painted on the sky, proclaims: "I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth, and I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh." The Almighty Being who planned the ark, and happily guided it through his own destructive flood, gave that pledge, and with it indelibly stamped upon the hearts of all his creatures the most implicit confidence in its sanctity. Since the "bow in the cloud" appeared, none has feared a coming flood, nor has even its possibility at all disturbed the hearts of men. But the voyage is ended; the day is over, supper dispensed to all, and the songster of the night gaily chants the vesper lullaby with his tyr-whit-tyr-whittoo-who, and all the weary travelers seek repose upon the dry sea grass, with hearts in unison, bounding and glowing with deep and fervent gratitude to God for the Great Deliverance. CHAPTER XII. REIGN OF CONFUSION. "May ye never play in tune, COMMENCING With the beginning of our Comet's life, we have watched her in her infancy, followed her through her youthful years, and finally seen her pass through one of those metamorphic changes that invariably pertain to the lives and natures of all created things. In every stage, and in all her characteristics, she has disclosed a strict submission to physical laws, and that she is, in very fact, a creature. Our guide-book, too, with its labyrinthine thread and brief notations, has safely led us through the misty mazes of the mysterious past, and finally opened to us the light and truth. But the world has changed immensely, and so, too, must our guide-book change, to enjoy our abiding confidence. Order, method and symmetry have given way to disorder and complexity;! and shall our guide conform thereto, we may most implicitly trust it for the future. Scarcely do our ancient immigrants from the rainless world land upon our rugged and distorted earth, before they are discourteously saluted with a copious shower; and, to allay the fears excited by so strange a phenomenon, the rainbow-equally as strange and unknown-is adopted as the abiding token of a covenant between God and man and all minor creatures. To provide for the degeneracy of food, that is naturally and necessarily to ensue from a change of contrasted worlds, the antediluvian herbivorous law is at once repealed, and universal fear and discord must supersede the cordial and catholic amity that existed before the flood. The language used upon the occasion, emphatically affirms, that prior thereto, peace and harmony had fraternized the races; but thenceforth a converse state of antagonisms should mar the social state. "And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them: "Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth. "And the fear of you, and the dread of you, shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered. "Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things." As the coming necessity, springing from an altered and degenerate world, required a compensation for the loss of the rich glutinous and nutritious herbs of the Adamland, that furnished at once both bread and meat, permission in advance is given to the human race to make use of animal food. But it is further unfolded to us by the sacred writer, that man did not exercise the privilege thus conferred upon him im mediately, but deferred it for more than a century thereafter. During this period, man and beast continued to dwell in peace, as before the flood, to increase and multiply; yet awaiting the day when bloody strife should commence its reign upon postdiluvian earth. In the interim, we are advised that Noah, as a man of foresight and practical prudence, has come prepared with all things necessary to his changed condition. He becomes a husbandman, and plants a vineyard; and, of course, we must understand that he has brought his vines and seeds, his farming tools and implements. And here, again, it is in another form announced that all former vegetation was destroyed; and for the want of building timber, Noah and his sons are represented, for eight years at least, until Canaan, Ham's fourth son, was born, as living in tents. They were then abiding in the land of Ararat, modern Armenia, a country from Moses' day till now most abundantly supplied with cypress and juniper, beech, birch, oak, walnut, mulberry, all manner of firs and pines, and with the Cedar of Lebanon proudly towering over the site of the ark itself. That they had their tools and knew their use, Babel soon discloses; and that their condition was neither intolerable nor uncomfortable, the Arab on the south, and Turkistan on the grassy plains of the north, both affirm; for they do now, and have ever lived in tents, for the want of timber. Our author here imparts and records a useful and profound physiological truth; that to even a sudden change in the conditions surrounding life, the animal frame and being does not inantly and at once con form, but several successive generations are requisite to secure a full and perfect adaptation. Man after the flood is exhibited in a transition state, passing from his ancient form and lengthened life to our diminished stature and contracted span. In Abraham's genealogy from Noah, this physical law is well illustrated. Noah, with his antediluvian constitution and well-set frame, lives out his allotted term of 950 years. Shem, with less of the ancient impress than his father, yet possesses enough of the pristine vigor to reach 600 years, and outlive his son and grandson, both born this side of the flood. Abraham at 175, is recorded to have "died in a good old age, an old man and full of years." Isaac lived to the age of 180, and Jacob died at 147. "Moses was 120 years old when he died; his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated." Throughout this transition period, we find a steady but regular and slow declension of vital power, proclaiming the law that rules in constitutional changes. It is worthy to be observed in this connection, that Noah and Abraham were contemporaries, the former dying when the latter was sixty years in age; and that Shem was coeval with his lineal descendants, Isaac and Jacob, by and through whom these accounts of the olden |