THE CONFUSION OF TONGUES.

JOHN MILTON.

Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth.-GENESIS xi. 9.

THIS second source of men, while yet but few,
And while the dread of judgment past remains
Fresh in their minds, fearing the Deity,
With some regard to what is just and right
Shall lead their lives, and multiply apace,
Labouring the soil, and reaping plenteous crop,
Corn, wine, and oil: and from the herd or flock,
Oft sacrificing bullock, lamb, or kid,
With large wine-offerings poured, and sacred feast,
Shall spend their days in joys unblamed, and dwell
Long time in peace, by families and tribes,

Under paternal rule, till one shall rise,

Of proud, ambitious heart, who, not content
With fair equality, fraternal state,
Will arrogate dominion undeserved

Over his brethren, and quite dispossess

Concord and law of nature from the earth,

Hunting, (and men, not beasts, shall be his game,)
With war and hostile snare, such as refuse
Subjection to his empire tyrannous :

A mighty hunter thence he shall be styled
Before the Lord, as in despite of Heav'n,
Or from Heav'n claiming second sov❜reignty;
And from rebellion shall derive his name,
Though of rebellion others he accuse.
He with a crew, whom like ambition joins
With him or under him to tyrannize,
Marching from Eden tow'rds the west shall find
The plain, wherein a black bituminous gurge
Boils out from under ground, the mouth of hell,
Of brick; and of that stuff they cast to build
A city and tow'r, whose top may reach to heav'n;
And get themselves a name; lest far dispers'd

In foreign lands, their memory be lost,
Regardless whether good or evil fame.
But God, who oft descends to visit men
Unseen, and through their habitations walks
To mark their doings, them beholding soon,
Comes down to see their city, ere the tow'r
Obstruct Heav'n's tow'rs; and in derision sets
Upon their tongues a various spirit, to 'rase
Quite out their native language, and instead
To sow a jangling noise of words unknown.
Forthwith a hideous gabble rises loud
Among the builders; each to other calls,

THE CONFUSION OF TONGUES.

Not understood, till hoarse, and all in rage,

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As mocked, they storm. Great laughter was in Heav'n;
And looking down, to see the hubbub strange,
And hear the din; thus was the building left
Ridiculous, and the work Confusion named.

THE PATRIARCHS.

By faith, Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went.-HEBREWS xii. 8.

A Syrian, ready to perish, was my father; and he went down into Egypt, and sojourned there with a few, and became there a nation, great, mighty, and populous.-Deuteronomy xxvi. 5.

These all died in faith.-HEBREWS xii. 13.

In the records of the beginning of nations, the wild imaginations of profane bards and the rude inventions of uninspired historians have invested the crudest, most improbable and impossible narratives, with the charm which consecrates folly and canonizes fable-ANTIQUITY. The question is not, is it true, that we may believe, but is it old, that we may reverence. One single aim inspires all alike-from the classic fabulist of sunny Greece, to the roughest Scald of the cold North. That purpose is the deification of human ancestors, the production of monsters half-human, half-divine; but, alas for the stumblings of human wisdom! all brute. Men may set up their ancestry as golden images, but the soil of the crucible, and the earth of the mould cling to the molten calf; yet in the vain pride of patriotic idolatry man "feedeth on ashes; a de

THE PATRIARCHS.

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ceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say: Is there not a lie in my right hand?"

But when we turn from these traditions to Holy Scripture, we find Him manifest in His word, as in His works, whose ways are not as our ways, nor whose thoughts as our thoughts. A simple and unadorned, but majestic narrative is that of the creation. He who in the beginning said, "Let there be light!" asserts His awful grandeur and power in the relation which inspiration dictated to Moses. If the deeds of men are to be spoken of, they require the prelude and flourish of sounding words; but Omnipotence, who spake and it was done, is only hidden from us and obscured by the mist which human inventions weave over our own eyes. We painfully labour, but in vain, to define the Idea of the Eternal. He is the Incomprehensible, and to strive to know Him otherwise than as faith directs, as the Being who is, and who is the rewarder of such as diligently seek Him, is to make unto ourselves an Image. It was thus that the ancients turned the Incorruptible into the image of the corruptible. It was thus that they represented the Invisible in the hideous fancies of their debased imaginations. Thus grew the painfully ridiculous accounts of the beginning, in which fables were asserted relative to the creation, which debased the Creator below the contempt of the thoughtful, and below the respect of the foolish. Socrates, in such an age, could not be less than an infidel; the multitude could not be other than bigots who blindly persecuted, or cowards who feared, in ranking with the sage, to come under the condemnation of the simple.

The folly which made God like man, made men gods; and thence the divine origin of nations to which we have already alluded. It is pitiful to read by what debasing fables the race