reflect as perfectly the image of
truth.

The Bible abounds with marvellous stories,--stories that we should at
once reject from their intrinsic improbability, not to say
impossibility, if we should find them in any other book. But, among all
the stories, there is none that equals the account of the deluge, as
given in the sixth, seventh, and eighth chapters of Genesis. It towers
above the rest as Mount Washington does above the New-England hills;
and, as travellers delight to climb the loftiest peaks, I suppose that
many would be pleased to examine this lofty story, and see how the world
of truth and actuality looks from its summit.

According to the account, in less than two thousand years after God had
created all things, and pronounced them very good, he became thoroughly
dissatisfied with every living thing, and determined to destroy them
with the earth. He thus expresses himself: "I will destroy man, whom I
have created, from the face of the earth,--both man and beast, and the
creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I
have made them." Again he says to Noah, "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."

Why should the beasts, birds, and creeping things be destroyed? What had
the larks, the doves, and the bob-o-links done? What had the squirrels
and the tortoises been guilty of, that they should be destroyed?

He proceeds to inform Noah how he will do this: "And behold I, even I,
do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein
is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the
earth shall die." And we are subsequently informed that "every thing
that was in the dry land died." But why not every thing in the sea? Were
the dogs sinners, and the dog-fish saints? Had the sheep been more
guilty than the sharks? Had the pigeons become utterly corrupt, and the
pikes remained perfectly innocent? It may be, that the apparent
impossibility of drowning them by a flood suggested to the writer of the
story the necessity of saving them alive.

But Noah was righteous; and God determined to save him and his family,
eight persons, and by their instrumentality to save alive animals
sufficient to stock the world again after its destruction.

To do this, Noah was commanded to build an ark, three hundred cubits
long, fifty broad, and thirty high. It was to be made