had very little bitterness of feeling or animosity. He was a friend whose services were not confined to manner and form, but he was ready to show kindness and afford assistance to others in numberless ways, which will not soon be forgotten. In the general intercourse of the world he was social, lively, and interested in others. To his colleagues in the College Faculty he ever manifested a confiding and fraternal spirit. In the nearest relations of life he was all that affection could claim or desire.

He had also, as has already appeared, those valuable qualities which make up honesty of character. He was true and sincere in statements and professions, not given to exaggeration, but feeling more than his words imported, and to a degree undemonstrative. He was simple and unpretending in all his habits, tastes, and judgments. He was unaspiring, contented, and humble. He was true-hearted and faithful, not warped by suspicion or jealousy, but as trustful of others as he was true himself.

As Professor Larned was without guile, so he seemed to be eminently pure, and his life and discourse gave the impression to others of purity of motives, of purity of imagination, of a sincere, unadulterated character.

He was, as we have had occasion to say already, somewhat timid in carrying out his plans, fearful of failure and not inclined to estimate high enough his own powers and facilities. This took away part of that vigor in what was original and depended upon himself, to which his talents and force of mind should have entitled him.

To the endowments of an uncommonly amiable nature, religion lent her aid; she purified them from the corrupt, degenerating influences of a worldly life, enlisted them in her service, and ennobled them in the companionship of spiritual affections. We have seen that in 1831 there was a turning point, clear to his own mind and to the observation of others, in his religious character. He viewed this change then-to quote his own words—as a "hearty, permanent choice of God, as the portion of his soul, and his law as the guide of his life. If really made, it was a change in the whole moral man, for it was a

change in that permanent governing principle of the soul, from which all moral acts derive their character." In choosing the ministry for his work in life he appears to have been animated by a spirit of religious self-consecration. When he accepted the invitation to the pastoral office at Millbury, his letters, which we have been permitted to read, show how deeply he felt his responsibilities, and how strong was his trust in God. The same views of spiritual religion with which he began his life as a Christian, and the same sincere, simple piety, marked his whole course. At the first he was desponding and tremulous, but his hopes are believed to have grown brighter, until in his last years he was able and ready to cheer and comfort others. His life, during the earlier years of his professorship at Yale College, was dutiful, pure, and holy, but not marked by many demonstrations of pious feeling beyond the innermost circle of friendship, and showing steadiness of principle rather than strength of emotion. In the last five or six years, however, his friends of the household as well as of the academic body have often remarked that the life within him has been more and more manifested, and that he has been growing in the Christian spirit. This was seen in the weekly meetings of the College Church, which he regularly attended, and at which, greatly to the profit of his brethren, he brought forth the treasures of a deep-thinking and contemplative mind. It was seen in his interest in the Scriptures, which he studied assiduously on the Sabbath, to the exclusion of other books. It was seen in the love with which he supplied the consolations of the Gospel to those who leaned on him for support. It was seen in his readiness to do good. His last acts were acts of Christian love, which would never have been disclosed to the eye of men if he had lived. He thought much of late, and, when religion was the theme, talked much of Christ, as ever living, as being a continual presence and life to the Christian. One of his last prayers in the family, on the day before he died, began with thanks for the truth of the Gospel. The day before his death, which was the Sabbath, he repeated more than once the hymn beginning, "There is a land of pure delight," dwelling on its verses, which he viewed at once as a

critic and a Christian. Many things, he said lately, were dark to him, for though he had thought deeply on the theory of religion, he found many difficulties which he could not solve,— but he could receive and hold on to Christ. There was his strength.

Thus, as we look back upon his last years, he seems to have been getting ready to die without knowing it. He was to have scarcely a moment to prepare for the great journey. But thanks be to God, he needed, as we believe, no warning; the hour and the moment of death came not too soon for him, for he was Christ's and Christ was with him.

ARTICLE X.-NOAH'S PROPHECY: "CURSED BE CANAAN."

In the supplementary volume of the Rebellion Record, we find a republication of Rabbi Raphall's sermon, preached in the Greene street synagogue on the fourth of January, 1861, the memorable fast-day appointed by President Buchanan. We had occasion to notice that sermon a year ago. The republication of it in this more permanent form is our excuse for adverting to it again with reference to a single topic incidentally discussed by the learned Rabbi.

Under the question, "How far back can we trace the existence of slavery?" the preacher says, among other things:

"If we consult sacred Scripture, the oldest and most truthful collection of records now or at any time in existence, we find the word Ngebed, slave, which the English version renders 'servant,' first used by Noah, who, in Genesis ix, 25, curses the descendants of his son Ham, by saying they should be Ngebed Ngabadim, 'the meanest of slaves,' or, as the English version has it, servant of servants.' The question naturally arises, how came Noah to use the expression? How came he to know anything of slavery? There existed not at that time any human being on earth, except Noah and his family of three sons, apparently by one mother, born free and equal, with their wives and children. Noah had no slaves, from the time that he quitted the ark he could have none. It therefore becomes evident that Noah's acquaintance with the word slave and the nature of slavery must date from before the flood, and existed in his memory only until the crime of Ham called it forth. You and I may regret that in his anger Noah should from beneath the waters of wrath again have fished up the idea and prac tice of slavery, but that he did so is a fact which rests on the authority of Scripture. I am, therefore, justified when, tracing slavery as far back as it can be traced, I arrive at the conclusion that next to the domestic relations of husband and wife, parents and children, the oldest relation of society with which we are acquainted is that of master and slave."

"Noah, on the occasion in question, bestows on his son Shem a spiritual blessing: 'Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem,' and to this day it remains a fact which cannot be denied, that whatever knowledge of God and of religious truth is possessed by the human race, has been promulgated by the descendants of Shem. Noah bestows on his son Japheth a blessing chiefly temporal, but partaking also of spiritual good. May God enlarge Japheth, and may he dwell in the tents of Shem,' and to this day it remains a fact which cannot be denied, that the descendants of Japheth (Europeans and their offspring) have been enlarged so

that they possess dominion in every part of the earth; while, at the same time, they share in that knowledge of religious truth which the descendants of Shem were the first to promulgate. Noah did not bestow any blessing on his son Ham, but uttered a bitter curse against his descendants, and to this day it remains a fact which cannot be gainsaid that in his own native home, and generally throughout the world, the unfortunate negro is indeed the meanest of slaves. Much has been said respecting the inferiority of his intellectual powers, and that no man of his race has ever inscribed his name on the Pantheon of human excellence, either mental or moral. But this is a subject I will not discuss. I do not attempt to build up a theory, nor yet to defend the moral government of Providence. I state facts; and having done so, I remind you that our own fathers were slaves in Egypt, and afflicted four hundred years; and then I bid you reflect on the words of inspired Isaiah, (lv, 8), 'My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.'"*

We cannot but observe that Rabbi Raphall is very discreet in the use which he makes of this ancient prophecy. He does not venture to infer from it the righteousness of negro slavery. He almost repudiates such an inference. Ostensibly at least, all that he attempts to prove by it is that slavery existed before the flood, and is, therefore, of the highest antiquity. This is a conclusion which nobody is likely to dispute; for, as the Rabbi himself affirms, "it is generally admitted that slavery had its origin in war, public or private," and almost all that we know of human society before the flood is that "the earth was filled with violence," so that nothing less than a sweeping destruction of the human race and a new beginning could introduce the needed reformation. Surely, the most violent denouncer of all slaveholding, and the most intent on wresting the Scriptures to his own use, would freely admit that there must have been slavery in such a world as that was, and that nothing else than the prevalence of slavery and the habitual justification of it in the name of God could have required so terrible a remedy.

Some Christians, we are sorry to say,-or persons calling themselves Christians, are not equally discreet. There lies before us a book published only five years ago, entitled "the Christian Doctrine of Slavery, by George D. Armstrong, D. D., pastor of the Presbyterian church in Norfolk, Va." In this book Noah's prophecy is quoted, outright, as a divine warrant

* Reb. Record, Supplementary Vol., pp. 15–17.