ert his meaning, he could not
have more carefully worded his account. It is not possible for any man
to express the idea of a total flood more definitely than this man has
done. He does not merely say the hills were covered, but "_all_" the
hills were covered; and lest you should think that he certainly did not
mean the most elevated, he is careful to say "all the _high_" hills were
covered; and lest some one should say he only meant the hills in that
part of the country, he says expressly "all the high hills that were
_under the whole heaven were covered_." He is even so cautious as to
introduce the phrase "_whole_ heaven," lest some one in its absence
might still think that the deluge was a partial one. To make its
universality still more evident, he says, "All flesh died that moved
upon the earth." This would have been sufficiently definite for most
persons, but not so for him; he particularizes so that none may
escape,--"both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of creeping
thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man." To leave no
possibility of mistake, he adds, "all in whose nostrils was the breath
of life, of all that was in the dry land, died." Can any thing more be
needed? The writer seems to see that some theological professor may even
yet try to make this mean a partial deluge; and he therefore says,
"Every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the
ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of
the heaven; they were destroyed from the earth." Is it possible to add
to the strength of this? He thinks it is; and he therefore says, "Noah
only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark." Could any
truthful man write this and then mean that less than a hundredth part of
the earth's surface was covered. If not a total flood, why save the
animals, above all the birds? All that Noah and his family need to have
done would have been to move out of the region till the storm was over.
If a partial flood, how could the ark have rested on the mountains of
Ararat? Ararat itself is seventeen thousand feet high, and it rises from
a plateau that is seven thousand feet above the sea-level. A flood that
enabled the ark to float on to that mountain could not have been far
from universal; and, when such a flood is accounted for on scientific
principles, it will be just as easy to account for a total flood.

_"The flood was only intended to destroy man, and therefore