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ing question in physics, it is in no higher degree a moral one than those questions which relate to the right figure or age of the earth, or to the true motions of the heavenly bodies. And it will be found that the only passages in Scripture which refer to this strictly physical subject, instead of determining the geographic extent of the Flood, serve only to raise a question regarding their own extent of meaning. It is known to all students of the sacred writings, that there is a numerous class of passages in both the Old and New Testaments in which, by a sort of metonymy common in the East, a considerable part is spoken of as the whole, though in reality often greatly less than a moiety of the whole. Of this class are the passages in which it is said, that on the day of Pentecost there were Jews assembled at Jerusalem "out of _every nation under heaven_;" "that the gospel was preached to _every creature under heaven_;" that the Queen of Sheba came to hear the wisdom of Solomon from the "_uttermost parts of the earth_;" that God put the dread and fear of the children of Israel upon the nations that were "_under the whole heaven_;" and that "_all countries_ came into Egypt to Joseph to buy corn." And of course the universally admitted existence of such a class of passages, in which words are _not_ to be accepted in their rigidly literal meanings, but with certain great modifications, renders the task of determining and distinguishing such passages from others in which the meaning is definite and strict, not only legitimate, but also laudable; and justifies us in inquiring whether those passages descriptive of the Flood or its effects, in which it is said that the "waters prevailed exceedingly on the earth," so that "_all_ the high hills that were under _the whole heavens_ were covered," or that "_all_ flesh died that moved upon the earth," belong to their number or no. There are some instances in which the Scriptures themselves reveal the character and limit the meaning of the metonymic passages. They do so with respect to the passage already quoted regarding the stranger Jews assembled in Jerusalem at the Pentecostal feast,--"out of every nation under heaven." For further on we read that these Jews had come from but the various countries extending around Judea, as far as Italy on the one hand, and the Persian Gulf on the other;--an area large, indeed, but scarce equal to a one fiftieth part of the earth's surface. But
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