nations now existing that differ very much in size from each other. Modern benevolence has also accused the Israelites of unwarrantable cruelty and injustice, for conquering and driving out the Canaanites from Palestine, instead of viewing the wars of Joshua as acts of obedience to the divine command, concerning a most wicked people, some of them inhabiting Sodom and Gomorrah.

In the tenth chapter of Genesis, verses 15, 16, 17, and 18, the generations of Canaan are given; and in the latter part of verse 18, it is said, " and afterwards were the families of the Canaanites spread abroad."

This allows of their migration to Africa, where, in the first noted instance of prophetic servitude visited upon the Canaanites, we find them left in slavery to the Romans, by the sad and acknowledged fate of Carthage. And, secondly, the long continuance of the slave trade need scarcely be mentioned, to the readers of Scripture, as a fulfilment of Noah's prophecy upon Canaan. Nevertheless, it ought to be remembered with fear, that there were other sons of Ham, who, from Egypt,

spread into Africa, and who were not under a curse; so far from it, that when they came forth from the ark, they, with Noah, had received a general blessing, as replenishers of the earth. And as we cannot at all distinguish between the descendants of Canaan, and those of his other African brethren, the greater care and humane treatment ought to be exercised toward those victims which rapacity throws into our hands, lest they may not be of the lineage destined to servitude; and even if they were, the Deity, in a somewhat similar case, thus forewarns people against taking advantage of those who are under his rod.

Zechariah, chap. i. 15.

"And I am very sore

displeased with the heathen that are at EASE: for I was but a little displeased, and they helped forward the affliction."

Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord; and, in all probability, great woe will be to them who think to take it out of his hands. Cain was under a curse; but the Lord denounced that a seven-fold vengeance should be taken on any one who slew him.

ELEVENTH CHAPTER OF GENESIS.

1. "AND the whole earth was of one language and of one speech.

2. "And it came to pass as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.

3. "And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for

mortar.

4. "And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven, and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.

5. "And the Lord came down to see the city and tower which the children of men builded.

6. "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.

7. "Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.

8. "So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city."

The will of God, well known to Noah, was, that his family should overspread and replenish the earth; therefore, after the offence of Ham, and the curse inflicted on his son, it is natural to conclude, that as the progeny of Noah's sons increased, and divisions began to be appointed, an earlier separation would take place in the tribe of Ham, from the jurisdiction of Noah, than in any of the other tribes. Noah lived three hundred and fifty years after the flood, and there is no mention of his name in this chapter; but Nimrod, the grandson of Ham, we find in the preceding chapter, built a city in this land of Shinar, and was proverbially, like the giants of old, a man of renown; and he, according to the common apprehension of the context of the ninth, tenth, and eleventh chapters, must have been originally the chief of his party, who appear

to be striving against God; because, instead of proceeding to overspread the earth, as he commanded them, they determine to settle in the land of Shinar, to make themselves a name, and to build themselves such a tower and city as they might always resort to, lest they might be spread abroad and scattered over the earth. Nothing of this sort of opposition to God's will can be supposed to take place in any community led on by righteous Noah, or either of his approved sons; but Ham's grandson, Nimrod, whose name in the original language means rebellious, is also described in the tenth chapter by those Hebrew words which may be differently interpreted, and some render them, that he was rebellious before the Lord: he therefore was very likely to engage in such a scheme, and the context seems to bear this out both in respect to himself and the whole party called the children of men, at the fifth verse; as their intentions appear to be so offensive to God, that he descends and confounds their language, and they left off to build the city, and from thence did the Lord (what most they feared) scatter them abroad upon the face of all the