life. While, therefore, we have monuments of primeval civilisation in the soft and genial climes of India, Egypt, and Greece, which proclaim the early history of the gray forefathers of the civilised world in those regions, we must seek for the evidences of the primeval history of our Northern Europeans, who are now the masters of mankind, 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 subfamilies or tribes, characterised 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, impulsive in his nature, submissive to authority, but lacking stability and perseverance, he has slowly retreated before the encroach

ing Teuton, who, with his love of freedom and free institutions, 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 islands, 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 the conclusion, that as the Teuton has displaced the Celt, so the Sclave, though kept in check and often repulsed by the Teuton, is destined to displace both Celt and Teuton, driving them onward 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 civilisation, to be followed by the knowledge of the Lord, shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.

Thus far history, sacred and profane, ancient monuments of literature and art, and the inscriptions and relics of Babylon and Nineveh, all combine to fill Europe and Southern Asia, including Hindostan, from Iceland to Ceylon, from the Shannon to the Ganges, with the descendants of Shem and Japhet. Shem is in the occupation of the limited regions round about the cradle of their race, bounded by the shores of the Mediterranean, Persia, and the Indian Ocean; while Japhet has been enlarged, and fills all the remainder of the civilised worlds of Europe and Southern Asia, and is spreading with accelerated rapidity and increasing volume into America, and the other continents of the globe, hitherto the abodes of uncivilised or semi

civilised races of humanity. In this dispersion of the family of Noah, there is nothing that can be termed miraculous; for the dispersion of a people located on the plains of Shinar four thousand years ago would naturally, as population increased, flow out and over the adjoining countries. But we are told that this separation was preceded by a confusion of their primitive language, so that they became unintelligible to each other, and separated. And the Lord said,

Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.' Here there is a record of a divine interposition which was productive of a disturbance of the common language of the community, and was followed by a severance of the one people of the one tongue. Now did such an event occur in the history of the world, what was the nature of it, and what the purpose?

Let us first enquire and ascertain from the Scriptures what was the nature, scope, and extent of the confusion of language which is recorded in the eleventh chapter of Genesis. This is the important consideration, and will furnish us with a key to the right understanding of what has been written for our instruction in this portion of God's word. The prevailing notion of the meaning of this ancient record is, that the single language of Noah's family was split up into an indefinite multitude of languages, and that thereby the congregated

people became unintelligible to each other, broke up their confederation, and dispersed themselves abroad. But a little consideration will show, that the confusion of language at Shinar eventuated in the production of three distinct languages-the Semitic, the Hamitic, and the Japhetic-spoken by the respective families of Shem, Ham, and Japhet. For it was obviously the will of God that the respective members of these three families should be bound in confederation together; and that each of the families, or tribes, themselves should be kept separate and distinct from the others. This is clear from the tenth and eleventh chapters of Genesis, in which their respective genealogies and destinations are designated and distinguished. The sons of Japhet go forth in one direction, the sons of Shem in another, and the sons of Ham are settled in another. Their father Noah had pronounced distinct blessings on the sons of Shem and the sons of Japhet; and not only withheld a blessing from Ham, but cursed his posterity Canaan. Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be to his brethren. And he said, Blessed be the Lord God of Shem, 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.'

The fulfilment of these predictions (and they have been fulfilled to the letter) required that the three families should be severed, and kept separate; and it is impossible to conceive any means better calculated to insure such a result, than the endowment of each of these 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 object of dividing and keeping the three tribes separate from each other could not have been better and more surely attained than by a rendering of them unintelligible to each other. The dispersion was a tribal separation; and they were divided according to their languages.' Such is the Scripture record; and we now proceed to show the early existence of the three languages corresponding to the three tribes of Shem, Ham, and Japhet.

That an Hamitic language existed in the early ages of the Babylonian empire, is plain from the cuneiform inscriptions on the bricks and cylinders of Babylonia; and that it has disappeared, is manifested by the same evidence, as we have before stated. And that the two other languages have been in existence from the time of the separation of the families of Shem, Ham, and Japhet, we shall now proceed to show. And here the increase of knowledge in these latter days comes to our aid.

The science of language, or comparative philology, has preserved, and now reveals, these secrets of the past. It is, like geology, a science of modern growth, not much older than the present century. It may be said 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 lay unheeded and unquestioned around us, like the stones and fossils