also be replied, that in any danger of inundation, we have the cheering security of the rainbow.

"But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of Adam had built, and he said,-Behold a people which has but one language. They have begun to do this, and they will not desist until they have completed it. Come then, let us go and confound their language, that no one may understand his neighbour."

covenant with you, and with your seed by rain; yet in this place it is repreafter you, and with all living creatures." sented as something supernatural, exhiGod make a covenant with beasts!bited in order to announce and prove What sort of a covenant? Such is the that the earth should no more be inunoutery of infidels. But if he makes a dated. It is singular to choose the cercovenant with man, why not with the tain sign of rain, in order to assure men beast? It has feeling, and there is some-against their being drowned. But it may thing as divine in feeling as in the most metaphysical meditation. Besides, beasts feel more correctly than the greater part of men think. It is clearly in virtue of this treaty, that Francis d'Assise, the founder of the Seraphic order, said to the grasshoppers and the hares,-"Pray sing, my dear sister grasshopper; pray browse, iny dear brother hare." But what were the conditions of the treaty? That all animals should devour one another; that they should feed upon our flesh, and we upon theirs; that, after having eaten them, we should proceed with wrath and fury to the extermination of our own race, nothing being then wanting to crown the horrid series of butchery and cruelty, but devouring our fellow-men, after having thus remorsely destroyed them. Had there been actually such a treaty as this, it could have been entered into only with the devil.

Probably the meaning of the whole passage is neither more nor less, than that God is equally the absolute master of everything that breathes. This pact can be nothing more than an order, and the word covenant is used merely as more emphatic and impressive; we should not therefore be startled and offended at the words, but adore the spirit, and direct our minds back to the period in which this book was written,-a book of scandal to the weak, but of edification to the strong.

"And I will put my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of my covenant,"

&c.

Observe that the author does not say, I have put my bow in the clouds; he says, I will put: this clearly implies it to have been the prevailing opinion that there had not always been a rainbow. This phenomenon is necessarily produced

Observe here, that the sacred writer always continues to conform to the popular opinions. He always speaks of God as of a man who endeavours to inform himself of what is passing, who is desirous of seeing with his own eyes what is going on in his dominions, who calls together his council in order to deliberate with them.

"And Abraham having divided his men (who were three hundred and eighteen in number) fell upon the five kings, and pursued them unto Hoba, on the left hand of Damascus."

From the south bank of the lake of Sodom to Damascus was a distance of eighty leagues, not to mention crossing the mountains Libanus and Anti-Libanus. Infidels smile and triumph at such exaggeration. But as the Lord favoured Abraham, nothing was in fact exaggerated.

"And two angels arrived at Sodom at even."

The whole history of these two angels, whom the inhabitants of Sodom wished to violate, is perhaps the most extraordinary in the records of all antiquity. But it must be considered that almost all Asia believed in the existence of the demoniacal incubus and succubus; and moreover, that these two angels were

angels. Such is the reasoning of a spe cies of monsters who wish to lord it over the understandings of mankind.

creatures more perfect than mankind, and must have possessed more beauty to stimulate their execrable tendencies. It is possible that the passage may be only It is true, that many eminent fathers meant as a rhetorical figure to express of the church have had the prudence to the atrocious depravity of Sodom and turn all these histories into allegories, Gomorrah. It is not without the great-after the example of the Jews, and par

est diffidence that we suggest to the learned this solution.

As to Lot, who proposes to the people of Sodom the substitution of his two daughters in the room of the angels; and his wife, who was changed into a statue of salt, and all the rest of that history, what shall we venture to say? The old Arabian tale of Cinyras and Myrrha has some resemblance to the incest of Lot with his daughters; and the adventure of Philemon and Baucis is somewhat similar to the case of the two angels who appeared to Lot and his wife. With respect to the statue of salt, we know not where to find any resemblance; perhaps in the history of Orpheus and Eurydice. Many ingenious men are of opinion, with the great Newton and the learned Le Clerc, that the Pentateuch was written by Samuel when the Jews had a little knowledge of reading and writing, and that all these histories are imitations of Syrian fables.

But it is enough that all this is in the holy scripture to induce us to reverence it, without attempting to find out in this book anything besides what is written by the holy spirit. Let us always recollect, that those times were not like our times; and let us not fail to repeat, after so many great men, that the Old Testament is a true history; and that all that has been written differing from it by the rest of the world, is fabulous.

ticularly of Philo. The popes, more discreet, have endeavoured to prevent the translation of these books into the vulgar tongue, lest some men should in consequence be led to think and judge, about what was proposed to them only to adore.

We are certainly justified in concluding hence, that those who thoroughly understand this book should tolerate those who do not understand it at all; for if the latter understand nothing of it, it is not their own fault: on the other hand, those who comprehend nothing that it contains should tolerate those who comprehend everything in it.

Learned and ingenious men, full of their own talents and acquirements, have maintained that it is impossible Moses could have written the book of Genesis. One of their principal reasons is, that in the history of Abraham, that patriarch is stated to have paid for a cave, he purchased for the interment of his wife, in silver coin, and the King of Gerar to have given Sarah a thousand pieces of silver when he restored her, after having carried her off for her beauty at the age of seventyfive. They inform us, that they have consulted all the ancient authors, and that it appears very certain that at the period mentioned, silver money was not in existence. But these are evidently mere cavils, as the church has always firmly believed Moses to have been Some critics have contended, that all the author of the Pentateuch. They the incredible passages in the canonical strengthen all the doubts suggested by books, which scandalise weak minds, Aben-Ezra, and Baruch Spinoza. The ought to be suppressed; but it has been physician Astruc, father-in-law of the observed in answer, that those critics had Comptroller-general Silhouette, in his bad hearts, and ought to be burnt at the book (now become very scarce) called stake; and that it is impossible to be a Conjectures on the Book of Genesis," good man without believing that the adds some objections, inexplicable unpeople of Sodom wanted to violate two {doubtedly to human learning, but not so

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to a humble and submissive piety. The learned, many of them, contradict every line, but the devout consider every line sacred. Let us dread falling into the misfortune of believing and trusting to our reason; but let us bring ourselves into subjection in understanding as well as in heart.

"And Abraham said that Sarah was his sister, and the King of Gerar took her for himself."

those wandering robbers called patriarchs within his city; he has the incredible politeness or kindness to undergo, with his son, his court, and his people, the rite of circumcision, thus condescending to the superstition of a petty horde that could not call half a league of territory their own! And in return for this astonishing hospitality and goodness, how do our holy patriarchs act? They wait for the day when the process of circumcision generally induces fever, when Simeon and Levi run through the whole city with poignards in their hands, and massacre the king, the prince his son, and all the inhabitants. We are precluded from the horror appropriate to this infernal counterpart of the tragedy of St. Bartholomew, only by a sense of its absolute impossibility. It is an abominable ro

romance. It is impossible that two men could have slaughtered in quiet the whole population of a city. The people might suffer in a slight degree from the opera

We admit, as we have said under the article ABRAHAM, that Sarah was at this time ninety years of age, that she had been already carried away by a king of Egypt, and that a king of this same horrid wilderness of Gerar, likewise, many years afterwards, carried away the wife of Isaac, Abraham's son. We have also spoken of his servant Hagar, who bore him a son, and of the manner inmance; but it is evidently a ridiculous which the patriarch sent her and her son away. It is well known how infidels triumph on the subject of all these histories, with what a disdainful smile they speak of them, and that they place the{tion which had preceded; but notwithstory of one Abimelech falling in love with Sarah whom Abraham had passed as his sister, and of another Abimelech falling in love with Rebecca, whom Isaac also passes as his sister, even beneathstroyed them with the summary and the thousand and one nights of the Ara- complete vengeance merited by their bian fables. We cannot too often remark, atrocity. that the great error of all these learned But there is a still more palpable imcritics is their wishing to try everything possibility. It is, that according to the by the test of our feeble reason, and to accurate computation of time, Dinah, this judge of the ancient Arabs as they judge daughter of Jacob, could be only three of the courts of France or of England. years old; and that, even by forcing up "And the soul of Sichem, King Ha-chronology as far as possible in favour of mor's son, was bound up with the soul of Dinah, and he soothed her grief by his tender caresses, and he went to Hamor his father, and said to him, give me that woman to be my wife."

standing this, they would have risen in selfdefence against two diabolical miscreants; they would have instantly assembled, would have surrounded them, and de

the narrative, she could at the very most be only five. It is here, then, that we are assailed with bursts of indignant exclamation! What! it is said, what! is it this book, the book of a rejected and Here our critics exclaim in terms of reprobate people; a book so long unstronger disgust than ever. What! say known to all the world; a book in which they; the son of a king is desirous to sound reason and decent manners are outmarry a vagabond girl; the marriage is raged in every page-that is held up to celebrated; Jacob the father, and Dinah us as irrefragable, holy, and dictated by the daughter, are loaded with presents; God himself? Is it not even impious to the King of Sichem deigns to receive { believe it? or could anything less than

the fury of cannibals urge to the persecution of sensible and modest men for not believing it?

To this we reply,-The church declares its belief in it. The copyists may have mixed up some revolting absurdities with respectable and genuine histories. It belongs to the holy church only to decide. The profane ought to be guided by her. Those absurdities, those alleged horrors, do not affect the substance of our faith. How lamentable would be the fate of mankind, if religion and virtue depended upon what formerly happened to Sichem and to little Dinah !

or the priest (sacrificateur) who came Samaria, or Esdras, or any other person In what respect can our government, our laws, our fortunes, our morals, our wellbeing, be bound up with the unknown chiefs of a wretched and barbarous country called Edom or Idumea, always inhabited by robbers? Alas! those poor Arabs, who have not shirts to their backs, neither know nor care whether or not we are in existence! They go on steadily plundering caravans and eating barley bread, while we are perplexing and tormenting ourselves to know whether any petty kings flourished in a particular canton of Arabia Petrea, before they ex

"These are the kings who reigned in the land of Edom before the children ofisted in a particular canton adjoining the Israel had a king."

This is the celebrated passage which has proved one of the great stumbling stones. This it was which decided the great Newton, the pious and acute Samuel Clarke, the profound and philosophic Bolingbroke, the learned Le Clerc, the ingenious Freret, and a host of other enlightened men, to maintain that it was impossible Moses could have been the author of Genesis.

We admit, that in fact these words could not have been written until after the time that the Jews had kings.

west of the lake of Sodom!

O miseras hominum curas! O pectora coeca!

Lucretius, book ii. v. 14. Blind, wretched man! in what dark paths of strife Thou walk'st the little journey of thy life!--Creech. GENII.

THE doctrines of judicial astrology and magic have spread all over the world. Look back to the ancient Zoroaster, and you will find that of the genii long established. All antiquity abounds in astrologers and magicians; such ideas were therefore very natural. At present, we smile at the number who entertained It is principally this verse that deter-them: if we were in their situation,-if mined Astruc to give up the inspired like them we were only beginning to authority of the whole book of Genesis, cultivate the sciences, we should perhaps and suppose the author had derived his believe just the same. Let us suppose materials from existing memoirs and re- ourselves intelligent people, beginning to cords. His work is ingenious and accu- reason on our own existence, and to obrate, but it is rash, not to say audacious. } serve the stars. The earth, we might say, Even a council would scarcely have ven- is no doubt immoveable in the midst of tured on such an enterprise. And to the world; the sun and planets only rewhat purpose has it served Astruc's volve in her service, and the stars are only thankless and dangerous labour to made for us; man, therefore, is the great double the darkness he wished to en-object of all nature. What is the intenlighten? Here is the fruit of the tree of knowledge, of which we are all so desirous of eating. Why must it be, that the fruit of the tree of ignorance should be more nourishing and more digestible? But of what consequence can it be to us, after all, whether any particular verse or chapter was written by Moses, or Samuel,

tion of all these globes, and of the immensity of heaven thus destined for our use? It is very likely that all space and these globes are peopled with substances, and since we are the favourites of nature, placed in the centre of the universe, and all is made for man, these substances are evidently destined to watch over man.

are white, and the bad black, except among the negroes, where it is necessarily the reverse. Plato without difficulty admits of a good and an evil genius for every individual. The evil genius of Brutus appeared to him, and announced to him his death before the battle of Philippi. Have not grave historians said so? And would not Plutarch have been very injudicious to have assured us of this fact, if it were not true?

The first man who believed the thing at all possible, would soon find disciples persuaded that it existed. We might then commence by saying, genii perhaps exist, and nobody could affirm the contrary; for where is the impossibility of the air and planets being peopled? We might afterwards say, there are genii, and certainly no one could prove that there are not. Soon after, some sages might see these genii; and we should have no right to say to them, You have not seen them; as these persons might be honour-feasts, amusements, good tales, and bon able, and altogether worthy of credit. One might see the genius of the empire or of his own city; another that of Mars or Saturn; the genii of the four elements might be manifested to several philoso-pleasure of seeing their genii grow up. phers; more than one sage might see his own genius; all at first might be little more than dreaming, but dreams are the symbols of truth.

It was soon known exactly how these genii were formed. To visit our globe, they must necessarily have wings; they therefore had wings. We only know of bodies; they therefore had bodies, but bodies much finer than ours, since they were genii, and much lighter, because they came from so great a distance. The sages who had the privilege of conversing with the genii, inspired others with the hope of enjoying the same happiness. A sceptic would have been ill received, if he had said to them, I have seen no genius, therefore there are none. They would have replied, You reason ill; it does not follow that a thing exists not, which is unknown to you. There is no contradiction in the doctrine which inculcates these ethereal powers; no impossibility that they may visit us; they show themselves to our sages, they manifest themselves to us; you are not worthy of seeing genii.

Everything on earth is composed of good and evil; there are therefore incontestibly good and bad genii. The Persians had their peris and dives; the Greeks, their demons and cacodemons; the Latins, bonos et malos genios. The good genii

Further, consider what a source of

mots, originated in the belief of genii!

There were male and female genii. The genii of the ladies were called by the Romans little Junos. They also had the

In infancy, they were a kind of Cupid with wings, and when they protected old age, they wore long beards, and even sometimes the forms of serpents. At Rome, there is preserved a marble, on which is represented a serpent under a palm tree, to which are attached two crowns with this inscription, "To the genius of the Augusti ;" it was the emblem of immortality.

What demonstrative proof have we at present, that the genii, so universally admitted by so many enlightened nations, are only phantoms of the imagination? All that can be said is reduced to this,I have never seen a genius, and no one of my acquaintance has ever seen one; Brutus has not written, that his genius appeared to him before the battle of Philippi; neither Newton, Locke, nor even Descartes, who gave the reins to his imagination,-neither kings nor ministers of state have ever been suspected of communing with their genii; therefore I do not believe a thing of which there is not the least proof. I confess their existence is not impossible; but the possibility is not a proof of the reality. It is possible that there may be satyrs, with little turned-up tails and goats' feet; but I must see several to believe in them; for if I saw but one, I should still doubt their existence.