Who, of all these oracles of the patriarchal ages think you, William, was most illustrious?

William. Enoch, I suppose, because he was translated.

Olympas. We are now speaking of these six oracular historians.

William. Shem, I imagine, because he lived in two worlds and had conversed with the antediluvians and postdiluvians, and had more experience than any other man from Adam to Moses.

Olympas. Tell me, Susan, what does the word Shem mean?

Susan. You told us that it means RENOWN: you also said it means King of Peace.

Olympas. You mistake when you say that the name SHEM indicates any thing more than renown, when I spoke of the King of Peace it was in reference to the opinion that Shem and Melchisedeck are both names of the same person. Edward, can you sum up the reasons I gave for the opinion that Shem is the mediator called Melchisedeck?

Edward. You said that Shem was a personal name, and Melchisedeck an official name; that malchi denoted king, and zedek righteousness"king of righteousness," and that Salem corresponded to Jerusalem, the City of Peace; for Shalam imports peace.

Olympas. But this does not amount to a reason why we should identify Shem and Melchisedeck.

James. You said that the eldest and most illustrious branch of every family was priest; and of the family of Noah, Shem was doubtless in the time of Abraham, the most venerable and illustrious member. And in the second place you

observed that Paul himself held up to admiration the superlative dignity of that person, even in comparison with Abraham, and showed that as Shem was the most renowned father of the Messiah, and of Abraham too, as their progenitor, it behooved that, if any one was to fill the high place of Universal Priest, especially in reference to the progenitors of our Lord, Shem should be that person.

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Olympas. But we give that consideration more significance by the fact that Shem was, in point of age, experience, and personal dignity, the first man in the world. He was the oldest, most intelligent, and authoritative person, being then the head of nine generations. "Consider," says Paul, 'how great this man was, to whom even the patriarch Abraham gave tithes of all!" Again, it is certain that Shem was living at that time, and being the chief progenitor of our Lord, who could be High Priest over him! It would have been an infraction upon the patriarchal institution to have made a son of Shem High Priest over him. No person could, in compatibility with that institution, be High Priest over Shem. The words to Cain indicate this principle: "If thou doest well, shalt not thou have the excellency [over thy younger brother?] unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him." It was right that Abraham should have received the benediction from father Shem, who lived at Jerusalem and was High Priest of the world. He, too, of all post diluvian men, in respect to these high official honours, was without beginning of days or end of [priestly] life; without father and without mother, having no

priestly ancestry, nor succession, but a priest of his own order, officiating for a world during the interregnum from Noah to Abraham, and that too to the day of his death. He was, therefore, a most eminent type of the high priesthood of Jesus. But our speculation on Shem has led us a great way off from the strict subject of our morning's conversation; but our excuse is, that we shall find in the book of Genesis the seeds or elements of all the subsequent revelations, precepts, and promises, vouchsafed to man. We must therefore note them as we proceed. Having now sketched the history of tradition, and the memorable events of the antediluvian world, we shall, at our next lesson, take up the history of the flood.

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CONVERSATION VII.

AFTER reading in order the history of the deluge, Olympas thus began:

Olympas. We are now come to the end of one world and the commencement of another. What, Thomas, were the causes that ushered in this awful catastrophe ?

Thomas. Murder, violence, and rapine seem to have completed the measure of human enormities. Moses says, "And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually."-"The earth was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence." "For all flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth; and God said, The end of all flesh is come before me for the earth is filled with violence through them, and behold I will destroy them with the earth."

Olympas. God our Father, then, intended more than the destruction of the human race and the living creatures on the earth. He said he would destroy them with the earth. Tell me, Susan, with what element did God destroy the earth with its inhabitants?

Susan. With water.

Olympas. Whence did the waters come, William ?

William. From the windows of heaven, and from the fountains of the great deep.

Olympas. How long did it rain, James ? James. "Forty days and forty nights." Olympas. How do you, Reuben, understand "the windows of heaven" and "the fountains of the great deep?"

Reuben. The clouds may be called the windows of heaven, because the waters that float in the air, are poured through the clouds on the earth; and the subterraneous oceans may be called the fountains of the great deep, because they supply the lakes and seas with water.

Olympas. If the quantity of water in the earth be at all proportioned to the quantity on its surface, it only required an impulse from the almighty hand to overflow the earth, to submerge every mountain and hill to the depth of the tallest pines on their loftiest summits. But in doing this there must have been a tremendous disruption of the earth, the heaving up of new mountains, and the sinking down of immense areas of the ancient surface; so that while the waters of the great deep made for themselves new channels, their ancient beds were filled up with dilapidated masses of the primitive soil, and thus the earth itself, with its wicked inhabitants, was literally wasted and destroyed. Are there yet existing any monuments

of this ancient deluge?

Reuben. I have read in the history of the Greeks and Western Nations accounts of the flood; and of the tradition of the Chinese, the Africans, and Americans, concerning a deluge which left at great distance from the present seas, and on the summits of lofty mountains, trees deeply imbedded in the soil; with the teeth and bones of numerous