made one body with them under Christ. But our time is drawing to a close, and it is whispered into my ears that an important point in the ninth chapter has been passed over. But we cannot finish these things perfectly in one or two courses: we must leave something for the next time. But before we conclude this lesson, Edward, tell me what countries were possessed and are still possessed by the sons of Shem?

Edward. Japheth, as before stated, peopled all Europe, Lesser and Northern Asia, and there being but forty miles or less, bridged too by islands, between the northern ends of Asia and America, it is most probable that the northern hive of Asia sent some swarms across the island of Behring into this vast country, and so the sons of Japheth are American, European, and Asiatic.

Shem filled the upper and central Asia, Armenia, Mesopotamia, Assyria, Media, Persia, and the countries reaching to the ancient Ganges and the Indus; while Ham got the hot regions in the south of Asia and Africa, Egypt and Philistina, Lybia, Sidon, Tyre, Carthage, and some of the islands of the Southern Ocean.

Olympas. Any thing to say about the colours of these families?

Henry. The lessons you gave us on the colours of the human race I do not fully remember; but this much I recall, that Asia is yellow; America, red; Africa, black; and Europe, white.

Olympas. True: as these lands approach each other they mingle their colours, or shade sinks or rises into shade, till we have the white, the yellow, the red, and the black. But the moral of this

lesson, and we will file something for to-morrow. What is the moral, Thomas?

Thomas. As respects the whole affair of the division of the earth amongst these three sons, and their respective families, the facts are first to be considered. Shem had the most honourable family, and the richest and best patrimony. All the Prophets, Apostles, and lights of the world, together with Emmanuel himself, belonged to Shem. Japheth had the largest posterity and the most extensive land and sea estate; together with the fairest, hardiest, and most enterprizing people: while Ham has the fewest people, only one-fourth; Shem and Japheth having full three-fourths of the human race. His patrimony was small, his colour dark, his talents few and feeble, and his rank inferior to that of his brothers. The cause was, he dishonoured his father.

Olympas. What a lesson! What a moral! May the Lord lead you all to honour your father and your mother, which is the first command with promise!

CONVERSATION XI.

Olympas. SOME of you said that there were some important points omitted in the ninth chapter. Who will mention them?

Thomas. The first

six verses of the ninth

chapter, so far as recollected by me, were passed by without much or any notice. Olympas. Read them, Thomas. [He reads them.]

Olympas. What are the points of importance here?

Reuben. There is the grant for flesh for food, which seems to be a new arrangement.

Olympas. Wherein does it, Thomas, appear to be new?

Thomas. Because allusion is in the grant to a former one-"As I have given you the vegetable, so now give I you the animal kingdom for food." So it would seem to read to me.

Olympas. I will now wait upon the second and third class for their voluntary remarks on this passage. You of the second class will therefore proceed with your own remarks and interrogatories.

William. I have seen the second verse fully accomplished on many occasions while travelling with my uncle through the wild woods where no person lived. God said to Noah that he would put the fear and dread of man upon all the beasts of the field, and and upon every fowl of the air, upon all reptiles. Hence when man appears they all flee. I have

seen squirrels, wild turkeys, and various birds all assembled in one place, and familiarly sporting together; but when a man appeared among them they all fled. There is a reverence for man, a dread of his presence upon all animals, differing much from their fear of one another.

Mary. God, in bestowing flesh for food to man, did not allow him to eat the blood. Is it, therefore, still wrong for us to eat blood?

Edward. I should suppose it was, because it seems to have been a precept to the whole world; for as yet there was neither Jew nor Gentile, but one family included all human nature.

Eliza. I wonder what harm there is in eating blood, more than there is in eating flesh; or why it should be wrong to eat blood, and not wrong to eat the flesh formed out of it and nourished by it.

Olympas. A divine precept always settles what is right and what is wrong. The doctor's say blood is unwholesome-a very indigestible substance. But this is not the reason given. "The life is the blood.”—This was never known to naturalists till since Hunter's time; but God made it known to Moses long before. It would seem not only to be a prohibition of cruelty, but also to have some reference to the great fact that blood was given for an atonement, and to be in sacred use for expiation. But the fact that God prohibits blood is enough. The man that eats blood sins against the precept of God given to father Noah for the benefit of all his children. Do you remember any allusion to this precept, or any similar prohibition in the New Testament, Eliza?

Eliza. The decrees passed at Jerusalem, on a reference from Antioch in Syria, forbid to the

Gentile Christians blood, whether by itself or in animals strangled, having the blood in their bodies.

Olympas. This, then, is enough, Blood is forbidden the Jews, the Gentiles, and the Christians: Surely, then, we ought to abstain from it. It has often been observed that the eating of blood brutalizes those who are addicted to it; and certain it is that they are savages who drink it from the veins of animals. Still I opine that our heavenly Father, intending it for a most sacred and to us salutary use, enjoined an abstinence from it chiefly on this account.

William. There is yet a very obscure point in this context which I cannot understand. It is in the fifth and sixth verses.

Olympas. I have reserved these for the senior class. I ask the views of the senior class on this passage.

Reuben, The fifth verse begins with a solemn declaration that God would require the blood of human life from the hand of beasts. Whether the Lord meant he would demand human blood for cruelty shown to beasts, or that he would not allow a beast to live that had ever killed any one, I am not confident. I refer this point to some of my class-mates.

Thomas Dilworth. Had not some preacher in my hearing strongly affirmed that this passage referred to all acts of cruelty to beasts-such as horse-racing, cock-fighting, and all manner of cruelty to brutes-I should not have found any difficulty in understanding it. To me it seems to indicate that God would require at the hand of every beast the blood which it shed. Of course it

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