity, 
 and propounded the fundamental proposition of 
 hydrostatics, thus opening the way to the em- 
 ployment of fluids in various ways, to assist in 
 the great work of human progress. The founda- 
 tion-stones of the physical sciences were thus 
 laid, for the first time, in the Grecian era. But 
 further knowledge in that direction was stayed. 
 The Grecian mind had reached its limits ; and 
 the Romans, always admittedly inferior to the 
 
JAP HEX. iiv 
 
 Greeks in mental qualifications, made no pro- 
 gress beyond. The intellectual powers of the 
 pagan Japhetite could not approach nearer to 
 the discovery of the laws of nature ; and minds 
 emancipated from the humiliating effects of a 
 false religion, and imbued with the elevating 
 principles of Christianity, were required to carry 
 on the work of human progress, and develop 
 those general laws which bring us nearer to the 
 God of Nature, and reveal the mind of the 
 Creator in the works of His creation. 
 
 From the commencement of the Christian era 
 to the middle of the sixteenth century, there was 
 no enlargement of the fields of scientific know- 
 ledge, and yet it was in that stagnant interval, 
 by some called the Dark Ages, and by some the 
 stationary period, that the Japhetic mind, which 
 was destined to carry on to higher perfection the 
 knowledge attained by the Greek, was formed 
 and disciplined for that onward march of civili- 
 zation, which has characterized the last three 
 centuries of the Christian era. 
 
 In the sixteenth century, agriculture had sub- 
 dued the land of Europe to yield its increase ; 
 thorns and thistles had given way to fruits and 
 cereals, and wild beasts had retreated before 
 
 14 — 2 
 
212 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 domesticated animals; scattered tribesthroughout 
 the central and western countries of the continent 
 had united and become nations ; towns and cities 
 were built; manufacturing industry and com- 
 merce had begun to operate ; systems of govern- 
 ment were established ; and laws and customs 
 were constituted and consolidated. This, too, it 
 is of importance to observe, was the period of the 
 dying out of paganism before the dayspring of 
 Christianity, when the Japlietitewas abandoning 
 his myths and idols, and drawing near to the tents 
 of Shem, whose Lord God was to be his God. 
 And it is remarkable, that the progress of scien- 
 tific knowledge, as developed by the Greeks, was 
 arrested from the beginning of the Christian era 
 until the Reformation had proclaimed that the 
 chains of superstition were giving, way, and the 
 inquiring mind was emancipated from the thral- 
 dom of the dogmatic theology and the sacerdotal 
 innovations of mediaeval Christianity. 
 
 Sacerdotajism, which interposes the human 
 element between God and man, and forbids 
 approach to the Deity without priestly inter- 
 cession, has existed in all times and in all places 
 from the beginning. The subjugation of the 
 minds of the many to the dictation of the few 
 
JAPHET. 213 
 
 pervaded all the religions of the pagan world. 
 In Babylonia, Egypt, and Greece, the sacerdotal 
 order assumed and exercised uncontrolled 
 dominion over the consciences of the masses, 
 and prescribed and diverted their religious belief. 
 In Persia and India, the pure theism of the early 
 Aryans had been soon converted into idolatry 
 and polytheism by the aggressive innovations of 
 the self-seeking Brahmanic priesthood. 
 
 Among the Jews, the duties and offices of the 
 priests were so defined and regulated by their 
 divine appointment, that they could not be 
 varied, extended, or continued beyond the dis 
 pensation that closed with the death and resur- 
 rection of the Saviour. And yet the spirit of 
 sacerdotalism, though wholly repugnant to the 
 principles and precepts of the Gospel of Christ, 
 was, at a very early date, revived in Christianity, 
 and asserted the right of a priesthood to stand 
 between the Redeemer and the redeemed, and 
 to be the vehicle of salvation to mankind. 
 Ignorance and, superstition were the foundation- 
 stones of the baneful system, and true know- 
 ledge its destruction. And therefore, as long as 
 knowledge was in the hands of a limited section of 
 the community, priestcraft was in the ascendant. 
 
214 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 The intellectual system that prevailed in the 
 days of mediaeval Christianity, led men to look 
 back, analyze, and explain the opinions of a few 
 previous authors, such as Aristotle and Plato, 
 and to discountenance in every way observation 
 and experiment, the life-blood of physical 
 philosophy. Many of the fathers of the church 
 revived and imposed the opinions of Socrates, 
 that the only valuable philosophy is that which 
 teaches us our moral duties and religious hopes. 
 And thus it was, that dogmatism and intolerance 
 were the chief causes of the centuries of intellec- 
 tual stagnation, as regards physical science, that 
 intervened between the scientific activity of the 
 Greek and that of modern Europe. And yet, 
 while science slumbered, art- was flourishing in 
 the stationary period. The printing-press and 
 paper, gunpowder and glass, the mariner's com- 
 pass and clocks, painting and architecture, and 
 many other useful inventions and arts, were the 
 productions of the latter years of the Middle 
 Ages. But no mechanical or chemical principle 
 that was not known to the Greek, was required 
 for their discovery or perfection. 
 
 This was the state of Europe down to the 
 sixteenth century, when scientific inquiry began 
 
JAPHET. 2IS 
 
 to revive ; the call to advance was sounded, and 
 the work of civilization became rapidly pro- 
 gressive. Sacerdotalism recognized its enemy 
 in the new spirit of inquiry, and war was 
 declared between ecclesiastical authority and 
 the philosophers that rages to the present day. 
 It would be a mistake to suppose that those 
 who upheld the pretensions of the priesthood 
 were ignorant of the truths of philosophy. All 
 that the church required was submission to her 
 authority, and that her dogmas should be re- 
 ceived, even against the evidence of the senses. 
 Thus it was that the authority of the church 
 was vindicated, when Galileo asserted, in obe- 
 dience to her dictates, that the earth was sta- 
 tionary, and immediately after repeated his 
 assurance that it moved nevertheless. The 
 Jesuit editors of " Newton's Principia," in like 
 manner, yielded a feigned submission to the 
 same authority, when they prefixed to their 
 publication a declaration, that they admitted 
 the motion of the earth only as an hypothesis, 
 J)rofessing to obey the decrees of the Pope 
 against the possibility of such a state of things.* 
 
 * The following is the extraordinary declaration of the editors, 
 P.P. Le Sueur and Jacquier, which will be found at the com- 
 
3i6 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 Similar impositions on the part of Romanism, 
 and submission on the part of her subjects, are 
 the means hy which that usurping power has 
 ever since been seeking to crush the freedom 
 of thought and action that is so hostile to her 
 •pretensions. The misbelief that is inculcated 
 in a superstitious mind by sacerdotalism is as 
 destructive to the souls of men as the disbelief 
 that flows from rationalism; and the reason- 
 able service of the true Christian lies between 
 the two extremes of believing too much and too 
 little. 
 
 The printing-press, the great invention of the 
 fifteenjih century, was beginning to flood the 
 minds of the many with intellectual light ; and 
 knowledge was no longer the monopoly of pre- 
 
 meucement of the third volume of their edition. " Newtonus in 
 hoc tertio libro telluris motse hypothesim assumit. Auctoris 
 propositiones aliter explicari non poterant, nisi eadem quoque 
 facta hypothesi. Hinc alienam coacti sumus gerere personam. 
 Caterum laHs a summis Pontificibus contra telluris mottmi Decretis- 
 nos otsequi profitemur" 
 
 It is remarkable that Osiander, one of the editors of the works 
 of Copernicus, for similar reasons thought it advisable to term 
 the new views an hypothesis, and not, as Copernicus himself had 
 done, a demonstrated truth. In the preface Osiander states, 
 "Neque enim necesse est, eas hypotheses esse veras, imo ne. 
 verisimiles quidem, sed sufficit hoc unum, si calculum observa- 
 tionibus congruentum exhibeant." 
 
JAPHET. 217 
 
 judiced and dogmatizing churchmen. The in- 
 vigorated sons of Japhet, entering on the man- 
 hood of their race, took up the long-neglected 
 thread of scientific discovery, and after a slum- 
 ber of sixteen centuries, physical science renewed 
 its now resistless course. Astronomy, which had 
 slumbered from the days of Ptolemy, was 
 awakened into life, at the close of the fifteenth 
 century, by Copernicus, who propounded for 
 the first time the doctrine that the sun is the 
 true centre of the celestial motions. This 
 theory explained with simplicity and complete- 
 ness all the obvious stellar phenomena in the 
 heavens, and for ever extinguished the geocentric 
 theory of the Greek philosophers, which had 
 placed the earth in the centre of the universe, 
 and subordinated all the heavenly host to our 
 planet. The system of Copernicus was con- 
 i firmed by the telescopic discoveries of Galileo, 
 at the commencement of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury (1609), viz., the visible irregularities of the 
 moon's surface, the moonlike phases of the 
 planet Venus, the satellites of Jupiter, and the 
 ring of Saturn. His further discoveries and 
 verifications of the laws and action of falling 
 bodies, and the influence of the motions of 
 
2i8 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 matter at the earth's surface, opened the way 
 to the great discovery of Sir Isaac Newton, as 
 to the physical relations of the several parts of 
 the universe to each other. Galileo was fol- 
 lowed by another celebrated philosopher, Kep- 
 ler, who established that the distances, periodi- 
 cal times, and velocities of the celestial bodies 
 that revolve about the central sun, were con- 
 nected by numerical and geometrical laws that 
 prevailed throughout the whole planetary sys- 
 tem.* But the glory and merit of interpreting 
 those laws, according to their physical meaning, 
 were reserved for his renowned successor, Sir 
 Isaac Newton. 
 
 This great philosopher, about the middle of 
 the seventeenth century, following up the dis- 
 coveries of Galileo and Kepler, established by 
 strict mathematical demonstration the existence 
 of the law which pervades the whole universe, 
 binds the celestial bodies together, and reduces 
 
 * Kepler's laws were three : — 1st. That the planets move in 
 ellipses, of which the sun occupies one focus. 2nd. That the 
 areas described by the radius vector are proportional to the times 
 of describing them. 3rd. That the squares of the periods of 
 different planets are proportioned to the cubes of their mean 
 distances from the sun. The first law determines the figure of 
 the orbit, the second regulates the velocity of the planet, and the 
 third establishes harmony among all the planetary motions. 
 
JAPHET. 219 
 
 their motions to harmony and order. This is 
 the law of universal gravitation, by which all 
 the particles of matter in existence, from the 
 smallest pebble on the earth's surface to the 
 solar mass itself, gravitate towards each other, 
 with forces directly in proportion to their masses 
 and inversely as the squares of their distances. 
 The simple proposition on which this grand dis- 
 covery rested was, that the force which caused 
 the apple to fall from the tree to the ground was 
 the same force that retained the moon in her 
 orbit, and guided the earth and all the planets 
 in their elliptic courses round the sun. It was 
 indisputably the most sublime and important 
 physical discovery that has ever dawned on 
 human intellect, and was the means of trans- 
 forming the whole of physical astronomy into a 
 system of celestial mechanism.* The Copernican 
 system was ratified and perfected, and Kepler's 
 formal laws were explained by mechanical rea- 
 sons. The stars were known in their courses, the 
 secret paths of the wandering comets were 
 searched out, the occurrence of eclipses of the 
 sun and moon predicted to a moment, the cause 
 
 * Humboldt's "Cosmos," Vol. II. p. 308. 
 
THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 and particulars of the flux and reflux of the tides 
 were explained ; and by it the existence and 
 laws of planets have been, in our own days, 
 detected and defined, long before they had 
 entered the field of the most searching tele- 
 scope* Man, emancipated from the supersti- 
 tious dread of comets, eclipses, and meteors, the 
 offspring of credulous ignorance, thenceforth 
 surveys the heavenly host as on a chart spread 
 before him, and assigns to each of them, with 
 certainty, its position in the realms of space, 
 from the beginning of time to the confines of 
 eternity. 
 
 Many great names are associated in this rapid 
 upward march to the high platform of physical 
 science, on which Newton was the first to plant his 
 foot. Copernicus discovered and pointed out the 
 way.to astronomical knowledge. Galileo and Kep- 
 ler led the scientific mind up to the true theory 
 of physical astronomy. Newton apprehended 
 and fully developed the law that explained at 
 once the structure of the universe ; and Lagrange 
 and Laplace have since applied and extended 
 
 * The discovery of the planet Neptune by Adams and Lever- 
 rier in 1846 was a triumphant confirmation of the thedry of gravi- 
 tation. 
 
JAPHET. Ill 
 
 it, by developing and demonstrating the elements 
 of the stability of the planetary system.* The 
 sons of Japhet had, for the first time, penetrated 
 the sanctuary, and proclaimed the laws and 
 ordinances by which the great Author of the 
 universe has governed the kingdom of nature, 
 since the creation of the heavens and the earth. 
 
 But while so much has been done, since the 
 revival of scientific knowledge, to improve our 
 acquaintance with the celestial host, and the 
 laws which regulate their motions, great progress 
 has also been made by succeeding philosophers 
 to increase our knowledge of the past history 
 and present condition of our earthly abode and 
 its inhabitants. Sea shells and other marine 
 organisms embedded in the rocks and clays 
 around them, were familiar objects to the 
 inquiring Greek, attracted - his curiosity, and 
 excited speculation. But no theory was pro- 
 pounded to account for the phenomena. No 
 classification of the rocks of which the earth's 
 
 * The disturbance that must arise from the mutual attraction 
 of the planets to each other, naturally suggests that the planetary 
 system contains in itself the seeds of its own dissolution and de- 
 struction. But Laplace has proved, by the infinitesitnal calculus, 
 that there are elements of stability in the system, which insure 
 the preservation and continuance of the "life " of the plapets, by 
 restraining the disturbances within certain limits. 
 
222 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 crust is composed was attempted by them ; nor 
 was the order and succession of the animal and 
 vegetable creation investigated, or even sug- 
 gested. It is only within the last century, that 
 the patient and laborious research of the geolo- 
 gist has unfolded the history of the formation 
 of our globe, through uncountable but distin- 
 guishable ages, from a beginning, when it was 
 without form and void, a dark untenanted 
 watery waste, without light or life within its 
 chaotic precincts, until it has become the abode 
 of animal and vegetable vitalities of every form 
 and class, from the sightless zoophyte to lordly 
 man — from the' lowliest fucoid to the stateliest 
 forest tree. Every stone in the fair fabric, 
 from the foundation, has had its place assigned 
 to it, and the relative ages of all the known 
 members of the animal and vegetable worlds have 
 been acertained and fixed. The law of progress, 
 firom the lower to the higher forms of life, has 
 been established to be the law which God 
 imposed upon Himself in the structure of the 
 planet, and in the creation of the organisms with 
 which it has been furnished. And while the 
 information, thus brought home to us by the 
 persevering industry of the geologist, has en- 
 
JAPHET. 223 
 
 larged the knowledge of organic and inorganic 
 matter, and realized valuable instruction to guide 
 the miner in his search for the useful minerals 
 which are stored up for the use of man in the 
 bowels of the earth ; to teach the agriculturist 
 how best to make the ground yield her increase 
 abundantly ; and to direct and lighten the 
 labours of the engineer in his arduous under- 
 takings ; it has also established the authenticity 
 and inspiration of the first page of God's revela- 
 tion to man, and stamps it as the word of truth. 
 From the heavens and its host, and the earth 
 and its organisms, the Japhetite has turned to 
 contemplate and analyze the beauteous elastic 
 fluid, known as the atmosphere, which encircles 
 the earth like a silver robe. Its existence was 
 not known to the Semitic race ; and until the 
 revival of knowledge- in our age of progress, air 
 was considered to be a simple substance. But 
 it has now been resolved into its constituent 
 gases, oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon ; and it was 
 discovered, that while in their combination they 
 are the vehicle of light and life to all terrestrial 
 beings, they also constitute a medium through 
 which the animal and vegetable world mutually 
 sustain and supply each other's wants. The 
 
224 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 animal inhales the air, and thereby separates 
 the carbon from the oxygen, appropriating the 
 latter to its own support, and sending forth the 
 carbon as pabulum for vegetation ; while on the 
 other hand, the vegetable distils the atmosphere, 
 keeping the carbon to build up its own tissues, 
 and sending forth the oxygen to sustain and 
 vivify the animal creation. With such acquired 
 knowledge, man's dominion over this department 
 of his earthly abode has been largely and use- 
 fully extended. The laws of nature which 
 explain the phenomena of rain, dew, clouds, 
 vapours, winds, and tempests, which were hidden 
 mysteries to the Greeks, and indeed to all who 
 lived before the' last three centuries, have been 
 ascertained, developed, and utilized, for the pro- 
 tection and preservation of the human race, and 
 the increase of their enjoyments of the bounties 
 of Providence, in a variety of ways too numerous 
 to detail ; while the theory of heat, which proves 
 the derivation of all mechanical action on the 
 face of the earth, and every manifestation of 
 power, vital, and physical, from the sun's rays, is 
 the discovery of living philosophers, who are 
 daily leading the Japhetite mind farther and 
 farther into the recesses of nature, and making 
 
JAPHET. 225 
 
 it more familiar with the Divine economy, which 
 created and regulates the material universe. 
 
 Of the science of Optics, which treats of the 
 properties of the wonderful element of light, and 
 investigates the mode by which the colour and 
 form of- external objects are conveyed to the 
 human mind, little was known to the Greek 
 beyond the elementary laws of reflexion. They 
 observed that the angles of incidence and re- 
 flexion of the rays of light were always equal. 
 But though the still more important phenomena 
 of refraction had been noticed and discussed by 
 them, its simplest laws were not developed until 
 the era of progress had commenced, when 
 Newton made some valuable discoveries con- 
 nected with light, and, by a single experiment 
 with a glass prism, resolved the sunbeam into 
 its many constituent colours. The occultation of 
 Jvipiter's satellites on their entrance into the 
 shadow of their planet, led to the knowledge of 
 the velocity of light ; but the discovery of the 
 mode in which light is propagated was reserved 
 for philosophers of our own day. Newton had 
 propounded the emission or corpuscular theory 
 of ligH which supposed it to consist of small 
 particles projected by luminous bodies with 
 
 IS 
 
226 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 inconceivable rapidity, and fine enough to pass 
 through the pores of transparent media, exciting 
 vision by striking on the optic nerve. This 
 theory was adopted by the most eminent philo- 
 sophers ; but was at last disproved by its failure 
 to account for whole classes of the phenomena. 
 of light. It was first opposed by the celebrated 
 astronomer Huyghens, and after much discussion 
 and experiment, was finally overthrown, within 
 the last fifty years, by the labours of Thomas 
 Young, an Englishman, and Augustin Fresnel, a 
 Frenchman, who adduced a multitude of facts in- 
 explicable by Newton's emission theory ; and 
 have established and explained the physical 
 action of light, by showing that its propagation 
 by undulations in an elastic medium accounts 
 for reflexion, refraction, diffraction, dispersion, 
 and all other known optical phenomena, as com- 
 pletely as the theory of gravitation has accounted 
 for the motions of the heavenly bodies. 
 
 This theory, known as the wave or undulatory 
 theory; has been further established and applied 
 by the labours of Airy and Hamilton, of Cauchy 
 and Lloyd, who have developed and explained 
 numerous optical phenomena on mechanical 
 principles. These discoveries have resulted in 
 
JAPHET. 227 
 
 the establishment of the important and interest- 
 ing fact, that a substance or medium of extreme 
 elasticity and tenuity, through which the undu- 
 lations of light operate, and without which all 
 the heavenly bodies would be invisible, pervades 
 every part of sidereal space from which a ray of 
 light can reach the eye. This substance is called 
 " Luminiferous ether ;' and by this ether the 
 vibrations of the molecules of luminous bodies 
 are taken up and transmitted through it in waves 
 which, impinging on the retina of the eye, excite 
 the sensation of light. Thus, as sound is known 
 to be propagated by undulations or waves of air, 
 so light and heat are transmitted by undulations 
 or waves of ether ; and the existence of the one 
 substance is as certain as the existence of the 
 other. By these discoveries the understanding 
 mind is supplied with another proof of the won- 
 drous wisdom that has designed and framed the 
 universe, and connected all its parts in mysteri- 
 ous unison with each other. 
 
 Of Electricity and Magnetism the ancients 
 had little knowledge beyond the obvious facts 
 that amber and some other substances attract 
 small bodies, and that the magnet attracts iron 
 But the laws and connection of these occult 
 
 15—2 
 
228 THE BUIIDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 forces were unknown until the beginning of the 
 eighteenth century, when it became apparent to 
 scientific inquirers, that the spark and shock of 
 the electric machine were issues of the same force 
 that is the cause of thunder and lightning in 
 the atmosphere. ■ And heaven's artillery, so awe- 
 inspiring to the mind of man, and so destructive 
 to his edifices and ships, has been rendered com- 
 paratively harmless by the simple contrivance 
 of the conductor, which captures the kindling 
 shock, and buries the destructive fluid in the 
 earth or sea. "The spreading of the clouds 
 above, and the noise pf the tabernacle," whose 
 causes were supposed to lie beyond the compre- 
 hension of the Semitic mind, in the days of the 
 patriarch Job, are no longer secrets. More recent 
 investigations have shown that electricity, like 
 gravitation, pervades all terrestrial matter what- 
 soever its nature, solid, gaseous, or fluid, and 
 extends to the sun and the other celestial 
 bodies. The way has been opened, and many 
 are exploring this department of knowledge. 
 But much remains to be discovered, and much to 
 be explained. 
 
 It has been observed, that the flood of light 
 that is poured from the bright star that bursts 
 
JAPHET. ' 229 
 
 forth on th^ approach of the charcoal points that 
 complete the voltaic battery, leads the scientific 
 mind to anticipate the proof that electricity is 
 the source of the light and heat which the sun 
 pours upon the earth, and throughout the plan- 
 etary system ; and which may open the way to 
 a still higher class of knowledge, and bring us 
 some steps nearer to the God of 'creation. As 
 it is, this subtle agent has been utilized in a 
 marvellous manner, by means of the electric 
 telegraph, to convey with speed that transcends 
 calculation, over continents and beneath oceans, 
 political, commercial, and domestic intelligence 
 ta and from the uttermost parts of the earth. 
 Man's dominion over this element of nature has 
 only commenced, and still greater services it 
 may yet be required to render to him. Heat, 
 and light, and motive power are all combined 
 in electricity ; and may we not hope that, with 
 its assistance, some or all of them may be pro- 
 cured and applied for human use, more econo- 
 mically and effectively than by any other known 
 expedient— so that, even though all the stores of 
 that important mineral, coal, ,on which man is 
 now so dependent for light and heat and mechani- 
 cal power, were to be used up and exhausted, as 
 
230 , THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 some have predicted they will be, we need not 
 despair of a substitute from the hands of the 
 same Almighty Providence, that has never failed 
 to supply man's wants as they arise, in the hour 
 of need ? 
 
 As regards Magnetism, its real origin is yet to 
 be revealed. Faraday, in our own days, has dis- 
 covered that all substances are acted upon by 
 magnetism, and that the majority of them are 
 feebly repelled by the magnet ; though iron, and 
 a few other substances, are strongly attracted. 
 The field of inquiry is large and inviting, and 
 many are now exploring it. 
 
 The Mariner's Compass, the most useful 
 known application of magnetism, was undoubt- 
 edly in use in the thirteenth century. It is pro- 
 bable that Europe owes the adaptation of the 
 directing powers of the magnet to the purposes 
 of navigation to the Arabians, and that they 
 again were indebted for it to the Chinese.* But 
 it was, comparatively speaking, an unsafe guide 
 for the mariner, iintil a more perfect acquaint- 
 ance with its properties, and the laws of electric 
 magnetism, acquired by the observation and ex- 
 periments of modern philosophers, supplied us 
 
 * Humboldt's "Cosmos." Vol. II. i;. vi. 
 
JAPHET. 231 
 
 with a more exact knowledge of the phenomena 
 of the variation and dip of the needle in different 
 parts of the earth's surface. The far-famed 
 navigator, Christopher Columbus, has not only 
 the merit of having first discovered in the At- 
 lantic a line without magnetic variation, but also, 
 by marking and considering the progressive in- 
 crease of westerly declination in receding from 
 that line, given the first impulse to the study of 
 terrestrial magnetism in Europe. 
 
 This great man of thought and action, and other 
 bold contemporary spirits, were the authors of 
 those remarkable geographical achievements that 
 distinguished the close of the fifteenth, and the 
 early portion of the sixteenth century, which 
 may be termed the great transition epoch from 
 the Middle Ages to the modern age of progress, 
 The discovery of America, its extent and form^ 
 the passage to India round the Cape of Good 
 Hope, and the circumnavigation of the globe, 
 the fruits of the sagacious enterprize and deter- 
 mination of Columbus, Cabot, Vasco de Gama, 
 and Sebastian de Eleano, in a period of about 
 thirty years, from 1492 to 1522, may be said to 
 have doubled at once to the inhabitants of 
 Europe the works of the creation, presenting 
 
232 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 nature in variously new aspects, and enlarging 
 the boundaries of the natural sciences. These 
 discoveries on the surface of our planet were 
 attended with a great increase of man's know- 
 ledge of celestial objects by the contemporaneous 
 invention of the space-penetrating telescope. The 
 multiplication of physical phenomena gave an 
 impulse to the physical sciences that has ever 
 since been increasing, to the extension of man's 
 dominion over the elements of nature, and the 
 consequent enlargement of the boundaries of 
 civilization. 
 
 Among the ancients, fire, water, earth, and 
 air were supposed to be the simple elements 
 of which . all nature was composed ; and until 
 the revival of scientific knowledge in our age 
 of progress. Chemistry was but a name. Until 
 the seventeenth century, water and air had not 
 been resolved into their constituent gases, and 
 were considered to be simple substances. But 
 since science has become progressive, Chemistry 
 has become one of the highest labours of the 
 human intellect. It not only analyzes every 
 form of matter, but it creates new compounds 
 that had no previous existence in nature, and 
 has become connected with every department 
 
JAPHET. 233 
 
 of physical science. It has made us acquainted 
 with the composition, structure, and. functions 
 of the several parts of the human body, and 
 taught us the mode in which the processes of 
 breathing and digestion are carried on. It has 
 enlarged the knowledge and power of the agri- 
 culturist over the soils under his management, 
 to increase their productiveness ; and is aiding 
 man in the discovery and application of sanatory 
 expedients, by which, not oiily is the health of 
 the individual secured, but the well-being of 
 large communities is promoted, and the evils 
 arising from increasing crowded populations 
 mitigated. 
 
 How little was known of Physiology before 
 the age of progress is apparent from the fact, 
 that the true theory of the circulation of the 
 blood through the veins and arteries of animals 
 was, for the first time, propounded by Harvey 
 in the seventeenth centuify ; and how great has 
 been the advance in comparative anatomy, we 
 may gather from the 'fact, that the celebrated 
 Cuvie^,' who died in the year 1830, and his 
 successors in that department of science, have 
 been able, from a single fossil bone, to recon- 
 struct animals they had never seen, but whose 
 
234 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 existence and form have been verified by sub- 
 sequent geological discoveries. 
 
 Such are the principal inductive physical 
 sciences, whose birth and growth within the last ■ 
 three hundred years attest and illustrate the 
 capacity and quality of the intellectual powers 
 peculiar to the Japhetite, and which have never 
 been found in any other race of mankind. 
 The forces which operate on mundane matter 
 have been extended to the celestial bodies; 
 and the earth and planets, with their attendant 
 satellites, have been assigned their proper 
 places in the planetiary system, and the plane- 
 tary system in the universe. Their paths have 
 been defined in space, and their periodical 
 movements calculated to a moment of time. 
 The precise shape of our globe has been deter- 
 mined. The axis on which it revolves has been 
 measured, and its mass has been weighed, as it 
 were, in a balance. The same may be said of 
 all the other planets in the solar system. The 
 ocean and atmosphere have been analyzed and 
 resolved into their constituent gases, and the 
 secondary causes of meteorological phenomena 
 made known to man. The sunbeam has been 
 severed into its many-coloured component rays ; 
 
JAPHET. 235 
 
 and its heat has been traced out as the sourcg 
 of all mechanical action, organic and inorganic, 
 on the earth ; while the subtle electric spark, 
 from being an object of terror, has been captured, 
 reduced to submission, and converted into the 
 busy messenger that conveys intelligence be- 
 tween the widely separated families of mankind. 
 The minds that have reached these intellectual 
 heights were not slow in discovering and de- 
 veloping the hidden properties of matter, and 
 converting them to their own use, to accelerate 
 the career of civilization. 
 
 It would not be, possible to enumerate the 
 jnechanical arts and contrivances, by means of 
 which, in these latter days, the products of 
 nature have been utilized, and her laws adapted 
 by the triumphant Japhetite, to the increase of 
 Jhuman knowledge, and the expansion of human 
 power. But we may observe that, three hun- 
 dred years ago, the barometer and the thermo- 
 meter, by which the pulses of the atmosphere are 
 felt, enabling man to regulate temperature and 
 guard against the injurious effects of wind and 
 rain, storm and tempest, were unknown. No 
 microscope or telescope had then revealed the 
 minute and magnificent wonders of the worlds 
 
236 THE BUILDERS Of BABEL. 
 
 •within, worlds, and the worlds beyond worlds, 
 that were invisible to unaided human sight. 
 The air-pump had not been thought of; and 
 water, the most ductile of earthly elements, had 
 npt been imprisoned in the hydraulic press, and 
 coerced, under the superintendence of a single 
 hand, to raise or move hundreds of tons weight, 
 and perform other stupendous labours for man. 
 And, above all, the steam-engine, the most im- 
 portant and generally useful of all our adapta- 
 tions and mechanical contrivances, though sug- 
 gested and discussed, had not been realized until 
 within the last hundred years. Here let us 
 pause, to regard and estimate this mighty com- 
 bination of natural and mechanical powers that 
 European man has so recently taken into his 
 service, and which has done more to increase 
 man's productive power than all his other dis- 
 coveries and inventions put together. 
 
 Steam, the product of the simple combination 
 of fire and water, must have been . a familiar 
 object to all people in every age of the world ; 
 and we have reason to think that its expansive 
 or elastic force was known and utilized to some 
 extent in the Grecian era, and early in the age 
 of progress. But the method of applying it had 
 
JAPHET. 237 
 
 no analogy to the mode in which it has been 
 applied in modern engines, and was of no 
 practical utility. The first time that the true, 
 theory of the applicability of steam as a motive 
 power was propounded, was about the middle 
 of the seventeenth centliry, by an English noble- 
 man, the Marquis of Worcester, who has left, in 
 his " Century of Inventions," a description of a 
 machine that entitles him, in the estimation of 
 his countrymen, to the honour of having been 
 the inventor of the steam-engine. Whether he 
 ever actually reduced his theory to practice, by 
 constructing a working engine, is not certain. 
 But, however that may be, though some clumsy 
 attempts were made early in the eighteenth 
 century to construct engines to relieve the 
 Cornish mines of the water that was choking 
 them, steam power cannot be said to have been 
 perfected until the year 1769, when the far- 
 famed James Watt, having applied his vigorous 
 intellect to the solution of the problem, after 
 many failures and disappointments, succeeded 
 in perfecting an engine that soon displaced the 
 slow and costly machinery of his predecessors, 
 and supplied the world with a motive power 
 that was never known before. 
 
238 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 This engine, improved and perfected by 
 various ingenious contrivances, was at last con- 
 verted into a rotative engine, which adapted it 
 to the requirements of every branch of industry ; 
 and it has ever since continued to be the motive 
 power in every important manufactory, and has 
 been applied extensively to agriculture, and for 
 various domestic purposes. The power-loom 
 and the spinning-jenny were called into existence 
 to clothe the world. The deepest mines were 
 not only relieved of the water that was rendering 
 them useless, but were, by the same means, 
 supplied with wholesome air, an indispensable 
 requisite for those who were working them. 
 By steam power, coal is brought up from its 
 depths to vivify us with light and heat, and to 
 supply the fuel necessary for its own working. 
 Its application to the printing-press is not the 
 least of the many important services it renders 
 to mankind, for without it our daily intelligence 
 and periodical literature could not be furnished, 
 to satisfy the craving appetite of the millions 
 for a knowledge of passing events, and of the 
 opinions, speculations, and discoveries of thought* 
 ful men. The increased communication between 
 the widely severed members of the human family, 
 
JAPHET. 239 
 
 facilitated and encouraged, as it has been, by the 
 adoption in all civilized countries of cheap post- 
 age, could not have been carried into operation 
 without the aid of steam ; and the electric cables, 
 that bind together the dwellers in the most 
 widely separated parts of the earth, could not 
 have been manufactured or laid in their ocean 
 beds without the assistance of the steam-engine. 
 In short, it has become the indispensable servant 
 and drudge of man ; and, in Great Britain alone, 
 steam performs the work of more than two 
 million of horses. 
 
 From manufacture this power was soon 
 extended to navigation: and with its aid the 
 mariner, whose existence was a constant struggle 
 against baffling winds and irresistible currents,, 
 defies the hostile elements, and finds his desti- 
 nation with certainty and precision. Of no less 
 importance was the adaptation of steam power 
 to locomotion, which was not accomplished until 
 the year 1832, when George Stephenson placed 
 the model of the present locomotive on the Liver- 
 pool and Manchester Railway. How railways 
 and railway traffic have progressed since that date 
 is known to all. One hundred years have scarcely 
 spent their course since this mighty power was 
 
240 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 first applied to manufactures ; sixty years since it 
 was adapted to navigation ; and nearly forty since 
 the locomotive commenced its triumphant career 
 on iron roads ; and by means of these mechani- 
 cal contrivances, the conditions of life have been 
 essentially altered, the destiny of mankind has 
 been powerfully affected, and the whole world 
 has undergone a greater social revolution in a 
 century, than in the whole of the rest of the 
 Christian era. The vast material and intellec- 
 tual wealth of Europe and America has accu- 
 mulated from a very small capital in a com- 
 paratively short period of time ; and if progress 
 is to continue with the same multiplication of 
 speed and volume that marks the progress of 
 the last few years, the work of the Japhetite 
 will soon be completed, and his destiny accom- 
 plished. 
 
 Everything has assumed colosscil dimensions. 
 Monster exhibitions and monster armies — mon- 
 ster guns and monster ships — monster hotels 
 and monster shops — are the order of the day. 
 Luxuries and literature, formerly confined to 
 the few, are now provided for the million ; and 
 the simple offspring of fire and water is the 
 source from which this mighty flood of innova- 
 
JAPHET. 241 
 
 tions has issued on the earth. Unknown as a 
 power a few years ago, it has become a necessity 
 in the affairs of men and nations — the life-blood 
 of the social system. Our iron roads and 
 steam navigation are the veins and arteries of 
 civilized communities. They provide the daily 
 bread, and all the necessities and luxuries of 
 life, for the increasing populations of the in- 
 creasing towns and cities of the world. And 
 if the power of steam were to be suddenly sus- 
 pended by some freak of nature, it is not too 
 much to say, that the heart of the great human 
 family would cease to beat ; social and political 
 chaos would ensue, and ruin as sudden and 
 complete as that of Babylon, as portrayed in the 
 "Book of the Revelation," would fall on the 
 kingdoms of the civilized world : " In one hour 
 so great riches is come to naught ; in one hour 
 she is made desolate." 
 
 Nor has the great concern of religion been 
 stationary in this rapid onward movement of the 
 last three centuries. The propagation of the gos- 
 pel, and the acceleration of Christ's kingdom in 
 this age of progress, is worthy of record, though 
 it is but a glimmering of the light that is to 
 shine in that age of the world when all shall 
 
 16 
 
242 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 know the Lord, from the least to the greatest. 
 Eighteen hundred years ago, the knowledge of 
 the Most High God, and of His dealings with the 
 children of men, was confined to a handful of 
 Jews, the children of Shem. The sons of Japhet 
 abandoned the Lord God of their father Noah, 
 soon after they first set their faces east and west, 
 to fulfil their mission throughout the earth. 
 Darkness covered the lands of their adoption, 
 and gross spiritual darkness accompanied their 
 steps, for two thousand years, until the Sun of. 
 Righteousness arose, when the standard of gos- 
 pel truth was transferred to the hands of the 
 Gentiles, and Japhet began to draw near to the 
 tents of Shem. Slowly and secretly, for fifteen 
 hundred years of the Christian era, the leaven 
 worked among the generations of Japhet. The 
 seed of God's word was sown, but it was sown 
 among thorns. The tares were abundant, and 
 there was little ripening of fruit until the har- 
 vest of the Reformation, in the sixteenth century. 
 Since then, the true gospel has been preached to 
 those who are willing to hear and, receive it. 
 The Bible has been sent into many lands. 
 And though spiritual ignorance, and contempt 
 of God's word, still overshadow the kingdoms of 
 
JAPHET. ' 243 
 
 the world, there are few places without some 
 faithful witnesses of the truth, and watchmen 
 on the walls of Zion have not been silent. 
 Wherever civilization has entered, missionaries 
 of religion have followed. The records of the 
 Bible Society, and of other religious associ- 
 ations, both at home and abroad, attest that in 
 this as in all other intellectual acquisitions, a 
 progress has been made, within the last three 
 hundred years, unknown and unprecedented in 
 the history of mankind. ' 
 
 But it would be a mistake to suppose that 
 progress in religion has been at all commen- 
 surate with progress in civilization. The pride 
 of intellect and sense of power, which charac- 
 terize progressive civilization, have little in 
 common with the humility and meekness that 
 prepare the soil in which true faith and per- 
 ' sonal piety take root downward, and bear fruit 
 upward. The spirit that is leading the rulers of 
 nations to expend the ingenuity of their prac- 
 tical philosophers in the invention and fabrica- 
 tion of implements of destruction and material 
 of war, is not the Spirit of God. The sound of 
 the battle does not harmonize with the message 
 of peace and good-will to all men. But let it' 
 
 16 — 2 
 
244 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 suffice for the believer in GotJ's never-failing 
 providence, that we have a divine assurance, 
 confirmed by all that has passed and is passing, 
 that though such things are, the end is not yet. 
 Warg shall cease in all the world. Swords shall 
 be turned into ploughshares, and spears into 
 pruning-hooks. All that is evil in progress will 
 be found to bear its own seed of corruption, 
 while ail that is good endureth for ever. 
 
 Such are some of the most striking of the 
 attainments in the acquisition and expansion of 
 knowledge which have signalized the last three 
 centuries, worthily, as we have seen, designated 
 " the age of progress ;" and the master minds 
 which have been chiefly instrumental in the 
 wondrous development, -are the undoubted de- 
 scendants of those sons of Japhet who colo- 
 nized Central Europe after the dispersion at 
 Shinar. Their languages, and those physical 
 and mental characteristics which distinguish 
 them from all other races of mankind, establish 
 their common origin, or source, which history, 
 tradition, and experience fix in the East. The 
 patient endurance and untiring perseverance 
 which enabled them, in their early career, to 
 grapple with, and subdue, the forces of nature, 
 
JAPHET. 245 
 
 created that self-reliant and observant spirit 
 which has become part of their nature, and has 
 fitted them to enter on and maintain the high 
 position that the modern European and his 
 American brethren have been holding in the 
 world since Christianity, relieved, to some ex- 
 tent, of the gloom and degrading influence of 
 superstition and dogmatism, shed its beams on 
 their benighted minds. Then it was that the 
 expanding spirit that was the birthright of the 
 sons of Japhet becanie manifest. The propen- 
 sity to investigate and search out the laws of 
 nature, and how they operate in the production 
 of natural phenomena, and a desire to share the 
 counsels of the Most High, and to become 
 fellow-workers with Him in the production and 
 development of the useful and the beautiful, are 
 the distinctive peculiarities of the race that is 
 leading the van of human progress, and confirm 
 their title to be called the sons of Japhet. 
 Other races have been, and are, inventive and 
 utilitarian; but the Japhetic faculty is ex- 
 pansive and creative, producing that enlarge- 
 ment of population and extension of territory 
 that is verifying the prediction of Noah. 
 
 The ancient Egyptians have left abundant 
 
246 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 evidence of an artistic genius in the utensils and 
 implements which have been found stored up in 
 their pyramids and catacombs ; but they do not 
 appear to have possessed the higher quality of 
 mind which converts facts into science, and 
 generalizes knowledge, to the increase of man's 
 power over the elements of nature. ■ A remark- 
 able instance of the absence of such a quality in 
 the Egyptian, and its presence in the Grecian, 
 mind, is found in the speculations which Hero- 
 dotus has recorded relative to the causes of the 
 summer floods of the Nile. He informs us, 
 concerning the nature of this river, that he had 
 not been able to learn anything from the priests, 
 or from any other Egyptian, though he ques- 
 tioned them very pressingly. When he asked 
 them, what is the power by which the Nile is, in 
 its nature, the reverse of every other river— over- 
 flowing in the summer, and low in the winter — 
 he could obtain no satisfactory explanation from 
 any Egyptian.* The Grecian mind expressed a 
 desire, which was part of its nature, to discover 
 the reason and cause of the phenomenon, which 
 the Egyptian mind did not feel ; and Herodotus 
 proceeds to enumerate a variety of reasons 
 • Rawlinson's " Herodotus," vol. ii. p. 24. 
 
JAPHET. 247 
 
 assigned by Grecians to explain the cause of 
 these Nile floods, and adds some of his own — 
 none of which, however, approach the truth 
 since established. But the discussion illustrates 
 the existence of a tendency in the early Gre- 
 cian mind to inquire after physical causes, and 
 that such a faculty was not shared by the Egyp- 
 tian. 
 
 The often asserted claims of the Egyptians to 
 have been the source from which the scientific 
 knowledge of the Greek was derived have been 
 investigated, and long since rejected by com- 
 petent authorities. The Greeks were, as we 
 ihave seen, indebted to them, and to the Phoe- 
 nicians, for many of the practical arts and ac- 
 complishments- of civilization ; but the scientific 
 faculty that adds link to link in the great chain 
 of causation was the peculiar heritage of the 
 Aryan or Japhetic race. The existence and 
 exercise of the faculty is, to some extent, if not 
 altogether, due to the genius of the Japhetic 
 languages. Meitaphysicians have shown that 
 language and thought are necessarily connected, 
 and react on each other. It is, therefore, more 
 than probable that, without the Japhetic lan- 
 guage, the Japhetic turn of thought would not 
 
248 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 exist. And thus, as in. the case of the Semite, 
 so in that of the Japhetite, the peculiar frame of 
 mind that induces the performance of the work 
 imposed upon them by the divine decree, had 
 its origin at Shinar. 
 
 Japhet was to be enlarged ; and the prophecy 
 is being fulfilled. It is one of the laws of nature, 
 that as production increases population also 
 increases ; and as population extends, so the 
 countries inhabited by weaker and less-favoured 
 races will, unless some special interference of 
 Providence occurs, be appropriated by the 
 higher and more intelligent race, until the 
 progeny .of Japhet shall be enlarged to the 
 extent of the habitable globe. With the aid of 
 nature's powers, as exemplified by the steam- 
 engine, . production is unlimited. No demand 
 can be made that the industry and enterprise 
 of the European and American manufacturers 
 of the present day cannot supply ; and the 
 obvious result is, that new homes in other lands 
 are sought out, to be peopled by the over- 
 flowing population of the more civilized portions 
 of the earth. The wide prairies of the new 
 world are being gradually taken from the native 
 races, who know not, and are incapable of being 
 
JAPHET. 249 
 
 taught, hpw to subdue and pultivate them. The 
 broad and deep forests of North America are 
 falling before the axe of the irrepressible 
 European. The great continent of Australia is' 
 also- in process of occupation by the same people, 
 to the exclusion of the aboriginal inhabitants. The 
 climate of Africa, the vast population of China, 
 and the cold, inhospitable highlands of Central 
 Asia, render those regions less inviting than the 
 more tractable soil and genial climes of America 
 and Australia ; yet even into these districts of 
 the earth the European Japhetite is forcing his 
 way, and preating a demand for his unlimited 
 supply. Japhet is being enlarged ; and the 
 oldest of our, prophecies has proved to be the 
 well-spring of history, and the fulfilment has 
 been continuous from the days of Shinar to the 
 present hour. Mediaeval sacerdotalism may 
 pretend and protest ; but its puny efforts are 
 vain to stay the torrent of freedom of thought 
 and action, which are operating, for good or for 
 evil,«to enlarge the botindaries of Japhet. 
 
 All this, interesting and instructive as it is to 
 the historian, the political economist, and the 
 philosopher, is still more so to those who study 
 
250 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 it by the light of revelation. Why should not 
 the Christian philosopher trace back the cause 
 of the present position of the civilized world, 
 and the source of its population, to the destiny 
 predicted of the family of Noah, as the scientific 
 philosopher has traced back the inhabitants of 
 Europe, by their languages, to their cradle in the 
 East ? The word of God is even more fixed and 
 immutable than the laws of nature. Though 
 He tarry. He will not fail ; and what nobler 
 employment of the human intellect can be con- 
 ceived, than to explore the events of the world, 
 and to read in the history of human progress, 
 that all that has happened was ordained by the 
 Almighty from the beginning, and declared in 
 the most ancient of all the records in the pos- 
 session of man, and has so happened because 
 the word of the Lord endureth for ever ? 
 
 We can trace back the pedigree of the highly- 
 cultured European of the present day to 
 ancestors, who, journeying from the East, con- 
 verted a wilderness inhabited by savages into 
 the garden of Europe. We discover them, in 
 the early twilight of the world's history, entering 
 the primeval forests of Central Europe, in which 
 
JAPHET. 251 
 
 they wfere hidden for two thousand years ; and 
 we again see them emerging into the day, and 
 coming, at the same time, out of spiritual dark- 
 ness into the marvellous light of gospel truth ; 
 and invigorated by that light, we behold them 
 taking up the long-neglected thread of scientific 
 inquiry that had dropped from the hands of their 
 Grecian brethren, when they had reached the 
 limits assigned to the pagan mind ; and thence- 
 forth they are found perfecting their knowledge 
 of nature and nature's laws, and summoning her 
 conquered forces to obey and, to serve theiii, in 
 extending their power over the material ele- 
 ments, to the increase of all that is necessary for 
 the well-being of man, and the enjoyment of his 
 existence. All this was ordained while the 
 great Aryan family, that is now encircling the 
 giobe, and leavening the earth with their institu- 
 tions, were in the loins of their father Japhet ; 
 and the Providence of God has been with them 
 from the commencement of their work to the 
 present hour. 
 
 It rests with the sons of Japhet to carry on 
 to its issue the civilization of mankind. The 
 outward flow of progressing humanity is fair 
 
252 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 and promising to the eye ; but the current of 
 evil runs dark and deep beneath the surface. 
 As man consists of body and soul, so the de- 
 velopment of his well-being requires, not only 
 material civilization, which enlarges, as we have 
 seen, the numbers and borders of the civilizing 
 race, but a corresponding progress in the moral 
 culture of the community. To improve man's 
 social condition, by multiplying the conveniences 
 and luxuries of life, is the natural inclination and 
 genius, of the Japhetic mind ; and the sons of 
 Japhet experience no difficulty in carrying on 
 such a work to its perfection. But to educate 
 the minds of the many nap to the true standard 
 of Christian morals is not so congenial to their 
 intellectual and philosophic tendencies, and re- 
 quires self-denying effort, which few of them, 
 comparatively speaking, are disposed to practise. 
 The pride of intellect, the love of riches, and the 
 lust of power, which ar^the natural products of 
 increasing civilization, do not harmonize with the 
 self-sacrificing humilty and submissiyeness that 
 are the essence of the true Christianity which 
 was taught by the Saviour, and preached by the 
 Apostles. Hence it is, that the rapid advance 
 
JAPHET. 2S3 
 
 of material civilization l\as never been accom- 
 panied by a corresponding advance in the moral 
 culture of the community; on the contrary, it 
 is found, that the higher the intellectual attain- 
 ments, and the greater the prosperity, the more 
 prevalent is the contempt or perversion of God's 
 word. The Babylon of the Revelation, which 
 typifies the climax of progressing civilization, 
 presents to view a community which combines 
 the highest commercial prosperity and the most 
 refined luxury with a low moral condition and 
 gross apostasy ; and all are buried together on 
 the confines of a better dispensation, typified by 
 the New Jerusalem, which is to be the scene of 
 a future reign of righteousness and peace on the 
 earth. 
 
 With such a downward moral tendency of 
 those engaged in the development of the great 
 physical agencies of civilization, those of Japhet's 
 sons who recognize the presence of the Lord 
 God of Shem in the affairs of mankind must, 
 each of them in his own time and place, labour 
 to leaven their generations with the knowledge 
 that ' realizes a future beyond the narrow pre- 
 cincts of human life. The encroachments of ra- 
 
254 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 tionalism on the one hand, and of superstition 
 on the other, leave little room for the diffusion 
 of the precepts and doctrines of the Gospel of 
 Christ among the rapidly-increasing populations 
 of Christendom ; yet the voice that whispers 
 " Peace on earth, good-will to man," may be heard 
 at times, in the noisy struggles for individual and 
 national supremacy that are daily deluging the 
 earth with physical and moral evils ; and acts 
 of Christian charity, dictated by Christian faith, 
 are mitigating, if they cannot prevent, the rude 
 effects of unrestrained hatred and ill-will that 
 rule in the hearts of the unregenerate among 
 the sons of men. More than this the most 
 sanguine believer cannot expect; for the per- 
 fection of humanity, to be effected by human 
 agencies, is a dream of the philosopher that will 
 never be realized. The great experiment of 
 man's ability to rule himself and the world 
 around him, that has been in operation through- 
 out all the generations, from the Builders of 
 Babel to the philosophers and legislators of our 
 own days, is still working with intensity that in- 
 creases as his dominion over the elements of 
 nature is increasing. But war and discord. 
 
JAPHET. 255 
 
 fraud and violence, still prevail, and will not 
 Cease, until God shall take to Himself His great 
 power, and "the kingdoms of this world are 
 become the kingdoms of our Lord and His 
 Christ." 
 
( 2S6 ) 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 %\it Mmrdtz. 
 
 " These are the generations of Noah" — Gen. vi. 9. 
 
 These are the generations of Noah — three 
 families of the same race, flowing out from a 
 single source, and yet always distinguishable 
 and distinguished from each other, throughout 
 the past ages of the civilized world, not only by 
 their languages, but by moral and intellectual 
 attributes peculiar to each, which have influenced 
 their several destinies, as we have been tracing 
 them, from the beginning. These destinies cor- 
 respond to those that were predicted of the 
 three sons of Noah before their tribal separation, 
 and manifest the patriarchal declaration to have 
 been the fountain of the- world's history from 
 that time to the present. Whether we con- 
 template the precocious progeny of the impious 
 
THE ADAMITE. 257 
 
 Ham, or the monotheistic descendants of Shem 
 through Abraham, or the expanding sons of 
 Japhet, in each and all we hear an echo of the 
 patriarch's sentence throughout all their genera- 
 tions : " Cursed be Canaan " — " Blessed be the 
 Lord God of Shem " — " God shall enlarge 
 Japhet, and he shall dwell in the tents of 
 Shem." 
 
 The Hamites . were the first to found a 
 dynasty, and take a leading political position in 
 the affairs of the world ; and Scripture fixes the 
 date of Nimrod's Chaldean kingdom, which has 
 been remarkably confirmed by a variety of 
 independent secular testimonies, all tending to 
 the same conclusion. The course of this tribe is 
 traceable, as Cushite and Egyptian, Canaanite 
 or Phoenician, in Mesopotamia, Arabia, Egypt, 
 and Northern Africa, through the hazy atmo- 
 sphere of pre-historic times into and through 
 the era of authentic history, closing with the 
 Carthaginians, who were members of the same 
 stock. With their fall, the political existence of 
 the Hamite came to an end, so completely, that 
 it is doubtful if even a scanty and obscure 
 remnant of this people, so long remarkable for 
 worldly pre-eminence, can be recognized at the 
 
 17 
 
2S8 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 present day. This, however, is certain — they 
 held high position throughout the East, and on 
 the shores of the Mediterranean, for nearly two 
 thousand years ; they circled the globe with 
 their colonists, planted their religious and politi- 
 cal institutions in the most distant countries, 
 and disappeared when the western Japhetites 
 came into light, and asserted that moral and 
 physical superiority which has ever since been 
 maintained. 
 
 The career of the Semitic branch of the 
 Caucasian, or Adaniite, race has been preserved 
 in the pages of the Bible, the oldest and most 
 authentic of all the bopks in the world. " Blessed 
 be the Lord God of Shem," was inscribed on the 
 banners of the seed of Abraham, from the days 
 of that patriarch down to the destruction of 
 Jerusalem, and their expulsion from Judaea. 
 Since then, the conquering sons of Japhet, enter- 
 ing into the tents of Shem, have taken up the 
 standard of the outcast Semite, and will continue 
 to hold it, until the scattered Israelites shall re- 
 turn to their own land, and the full enjoyment of 
 the promises made to their forefathers, Abraham, 
 Isaac, and Jacob. 
 
 As regards the Japhetites, their histoiy may 
 
THE ADAMITE. 259 
 
 be said to be the history of European civiliza- 
 tion. It commences with the Grecians, who 
 became the rivals of the Egyptian and Phoe- 
 nician Hamites long before the days of Homer, 
 who lived about 1000 B.C. The siege of Troyi 
 the subject of the Iliad, which was a contest for 
 supremacy between high-minded heroes and 
 statesmen of the Japhetic family, on the shores 
 of Greece, occurred about three hundred years 
 before that era, in the days of the judges of 
 Israel. The Greeks were theft a great and 
 powerful people ; and all we kjnow from written 
 history of the Japhetite before that time, and 
 indeed until the first Olympiad, ']^() B.C., is 
 mythical and legendary, except that, when the 
 tenth chapter of Genesis was written, some of 
 them were inhabitants of "the isles of the 
 Gentiles," the well-known Grecian archipelago. 
 The branch of the same family who emigrated 
 eastward penetrated as far as the Ganges, 
 where their further progress was stayed by the 
 enervating effects of the Indian climate ; their 
 expansive forces became weakened, and the 
 Mongolians have ever since hemmed them, in 
 on the north and east. 
 
 Thus , all the ' knowledge we possess on the 
 
 17 — 2 
 
26o THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 subject, whether derived from sacred or profane 
 sources, tends to establish as undoubted fact, 
 that about four thousand years ago the Cau- 
 casian race was in its infancy ; and that, while 
 two of its tribes gradually became possessed of 
 Mesopotamia, Arabia, Judaea, Egypt, and the 
 northern shores of Africa, the third tribe, true to 
 its destiny, went forth east and west to people 
 the lands they now occupy in Asia, Europe, and 
 America. The territories thus possessed by the 
 Caucasian race are well defined on the map of 
 the world. On the north and east, they are 
 ethnically bounded by the Mongolian, Malay, 
 and Australian races ; on the south, by the 
 Negroes of Africa ; and on the west, by the 
 American Indians. Such is the present position 
 of these rulers of history and promoters of the 
 only true civilization and religion that now pre- 
 vails on the earth. But what was the ethnical 
 condition of these same territories when the 
 Caucasians started forth on their mission four 
 thousand years ago ? This is an important sub- 
 ject for consideration ; and one that the recent 
 additions to our knowledge of pre-historic times 
 have been forcing on the attention of the reli- 
 gionist. It cannot be evaded by dogmatic asser- 
 
THE ADAMITE. 261 
 
 tion and narrow interpretation of the Semitic 
 scriptures, in the presence of ascertained and 
 reahzed facts, but must be honestly and fearlessly 
 met and discussed. 
 
 To say that those countries, which are now 
 the abode of the civilized Caucasian, were unin- 
 habited by human beings before the' dispersion 
 at Shinar, is to ignore and reject the information 
 respecting the antiquity of the human race, that 
 some of the highest intellects in our own days 
 have been collecting for their fellow-men in the 
 fields of geological and archaeological science. If 
 those who are best qualified to pronounce on 
 such questions are to be trusted, Europe was, 
 long ages before the advent of the Caucasian, 
 inhabited by human beings, whose stone and 
 bone implements, still existing in abundance, 
 were identical with those in use among many of 
 the uncivilized savage races in modern times ; 
 and whose peculiarly shaped skulls, which ■ have 
 been exhumed in many 'places throughout the 
 continent of Europe, proclaim them to have been 
 of a type of humanity as inferior to the Euro- 
 pean of the present day as any of the modern 
 Negroes, Australians, or American Indians.* 
 
 * " Adam and the Adamite." Chaps, ii. and iii. 
 
262 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 Never has man existed, however savage his 
 state, who has not been possessed of defensive 
 weapons for his protection, and of implements 
 for hunting and fishing to provide for his daily- 
 wants ; and if weapons and implements of types 
 tha;t are in use among uncivilized savages of the 
 present day are found, as they have been, in 
 abundance, and buried in clays and gravels that 
 could not have been disturbed for many thou- 
 sands of years, it is as certain that the savage 
 was an inhabitant of our continent untold ages 
 before the Mosaic date of the creation of our 
 forefather Adam, as that the civilized man is now 
 an inhabitant of the same countries. The relics 
 of those ancient occupants of the soil of Europe 
 tell their history as clearly and intelligibly to 
 those who can read it, as the ruins of palaces 
 and temples record the presence of civilized man 
 in the same countries at a later period. They 
 were, and are not ; and their place is filled by 
 the superior race advancing westward to re- 
 plenish the earth, before whom they disappeared, 
 as the Red American Indian is gradually dis- 
 appearing before the same race still advancing 
 westward in the New World, and as the native 
 Australians and Maories are melting away 
 
THE ADAMITE. 263 
 
 before the same dominant and encroaching 
 people in Australia and New Zealand. Those 
 countries, now in process of redemption from 
 their uncivilized aborigines, and the southern 
 and western coasts of Africa, to some extent, 
 present us with an exact picture of the progress 
 of the Japhetite throughout Europe in pre- 
 historic times ; and unless, by God's decree, 
 some unforeseen changes take place in the 
 present progress of the world, the result will be 
 the same in those continents as in our own — the 
 aborigines will disappear, as some inferior races 
 have already disappeared, within the experience 
 of the present generation, and the expanding 
 Japhetites will be the only dwellers in the land. 
 
 Again, turning eastward, the ancient records 
 of the Hindoo Aryan Japhetites reveal the fact 
 that, on their entry into India, they too en- 
 countered and subjugated an inferior race of 
 aboriginal inhabitants in that country. In the 
 hymns of the Rig- Veda, the Aryan invaders are 
 inferentially stated to have been of fair com- 
 plexions, inasmuch as the people they found 
 there are described as "dark-skinned." These 
 latter are called, in the Vedic poems, Dasyus 
 and Rakshakas, and are painted in extravagantly 
 
264 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 dark colours as demons and monsters. They 
 were probably of the same type as those now 
 known as the Malay or Australian. A large 
 class of the population of the Deccan and 
 mountain districts ' of Hindostan are a people 
 that are clearly distinguishable from the Hindoo 
 Aryan by , a Mongolian aspect and Turanian 
 dialects. These are probably emigrants from 
 ■northern and central Asia, of a later date. But, 
 however that may be, it is certain that the 
 western Japhetites, when they first crossed the 
 Himalayas, found races inferior to themselves in 
 possession of the Indian soil they came to 
 colonize. 
 
 The Hamite and Semite Caucasians, who 
 bordered on Africa, never penetrated as colonizers 
 beyond the Valley of the Nile, and the southern 
 shores of the Mediterranean into the Sahara; 
 and in those countries they have been stationary, 
 like a barrier between the Japhetites and the 
 interior of the African continent, for four thou- 
 sand years. But the persevering enterprise of 
 the European is, in our own days, breaking 
 through these obstacles ;' and our Livingstones 
 and Bakers, Grants and Burtons, sons of Japhet, 
 are now exploring and seeking an entrance for 
 
THE ADAMITE. 265 
 
 our overflowing populations into the interior of the 
 vast and hitherto iinknown and misapprehended 
 continent of Africa ; and unless climate and soil 
 forbid, the abode of the Negro will, in a few 
 generations, be the emporium of commerce and 
 the home of the Japhetite, in the same manner 
 as the hills and valleys, the plains and prairies,, 
 of the United States and British North America 
 are nqjv, and have been, the abode of the same 
 people, since the pilgrim fathers landed on the 
 shores of the New World, about two hundred 
 years ago. 
 
 There is no evidence of any but Negroes having 
 ever been the inhabitants of the interior of 
 Africa. The Egyptian monuments show, not 
 only that they have been in existence from the 
 earliest times, but that they had been captured 
 for slaves, and brought into Egypt by a superior 
 race, as far back as the reign of Thotmes IV., 
 in the eighteenth dynasty, about 1700 B.C., and 
 of Rameses III., in the twentieth dynasty, about 
 1300 B.C. Long processions of Negroes are 
 depicted on monuments of those eras, which 
 faithfully represent the woolly head, the pro- 
 jecting jaw, and the black colour of the Negro 
 of the present day. Egyptian scribes are repre- 
 
266 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 sented as registering these slaves with their wives 
 and children, just as the slave-hunters of modern 
 times have been making property and profit of 
 the same unhappy race, on the western coast of 
 Africa, in our own days. On the same monu- 
 ments, the round-headed, triangular-faced 
 Mongol, and the well-known Jewish visage of 
 the Caucasian Semite, are also recognizable. 
 Thus, in the days of Joseph, who was a con- 
 temporary of Thotmes IV., about four or five 
 hundred years after the dispersion at Shinar,. 
 Africa must have been peopled with Negroes, itt 
 the same manner, and probably to the same 
 extent, as in our own days ; and unless coerced 
 by Scripture evidence to the contrary, the con- 
 clusion is inevitable, that it was so peopled many 
 centuries before that time. 
 
 The great value of these monuments of the 
 eighteenth and twentieth Egyptian dynasties is 
 that they bring before our eyes the Negro in 
 form, complexion, and social position, as he lived 
 and moved in those remote times. But further, 
 frequent mention is made in' some of the hiero- 
 glyphic inscriptions, so abqndant in the Valley 
 of the Nile, of conflicts between kings of Egypt 
 long anterior to Thotmes IV. and Rameses III. 
 
THE ADAMITE. 267 
 
 and the Negro tribes of the interior of Africa. 
 Among others, two of these inscriptions, of the 
 eleventh dynasty, about the time of Abraham, 
 mention a great victory gained by Amenemha III. 
 over the Negroes ; and there is a fragment in the 
 Museum of the Louvre of the thirteenth dynasty, 
 about 1920 B.C., which bears on its base a long 
 list of subjugated Negro nations.* 
 
 Thus, when the sons of Noah entered on their 
 career, they were surrounded on all sides by 
 other races of mankind, some higher and some 
 lower than the others in the scale of humanity, 
 but all inferior to the new race who were 
 commissioned to increase and multiply, and tQ 
 replenish and subdue the earth. These are facts 
 that must be kept in mind in searching out the 
 early history of mankind ; and, if facts, they 
 must be consistent with the Scripture record of 
 primeval events. That record does not pro- 
 nounce that Adam was the first created of 
 human beings on the earth. It only declares, 
 that about six thousand years ago God said, 
 "Let us make a man, or Adam (t^«(), in our 
 image, after our likeness," and that thereupon 
 God created the ma7i i^Vn) in His own image, 
 
 • "Manual of Ancient Hist, of ths East." Vol. i. pp. 215, 218^ 
 
268 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL, 
 
 who by transgression fell from his high estate, 
 and became subject to the penalty of death. 
 His descendants were subsequently destroyed by 
 an extensive inundation, with the exception of 
 one family consisting of eight individuals, who 
 were saved in an ark, and from whom have de- 
 scended the great Caucasian or Adamite race. 
 While inheriting the patrimony of degradations 
 that were consequent on the fall of their pro- 
 genitor, they have also inherited some of the 
 physical and intellectual qualities that must have 
 been annexed to the man created in the image 
 of God and after His likeness ; and with that 
 inheritance they went forth to leaven the world 
 with a civilization unknown before. 
 
 But further, so far from Scripture discoun- 
 tenancing and discrediting the doctrine that other 
 races of mankind were inhabiting the earth when 
 Adam came into being, there are strong indica- 
 tions in the sacred narrative of there having been 
 other races then in existence ; for Cain, who was 
 the only surviving son of Adam when Abel was 
 slain, is represented as leaving his father's house 
 with a mark to protect him from violence appre- 
 hended at the hands of some hostile people then 
 existing. It is also recorded of him that he 
 
THE ADAMITE. 269 
 
 married a wife, who ought not to be presumed 
 to have been his sister, and built a city in the 
 land of Nod, that required builders and inhabi- 
 tants — all which implies that there were, at that 
 time, dwellers on the earth outside the precincts 
 of the Adamite family. There is nothing, there- 
 fore, in the sacred primeval history of the Adam-r ' 
 ites that forbids us to entertain the theory of 
 pre-Adamite races, if geological and ethnologi- 
 cal facts require it. 
 
 With the exception of this episode of Cain, 
 little is to be found in the Scriptures that 
 directly relates to any other race than that of 
 Adam. The history of the Adamite is the theme 
 of the Bible. The fall of their progenitor, which 
 was, as it were, demqnstrated and intensified by 
 the rapid moral descent of his firstborn, and his 
 consequent expulsion from the family circle, 
 could scarcely have been related without follow- 
 ing the outcast Cain into his exile and new asso- 
 ciations, accompanied with a token of Divine 
 protection still extended to him. But when the 
 Adamite began to multiply ■ on the face of the 
 earth, the Scripture history is exclusively their 
 own, and nothing is found relating to any 
 strangers, beyond a few unavoidable allusions. 
 
270 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 such as. that "there were giants (Nephilim) on 
 the earth in those days," before the flood, and 
 the Rephaims, Zuzims, and Emims, who are 
 mentioned in the fourteenth chapter of Genesis, 
 when Melchisedek appears on the scene, and 
 the Anakims and Avims, all of whom are 
 described as remnants of a race of giants, who 
 were the aboriginal inhabitants of the land of 
 Canaan, when the Adamites entered in to pos- 
 sess it* 
 
 The unity of mankind, or the derivation of all 
 from a single pair of ancestors, is a general 
 proposition that has found favour with the re- 
 ligionist and the scientific philosopher, with 
 those who take the Scriptures for their guide, 
 and those who reject them as of any authority 
 on such a question. It is this apparent agree- 
 ment (for it is nothing more) between the re- 
 ligionist and the philosopher that has con- 
 tributed to shut out the truth so long from su- 
 perficial inquirers; for the religionist often 
 appeals to the philosopher's theory of the unity 
 of races to support his own proposition, that 
 Adam and Eve were the progenitors of all the 
 races of mankind that have ever appeared on 
 * Deut. ii. 10-23. 
 
THE ADAMITE. 271 
 
 the earth ; whereas it is utterly destructive of it. 
 The religionist subscribes to the doctrine of' the 
 unity of races, because the Bible is supposed to 
 have so spoken, and because a common humanity 
 encourages the hope that eventually all shall be 
 bound together in one common bond of peace 
 and charity. The philosopher welcomes the 
 theory, because it simplifies the operations of 
 nature, illustrates the popular dogma of deve- 
 lopment or selection, reduces everything to his 
 favourite principle of natural cause and effect, 
 ■dispensing with the necessity of a supernatural 
 interposition of a higher power in the production 
 of the successive items of the creation. Both 
 admit that the Caucasian is the highest type of 
 man ; but while the religionist insists that the 
 savage is the result of a process of degradation 
 from the higher to the lower type of humanity, 
 the philosopher reasons on the principle, that the 
 Caucasian is the result of a process of elevation 
 from the lower to the higher. 
 
 Here the religionist, who has been contend- 
 ing on supposed Scripture grounds for the unity 
 of race, finds himself at issue with the philosopher 
 contending for the same proposition on scientific 
 grounds ; the one assuming that the highest 
 
272 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 type of humanity was the first in existence, and 
 the other insisting that the lowest had precedence 
 in time. Neither of these disputants has, there- 
 fore, any right, as is frequently done, to rely on 
 the authority of the other in aid of their respec- 
 tive propositions. The phrase, " Unity, or origin, 
 of race," has a different meaning, according as it 
 is used by one or the other. The man of science, 
 on alleged scientific, grounds, derives Caucasian 
 man, not merely from the lowest species of 
 humanity, but descends to a lower depth to seek 
 his parentage in the monkey, the ape, or the 
 gorilla. On the other hand, the religionist de- 
 rives all the human races, savage as well as sage, 
 as lineal blood descendants from the Adam of 
 Genesis, made in God's image six thousand 
 years ago — the highest type in the scale of 
 humanity., The one makes him the youngest, 
 and the other the oldest, member of the great 
 human family. Does the truth rest with either of 
 these parties, or is it to be found with those who 
 account for the state of the world, filled, as it now 
 is, with so many different specimens of humanity, 
 by advocating the doctrine of the plurality of 
 races — that is to say, that Mongols, Negroes, and 
 other semi-civilized and savage races, have re- 
 
THE ADAMITE. 273, 
 
 spectively descended from ancestors of similar 
 types, and the civilized and civilizing Caucasian, 
 from the man, Adam, made after the likeness of 
 his Creator ; and who alone, by the exercise of 
 the intellectual powers conferred upon him, has 
 found his way into the sanctuary of God's coun- 
 sels, in His. mode of framing and furnishing, sus- 
 taining and perfecting, the heavens and the earth, 
 and all that therein is ? 
 
 The doctrine of the plurality of races rests, in 
 a great degree, if not wholly, on the principle of 
 fixity or persistence of race; and that principle 
 would appear to be established by the fact, that 
 there is undoubted evidence that, as far back as 
 the days of Joseph, 1700 B.C., the three races of 
 Negro, Mongol,, and Caucasian were as surely 
 in existence, and as distinguishable from each 
 other, by their peculiar traits, as they are at 
 the present hour. That no change should have 
 taken place, not only in the frame and features, 
 but in the relative social positions of these races, 
 throughout the long lapse of nearly four thou- 
 sand years, is of itself strong evidence that time 
 alone cannot operate to efface or modify their 
 peculiar characteristics. The Mongol that is 
 now the inhabitant of Central and Northern 
 
 18 
 
274 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 Asia, and the Negro that is in the occupation of 
 Central and Southern Africa, are manifestly the 
 same, in all respects, as the Mongol and Negra 
 that stood before the artist who depicted their 
 forms and employments on the Egyptian monu- 
 ments thirty-seven centuries ago ; and there is 
 good ground for the argument, that if the human 
 family had been in existence as many centuries 
 before that date, they would have exhibited the 
 same diversity of complexion, feature and ana- 
 tomical structure. 
 
 We have clear evidence, also, that the un- 
 doubted descendants of the Adamite Noah are 
 of the same type, physically and morally, as 
 their earliest ancestors. The Egyptian monu- 
 ments, the Assyrian sculptures, so recently ex- 
 humed, and the Grecian and Roman statues, 
 which have preserved the forms and features of 
 the Caucasian of those days, present the anatom- 
 ical configuration of the European, the Persian, 
 the Hindoo, the Hebrew, and the Arab of the 
 present day. Whatever social changes time may 
 have brought with it to the son's of Adamite or 
 pre- Adamite, it has left the fleshly frames'of each 
 unchanged as God in His wisdom made them in 
 the beginning. And though knowledge has in- 
 
THE ADAMITE. 275 
 
 creased, and civilization has expanded, making 
 men more learned, accomplished, and useful in 
 their generations, than their predecessors, no 
 one will assert that the highest type of man 
 that adorns and_ benefits the present era of the 
 world, stands higher in the scale of humanity 
 than Abraham or Moses, Archimedes or Aris- 
 totle, and the many other highly esteemed 
 worthies of antiquity, who laid the foundations 
 of knowledge on which the wisest and best of 
 modern religionists and philosophers have been 
 building from day to day. As, therefore, the 
 lapse of nearly four thousand years has not 
 opetated to alter the moral or physical type of 
 any of these three races of man, so it is reason- 
 able to conclude, until some proof to the contrary 
 is forthcoming, that the five hundred years that 
 elapsed between the dispersion and the date of 
 the Egyptian monument, to which we have re- 
 ferred, could not have operated to convert a 
 Caucasian into the Negro or Mongol there de- 
 picted. 
 
 V The only natural causes that can be suggested 
 for such a transformation are the climate and 
 soil of the countries in which these races are 
 found. But such causes are wholly inadequate 
 
 18—2 
 
276 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 to account for the alleged effect, especially in 
 the short space of time allowed by the Adamite 
 chronology; for the Esquimaux of the Arctic 
 regions are as dark in their complexions as the 
 Negroes of the torrid, or the Australians of the 
 temperate zone ; and if the results of recent 
 explorations are to be trusted, we have reason 
 to expect that the climate and soil of a great 
 portion of the interior of the African continent 
 are of such a nature as only to require the 
 presence of the European, and the application 
 of his experience and industry, to render vast 
 districts of that country as salubrious and pro- 
 ductive as Europe and America have been made 
 by the same means. We know, also, that the 
 climate and soil of Australia are much the same 
 as those of our own country ; and yet the native 
 Australian is perhaps the lowest of all the types 
 of humanity. And again, the Aryan Hindoo, 
 after a residence of more than three thousand 
 years in the sultry clime of Hindostan, has re- 
 tained all his Caucasian characteristics of form, 
 feature, and language; and presents the same 
 contrast to the inferior rac-es in that country 
 that his forefathers did, when they made their 
 first descent on the Punjaub through the passes 
 
THE ADAMITE. 277 
 
 of the Hindu-Kush. It is remarkable that some 
 of the Berber tribes, who, as we have seen, are 
 probably a remnant of the Hamites, have been 
 living on the borders of Negroland for hundreds, 
 perhaps for thousands of years, and, so far from 
 evincing any tendency to physical degradation, 
 they are reported by travellers to be models of 
 symmetry, and as furnishing the prototype, the 
 standard figure of the human species* 
 
 These considerations go far to establish the 
 doctrine of the plurality of races, so far as 
 regards the religionist. For if the Negro was 
 a Negro, and the Mongol a Mongol, when the 
 progenitor of the Adamites came into being, or 
 when they were reduced by the Flood to a 
 family consisting of eight persons, their lineage 
 must have been different from that of the de- 
 scendants of Adam, unless we suppose that 
 Adam was not created by God, but born of 
 some pre-existing parents of an inferior race, 
 which would be wholly at variance with the 
 revelation that he was made, not begotten, and 
 that God formed him "of the dust of the 
 ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath 
 of life." 
 
 * Ante, p. 96. 
 
278 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 The doctrine of the plurality of races is the 
 doctrine of a divine creation, as contradistin- 
 guished from the scientific dogma of the unity of 
 race, and the propagation of the various species 
 of mankind by natural selection. It is, in fact, the 
 doctrine of the Bible. Without the aid of Holy 
 Writ, the philosophic theory of the production of 
 the human races by the unaided operations of 
 natural law cannot be refuted. So far as philo- 
 sophy deals with the question, there may be an 
 abundance of scientific arguments in favour of 
 the principle, but none that carry it beyond the 
 bounds of probability; and many against it, 
 but none that are conclusive. But if revelation 
 is allowed to speak, the divine statement is de- 
 cisive, that God made our ancestor Adam of the 
 dust of the ground, and provided a helpmeet for 
 him ; and from the pair thus brought into being, 
 descended the three families of Shem, Ham, and 
 Japhet, whose work and progress throughout the 
 earth we have been tracing. 
 
 This renders the natural and revealed history 
 of the Adamite consistent throughout ; and the 
 authenticity of the book of Genesis ought not to 
 be rested on the untenable proposition, that 
 Africa became peopled with Negro descendants of 
 
THE ADAMITE. 279 
 
 the Caucasian Adam, in the comparatively brief 
 space of time that elapsed between the dispersion 
 and the days of Joseph, when crowds of Negroes 
 were in bondage in Egypt ; nor on the assump- 
 tion that when the Israelite encountered the 
 Negro in Egypt, or when the sons of Japhet, 
 carrying out their destiny to multiply and re- 
 plenish the earth, encountered the aboriginal 
 savage in Europe, or, at a later period, in 
 America and Australia, they came face to face 
 with members of their own family, whose fore- 
 fathers had emigrated to those regions at some 
 earlier period, of which there is no record, and 
 had forgotten their lineage, discarded their lan- 
 guage, abandoned their civilization, and had be- 
 come transformed, not only in features and com- 
 plexion, but in moral capacity and anatomical 
 configuration. It would be difficult to avoid the 
 further step, that a similar change might be 
 looked for in our own descendants after a few 
 centuries of residence in Africa, America, or 
 Australia, unless we assume that the laws of 
 nature, as regards the effects of time, climate, 
 sbil, or any other external condition, on the 
 human race, are different now from what they 
 were in the days of Noah, Nimrod, and Abraham. 
 
28o THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 There is nothing in the history of mankind to 
 lead us to think that there was a proneness to 
 physical degeneracy when those patriarchs were 
 living, that has not been found to exist in the 
 later eras of the world. On the contrary, the 
 progressive principle appears to have been as 
 mighty in operation in the infancy of civilization 
 as in its maturity-; and as far as history and 
 experience can instruct us, the original types 
 of humanity are as unchanged, from their begin- 
 nings, as the everlasting hills that surround them. 
 The theory of the philosopher accounts for 
 the variety of human races by the principle 
 of natural selection ; and, conformably to the 
 progressive plan of the animal and vegetable 
 creation which geology discloses, ascending from 
 the lower to the higher forms, Caucasian man is 
 correctly placed at the top of the scale of hu- 
 manity, and later as regards the time of his ap- 
 pearance on the earth, than any of the other races 
 of mankind. But so far as the philosopher de- 
 rives all the races of mankind from others that 
 preceded, by procreation, his theory cannot be 
 accepted by the religionist, who adopts the 
 Scripture record of the formation of Adam as 
 the special teaching of God in a matter beyond 
 
THE ADAMITE. 281 
 
 , 1 ^ 
 
 the reach of unaided human intellect. On the 
 other hand, those who admit the fact of the 
 creation of the first Adam, that he was made, 
 not begotten, ought to have no difficulty in 
 admitting the theory that explains the existence 
 of -the various races of man to have arisen from 
 the creation of their several and respective 
 ancestors in different parts of the earth — the 
 Mongol in Central Asia, the Negro in Africa, 
 the American Indian in- America, the Australian 
 in Australia, and the Adamite on the site of 
 Eden in Mesopotamia. The God that created 
 the man Adam could, in like manner, have 
 created progenitors of each of the other races in 
 those different parts of the earth that were best 
 suited to their physical and moral natures, 
 though it was not necessary for the divine 
 purposes that the origin and history of any of 
 them should have formed part of a divine 
 revelation of the origin and history of the 
 Adamite. The economy of the Scriptures did 
 not admit of instruction on any subject or 
 matter that was not closely connected with the 
 history of the descendants of Shem, through 
 Abraham, to the second Adam, and the redemp- 
 tion bv him of the ruined descendants of the 
 
282 ' THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 first Adam. Moses and Joshua must have been 
 familiar with the Negroes in Egypt, and yet they 
 are not noticed by either of them ; ajid though 
 other non-Adamites, who came in contact with 
 the Semites, are mentioned > in the books of 
 Genesis and Exodus, little is related concerning 
 them, but that they were giants, in the occupa- 
 tion of Canaan before the entry of the Canaanite 
 into that country, and were exterminated by 
 those invaders, with the exception of a remnant 
 that fell before the Israelites at a later period. 
 
 In this view, each of these races, originating 
 in, and inhabiting, its own particular district of 
 the earth, may be said to be " Autochthons" or 
 "Aborigines" — earth-born children of the soil 
 — as described by the Greeks and Romans; 
 but more literally and truthfully expressed in 
 Genesis," " formed of the dust of the ground'' No 
 words could describe more accurately the fact of 
 Adam having been an "Autochthon" or aborigi- 
 nal of Eden in Mesopotamia, as all the other 
 races were, in like manner, respectively formed 
 of the dust of their native lands. Each of the in- 
 ferior races was of its own earth earthy, and each 
 was dwelling in its own lot, when God said, " Let 
 us make a man in our image after our likeness," 
 
THE ADAMITE. 2^3 
 
 whose express mission it was, to leave the place 
 of his nativity, or what might be termed his 
 kindred dust, and-go forth to replenish the earth 
 to its utmost bounds — a mission that has been 
 progressing ever since the remnant of the 
 Adamite race went forth from the ark, and were 
 scattered abroad at Shinar. 
 
 This mission to replenish the earth, imposed 
 upon Adam at his creation, and re-imposed upon 
 the family of Noah after the Flood, was not a 
 mission to replenish the greater part of it with 
 degenerate and stagnant savages, but to over- 
 spread it, in due time, with their own expanding 
 and quickening progeny. The state of the 
 world, thus explained, while it is consistent with 
 the primeval history of the Adamite in Genesis, 
 and with the subsequent course of mundane 
 events, enables us to explain and account for 
 much that has perplexed, and exercised the 
 ingenuity of, many learned men of our own 
 times, anxiously seeking to uphold what they 
 conceive to be the truth, in the face of facts, hard 
 to be understood by any who regarded the 
 inferior races as the progeny of a man who 
 came into existence about six thousand years 
 ■ago. 
 
284 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 Bunsen, who honestly sought to reconcile the 
 theory of the unity of race in Noah with the 
 ethnical condition of the world around him, was 
 compelled, to push back the chronology of 
 primeval events some thousands of years before 
 the Scripture date of the creation of Adam. 
 Had he recognized the pre-Adamite theory, it 
 would not have been a necessity with him to 
 have thus destroyed the authenticity of the 
 early chapters of Genesis, by converting them 
 into a series of myths. Other religionists,' who 
 have condemned what has been considered the 
 scepticism and extravagance of Bunsen, have 
 themselves sought a way out of the same difS- 
 culties, by discrediting in general terms the same 
 chronology, which ought to be as sacred to the 
 believer as the text itself, of which it is an all- 
 important and indispensable part. How much 
 better would it be for the cause of revealed 
 truth, to admit, first, that non-Adamite races 
 were in existence on the earth when the first of 
 the Adamites came into being, and second, that 
 the first of the Adamites came into existence 
 seventeen hundred years before the foundation 
 of Nimrod's kingdom in Mesopotamia, than to- 
 deny both the one and the other of these pro- 
 
THE ADAMITE. 285 
 
 positions, and thus to eliminate all significance 
 from the early chapters of Genesis. While this 
 view of the truth is withheld, the philosopher, in 
 possession of ethnological facts that demonstrate 
 man to have been living on the earth ages before 
 the Adamite era, hesitates on the threshold of 
 revelation, and seldom realizes the truths laid 
 up for him in that storehouse of spiritual instruc- 
 tion. His knowledge is a stumbling-block in 
 the way of his religious inquiries, and the divine 
 scheme of creation and redemption is too often 
 cast aside, and replaced by vain theories of 
 man's existence without the aid of a Creator, 
 and of his perfection without the help of a 
 Redeemer. 
 
 This brings us to the consideration, whether 
 anything is to be found in the New Testament 
 that is inconsistent with the pire- Adamite theory; 
 and above all, whether the great doctrine of 
 redemption, as revealed to us, admits, of the 
 salvation of the pre-Adamite and his descend- 
 ants through Christ. In no place, either in the 
 Old or the New Testament, is it stated that 
 Adam was the first created of human beings. 
 He is called the "first Adam," and also "the 
 first man," but only in contradistinction to our 
 
286 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 Saviour, who is styled in the same passages 
 " the last Adam," and " the second man."* 
 The first Adam was made in the likeness of 
 God. There was a something of the divinity 
 in him ; and he was endowed with immortality, 
 subject to forfeiture if guilty of disobedience. 
 By transgression of the divine command, he 
 became subject to death ; and the penalty was 
 entailed upon his descendants, and was inherited 
 by them with their blood. To restore them to 
 the life they had been deprived of, and to secure 
 their immortality, the second Adam, who was 
 the brightness of God's glory, and the express 
 image oi His person, took upon Him the form of 
 a son of Adam, redeemed by His death the 
 fallen Adamite from the curse, and restored to 
 those who will receive it the life that had been 
 forfeited. To perform this work of redemption, 
 it was necessary that the Redeemer, the second 
 Adam, should be of the lineage of the first 
 Adam ; for according to the Levitical law, 
 which shadowed out the divine ordinance, 
 neither the land, nor the Hebrew, that was sold 
 
 * The§e and similar texts of the New Testament will be found 
 fully discussed in "Adam aud the Adamite,'' pp. 290-306. 
 Third edition. 
 
THE ADAMITE. 287 
 
 to a stranger could be redeemed by any but one 
 of his own kin* 
 
 But though it was necessary that one of 
 Adam's lineage should atone for Adam's sin, 
 it is nowhere expressed, or implied, that the 
 effect of Christ's sacrifice was limited to His 
 own kinsmen after the flesh. On the contrary, 
 language seems to fail the apostles in declaring 
 that it is without limit. St. Paul's declaration 
 is, that the whole creation gr'oaneth and travaileth, 
 waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption 
 of our body. St. John saith, He is the propitia- 
 tion for our sins, and not for ours only, but also 
 for the whole wdrld {l John ii. 2). And again, 
 the Gospel, or good tidings of salvation, were 
 sent into all the world, to be preached to every 
 creature (Mark xvi, 15). These, and other ex- 
 pressions to the same effect, are wide and com- 
 prehensive enough to embrace in the scheme of 
 salvation those who are not of the lineage of 
 Adam, if any such there are. And therefore, 
 assuming that there were pre-Adamites^ and 
 that the inferior races which are surrounding us 
 on all sides are the descendants of those pre- 
 Adamites, the way of salvation revealed in the 
 
 * Vide\ky. xxv. 25-48. Jerem. xxxii. 7, 8. Ruth iv. 5. 
 
THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 Scriptures is as open to them as to the sons of 
 Adam. Christ died for all, in the largest sense 
 of the term ; and the .millions of savages that 
 have passed, and are passing away, from life, 
 without having heard the Saviour's name, are in 
 no worse condition, as descendants of pre- 
 Adamite ancestors, than if they are to be con- 
 sidered the progeny of Adam. In either case, 
 they are dependent on the uncovenanted mercies 
 of God ; and it is nowhere stated, or implied, 
 that the blood of Adam is a necessary qualifica- 
 tion to entitle any to become partakers of what 
 has been purchased for humanity by the blood 
 of Christ. All may enter, "where there is 
 neither Greek nor Jew, Barbarian, Scythian, 
 bond nor free, but Christ is all, and in all."* 
 
 All that was required of the Ethiopian 
 eunuch, to qualify him for baptism, was, that 
 he should believe with all his heart; and 
 St. Paul asks of those who sought to limit 
 the boundaries of God^s grace, " who can forbid 
 •water, that these shall not be baptized, who have 
 received the Holy Ghost as well as we ?"•}- May 
 it not in like manner be asked, can any one 
 confine the gift of the Holy Spirit, or faith in 
 
 * Colossians iii. ii. f Acts x. 47. 
 
THE ADAMITE. 289 
 
 Christ, to the sons of Adam after the flesh, if 
 others of a different lineage are to be found on 
 the earth ? There is nothing unscriptural in the 
 consideration, that as by the transgression of 
 the first Adam, his race forfeited immortality, 
 and fell in that respect to the level of inferior 
 races of mortals which were surrounding him, 
 so by the redemption of the Adamite the lower 
 strata of humanity were raised up with him, 
 and found the gates of everlasting life opened 
 for every human creature under the whole 
 heaven. Thus it is, that the doctrine of a pre- 
 Adamite creation enlarges the sphere of God's 
 mercy, and enlightens our conceptions of the 
 divine scheme of salvation; and the believer 
 should learn to welcome it as a new and 
 interesting page in the history of the dealings 
 of a good and gracious Providence with the 
 creatures He has made. 
 
 Men's minds have been so long educated in 
 the idea that the Adam of Genesis was the 
 progenitor of all the human races, of every form, 
 feature, and complexion, on the face of the 
 earth, that it requires time and perseverance to 
 induce a new train of thought on the subject in 
 the great mass of mankind. But though slow in 
 
 19 
 
2go THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 its advance, the truth must prevail in the end. 
 In this view, the chapter of human progress that 
 records the issue of the struggle between eccle- 
 siastical authority and increasing scientific know- 
 ledge is instructive and encouraging; and the 
 series of untenable propositions to which re- 
 ligionists have vainly, from time to time, sought 
 to commit the Bible, leads us to hope that each 
 <step in such knowledge is bringing us nearer to 
 a right understanding of what has been written 
 for our learning in its pages. 
 
 The rotundity of the earth, which was known 
 to the Grecian before the Christian era, does not 
 appear to have been seriously questioned by the 
 Church ; probably because the Scripture speaks 
 of it as "the round world." But the existence 
 of Antipodes was as firmly contested by some 
 of the early fathers, as the existence of pre- 
 Adamites has been denied by religionists in the 
 present day, and on similar grounds. Lac- 
 tantius and Augustine, in the fourth century, 
 without denying the globular form of the earth, 
 denied the existence of inhabitants on the 
 opposite side, on the ground that no such race is 
 recorded by Scripture among the descendants of 
 Adam. And again, in the eighth century of the 
 
THE ADAMITE. 291 
 
 Christian era, Boniface, the Archbishop of 
 Mentz, condemned Virgil, the Bishop of Saltz- 
 burgh, for propounding the existence of An- 
 'tipodes, being shocked at the assumption, as it 
 seemed to him, of a world of human beings out 
 of the reach of the conditions of salvation ; and 
 Pope Zachary was invoked to censure the 
 holder of this dangerous doctrine. In the 
 twelfth and thirteenth centui^ies, the Councils of 
 Tours {1163), and of Paris (1209), forbade the 
 monks the sinful reading of writings on the 
 physical sciences ; arid even a few years before 
 the discovery of America by Columbus, the 
 rotundity of the earth was noted as an unsafe 
 doctrine* Roger Bacon, the great pioneer of 
 the revival of the physical sciences, was accused 
 of magic, and imprisoned for fourteen years by 
 two popes, Nicholas III. and IV. The decrees 
 of the Church against Copernicus and two 
 of his disciples (161 6), and the condemnation of 
 Galileo, a few years after, for holding and 
 teaching that the earth moved round the 
 sun, and the declaration of the Church against 
 such heretical doctrines, are well knowa Even 
 in our own days, and in Protestant communities, 
 * "Montfaucon Collectio nova Patrum." Vol. II. 
 
 19—2 
 
292 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 it has been insisted that we were taught 
 ty the Scriptures that God had made the 
 whole universe, inorganic and organic, in six 
 natural days ; that death was not in the world 
 before the fall of Adam ; and that the Flood in 
 the days of Noah had covered the entire surface 
 of the globe, destroying €very living creature on 
 the earth except one family and a few animals : 
 yet it is now conceded by all reasonable re- 
 ligionists, that the text of the Bible is capable of 
 a construction that is consistent with the un- 
 doubted facts that progressing scientific inquiry 
 has made known to us, 
 
 All these apparent inconsistencies between 
 the word and the works of the Almighty have 
 been brought into harmony, by the correction of 
 prevailifig misconceptions of the meaning and 
 purport of the Semitic text of the Bible, and 
 necessarily so. The plan of Providence is from 
 everlasting to everlasting, and His Word is true 
 from Alpha to Omega. When the former is 
 realized, our understanding of the latter is 
 enlarged, and its true sense developed. 
 
 "I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs ; 
 And the thoughts of man are widened by the process of the 
 suns." 
 
 Thus, when the earth was circumnavigated. 
 
THE ADAMITE. 293 
 
 the doctrines of the Church against the existence 
 of Antipodes was found to have no place in the 
 Bible ; and when Newton discovered the law of 
 gravitation, and demonstrated the motion of the 
 earth on its axis, and roun4 the sun, all re- 
 ligionists who dared to exercise their reason, 
 modified their understanding of the Scripture 
 text, that the sun moved round the earth, and 
 that the earth was immovable. And again, 
 when geology, at a later period, brought to 
 light the antiquity and order of the pre- 
 Adamite creations, the religionist who compre- 
 hended the facts, learned, at the same time, 
 that the Scripture did not pronounce that the 
 earth and all that therein is were created in 
 six natural days. And so, if our development, 
 throughout the preceding pages of this book of 
 the history of the three families of the Caucasian 
 race, has been verified by the course of worldly 
 events, and the results of scientific researches, 
 we shall learn that the Scripture record of the 
 confusion of language was a record of the 
 severance of the one language of the Adamites 
 into three distinct languages; and the dis- 
 persion, the consequent separation of the three 
 tribes for God's declared purposes at Shinar; 
 
294 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 and further, that the Adam of Genesis was not 
 the first, but the last, created of human beings. 
 
 Looking back into the remote past, beyond 
 the Adamite era, as it has been defined in the 
 Book of Genesis, the man of science' discovers, 
 ftir away in geologic times, the Flint folk of the 
 Quaternary gravels of Western Europe. He 
 also recognizes the Troglodyte occupants of the 
 Belgian, German, French, and English caves,- 
 and the inhabitants of the Lake dwellings in 
 Switzerland, and of the Kjockmoddens on the 
 shores of the Baltic ; all of a later period, but 
 long anterior to the Mosaic date of Adam's 
 creation, and the dawn of civilization. Why 
 should the religionist question this evidence of 
 the existence of these uncivilized pre- Adamite 
 denizens of Europe, and refuse to accept the 
 facts it has established, more especially when 
 they are not inconsistent with Holy Writ \ On 
 the other hand, the religionist has evidence that 
 is to him as convincing as those ancient relics of 
 humanity are to the philosopher, that six thou-^ 
 sand years ago, Adam, the progenitor of a 
 .superior race, came into being, and that from 
 Noah, the tenth in descent from him, sprang 
 three distinct families of man, by whom the 
 
THE ADAMITE. 295 
 
 field of history has been occupied for the last 
 four thousand years, Why should the philoso- 
 pher question those facts, more especially when 
 he finds them confirmed by the past and present 
 ethical condition of the world ? Combine these 
 two beliefs together, and they form what ought 
 to be the creed of the Christian philosopher, 
 who reveres the Word of God, and does .not 
 disregard the teachings of the book of nature, 
 thereby arriving at the divine scheme of creation, 
 which rises gradually, upwards from the inferior 
 to the superior races of mankind, but ever sub- 
 ject to the guiding and controlling presence of 
 the Creator. 
 
 By rejecting the only testimony within their 
 reach of the fact and mode of creation, the 
 speculations of the mere philosopher on the 
 origin of man have always proved inconclusive, 
 and barren of result. The reasoping of Darwin, 
 Huxley, Lubbock, and others of the same school 
 of thought, relegate the existence of nian to an 
 endless series of natural procreation without any 
 defined beginning. On the other hand, the re- 
 ligionist, who shuts the eyes of his understand- 
 ing to the evidence of the existence of pre- 
 Adamite races, narrows the construction of the 
 
296 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 divine revelation, insinuates distrust in the in- 
 quiring mindi and provokes hostility against the 
 sacred record. The learning and research of the 
 comparative philologist, and of the votaries of 
 the later science of comparative mythology, 
 who have concentrated the whole Aryan race 
 into the same cradle that Scripture has allotted 
 to the sons of Noah in the East, is set at nought ; 
 and Mongols, Malays, American Indians, -and 
 various other races of mankind are marshalled 
 with the sons of Japhet, destroying all the sig- 
 nificance of the severance at Shinar, and leaving 
 the prediction of Noah without any appreciable 
 fulfilment ; while the black races of the southern 
 hemisphere are all of them classed as descend- 
 ants of Ham, in defiance of the true history of 
 that family which has been developed by pre- 
 historic archaeology in the East. 
 
 Increasing knowledge of pre-historic times has 
 swept away all these obsolete interpretations of 
 Noah's prophecy, and has supplied us with more 
 natural and satisfactory explanations of its mean- 
 ing and fulfilment. The enlargement of Japhet 
 has been explained, not by the increase of the 
 population of the northern hemisphere of our 
 globe, but by the expanding powers of the ever 
 
THE ADAMITE. 297 
 
 remarkable civilized and civilizing race that has 
 been, from the earliest times, conspicuous for in- 
 truding itself into all countries, inhabited and 
 \ininhabited, on the face of the earth ; and the 
 curse on Canaan has been fulfilled, not by an 
 alleged physical debasement of that people from 
 Caucasians to Negroes, of which there is no evi- 
 dence, but by the political humiliation which the 
 history of the world has made manifest. And 
 it certainly is more consonant with the usual 
 course of the divine government of mankind, 
 that they should have suffered degradation by 
 and through their own moral delinquencies, than 
 by the conditions of climate and soil of the 
 countries into which some of them had found 
 their way. 
 
 These are the lessons of the past. We have 
 seen the will of God reflected in the stream of 
 worldly events from the days of Shinar to our 
 own days ; and from the Pisgah on which we 
 are standing, it is our privilege to look onward 
 to the promised land, and detect on the map of 
 futurity much of what is coming on the earth. 
 The believer in Bible inspiration has an assu- 
 rance that the current of civilization, as it now 
 flows, must soon experience a change. There 
 
298 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 is a period in the world's history, styled by a 
 prophet who wrote six hundred years before the 
 Christian era, " the time of the end ;" adding, 
 " many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall 
 be increased!' Whether this restlessness and 
 enlargement of knowledge is intended to cha- 
 racterize " the time of the end," or the period 
 that is immediately to precede it, all must admit 
 that it is remarkably descriptive of the present 
 era of the civilized world. Hurrying to and fro 
 from place to place, bringing the ends of the 
 earth and its inhabitants together by the rush- 
 ing railw^ay and the lightning speed of the elec- 
 tric telegraph, accumulating and extending 
 knowledge that increases power, and concen- 
 trates force for production, and thereby multi- 
 plying . and expanding population throughout 
 the earth, are the characteristics of our own 
 times, and realize the prophetic decree of the 
 enlargement of Japhet. That portion of the 
 patriarch's prophecy is obviously on the high- 
 way to its fulfilment. The other portion of tl^e 
 prediction, that " Japhet shall dwell in the tents 
 of Shem," must also be accomplished, not par- 
 tially and imperfectly, as hitherto, but as effec- 
 tually .and completely as his expansion in 
 
THE ADAMITE. 299 
 
 numbers and power which we have been con- 
 templating. 
 
 " Blessed is the Lord God of Shem," was the 
 foundation on which the Church of Jehovah is 
 built ; and Christ's kingdom on earth, the reign 
 of righteousness, will commence with the resto- 
 ration of the Semite to God's favour, and the 
 union of the Jew and the Gentile in one Church 
 through Christ. This will come to > pass when 
 the forces of the Gentiles shall be gathered into 
 Zion. Then, and not till then, can Japhet be 
 said, in the full sense of the prophecy, to dwell 
 in the tents of Shem. On the pages of the 
 Bible shines forth a future of righteousness and 
 holiness, to be realized on earth, when the 
 accumulated fruits of civilization shall be dedi- 
 cated to the increase of God's glory, as well as 
 tO' the promotion of man's welfare ; when " the 
 merchandise and the hire shall be holiness to the 
 Lord," and "holiness unto the Lord "shall be 
 inscribed even on the bells, or bridles of the 
 horses; and the Lord God of Shem shall be 
 exalted in all the earth.* 
 
 At that time, saith the prophet Daniel, 
 " many of those that sleep in the dust of the 
 * Zechariah xiv. 20. 
 
3CX3 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and 
 some to shame and everlasting contempt. And 
 they that believe shall shine as the brightness of 
 the firmament, and they that turn many to 
 righteousness as the stars for ever and ever." 
 Who are those that shall shine forth in those 
 days ? Not the mighty in power, and the 
 renowned for intellect and influence among their 
 fellowTmen, unless their intellect and influence 
 have been employed for the advancement of 
 God's glory, and man's spiritual as well as 
 temporal welfare. Moses, who represented all 
 that was wise and powerful in Israel, when he 
 bade the waterg gush forth from Horeb's rock to 
 supply the necessities of his craving countrymen, 
 was to the Israelite what the philosophers and 
 legislators of the historic era have been, and are, 
 to the sons of Japhet. He omitted to ascribe 
 the glory to God, and stood forth as the author, 
 and not the mere channel of the divine bounty ; 
 and for that omission, which would be regarded 
 as of little moment in man's estimation, the 
 greatest among the children of Israel was 
 excluded from the promised land. So shall it be 
 •with the noblest and most admired names that 
 are inscribed on the rolls of history, the foremost 
 
THE ADAMITE. 30T 
 
 in the march of civilization ; so shall it be with 
 the humblest and most obscure of the sons of 
 men — if they have not laboured in God's name, 
 and with a single eye to His glory, they will be 
 found on this side of the Jordan that divides the 
 wilderness of the world, and this dispensation, 
 from the tents of Shem, and the rest that 
 remaineth for the people of God. 
 
 Why were Joshua and Caleb alone, of the 
 representatives of the tribes of Israel, deemed 
 worthy of the privilege of entering the Holy 
 Land ? It is written, emphatically and repeatedly, 
 for our learning, that it was because "they 
 wholly followed the Lord God of Israel."* They 
 alone of all the spies, exhorted the Israelites to 
 trust in God's promise, that He would bring them 
 into the land and give it to them. They alone 
 reported of the land, that it was a land which 
 flowed with milk and honey. They were not 
 dismayed at apparent difficulties; they stag- 
 gered not through unbelief; and were brought 
 over Jordan ; while those who walked by sight 
 and not by faith, doubting the promise and 
 power of Jehovah to fulfil it, were consumed in 
 the wilderness where they died. How many 
 * Numb. xiv. 24, xxxii. 12. Deut. i. 36. Josh. xiv. 8, g. 
 
302 THE BUILDERS OF BABEL. 
 
 of those who live in the memories of mankind, 
 the acknowledged and respected authors of 
 legislation and literature, of arts and science, 
 have been, as Joshua and Caleb were, wholly 
 followers of the Lord God of Israel — fearless 
 and undoubting believers in His Word ? How 
 many of those who are labouring around us, in 
 these remarkable days of enlightenment and 
 progress, for the creation and expansion of the 
 useful and the beautiful, are looking for the city 
 without foundations; whose Maker and Builder is 
 God ? And yet without such motives and such 
 a hope, no son of man has any interest in the 
 labours of his life, beyond the grave. Unless he 
 has sown to the honour and glory of God, he 
 has no harvest in the future. 
 
 These are grave and suggestive conside- 
 rations. The stream of time is rolling in- 
 exorably on. Every human being is contri- 
 buting for good or for evil to swell the volume 
 of events ; and the man of one talent is as 
 responsible as he who had five talents, for his 
 contribution to the great sum total. The 
 smallest and least noticed of the stones in the 
 great edifice of civilized humanity may, in the 
 estimation of the architect, be as essential to the 
 
THE ADAMITE. 303 
 
 Stability and perfection of the structure as the 
 polished corners and sculptured pediments that 
 arrest the eye, and occupy the attention, of the 
 casual beholder. In the day when the Lord 
 God of Hosts maketh up His jewels, and not till 
 then, shall every man's work be known ; and 
 each must stand in his lot, as God's glory, or 
 man's approval, has been the motive of his 
 exertions. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 BILLING, PEINTEK, GUILDFORD, SURREY.,