American continent; every one moved as the Great Director meant and led, and all fulfilling his wise and prospective purposes, and advancing his grand ulterior ends.

LETTER XXII.

Intended Separation of Mankind into Distinct Nations and Communities-Adaptation of the Earth to this Appointed Condition in its various Regions and Countries-The Surface gradually fitted to this Local Geography.

MY DEAR SON,

THE state of the human race, from the time that any notices of their transactions appear, has never been that of one united community or empire. They have always appeared divided into many insulated populations, living apart from each other, and remaining in distinct and separate tribes or nations; most of them unknown to the others, and usually hostile to each other, or ever ready to be so, from alarm, suspicion, or provocation. This is the historical fact, and from its occurrence and continuation, we can have no difficulty in marking it as a part of the divine plan as to human nature, that mankind should be thus divided; should multiply in separated populations; should rarely unite and amalgamate; and that, by this arrangement, each should grow up into those peculiar species and modifications of moral and intellectual being which they severally display; and that the maintenance of their distinguishing particularities should be assisted by their mutual fears, jealousies, or dislikes.

What the actual events thus exhibit in certainty to us, the Mosaic history accounts for; presents the origin of it to our view, and ascribes it to the same cause to which our reason refers it-the divine determination. It was the special will and appointment of God, that such should be the state of human kind after the deluge; and it is noted to have begun about a century after the subsiding of the watery agitations.

That such a partition would not at first be chosen by the subsisting population, but would be resisted by it, we may from our own feelings assume. Like our sheep and cattle, and many other classes of birds, fish, and quadrupeds, and

even insects, man is an aggregating creature. Before savage habits and evil passions disunite us into mistrust or hostility, our race loves and seeks to associate together. The natural feelings, by invisible tendrils, intwine and attach us into social union; fear as well as mutual sympathy inclines us to it; and the affinity which the renewed population, as springing from one patriarch, had with each other, would concur with the moral sensibilities of their nature, to produce and perpetuate this effect, which at last cements all into such national cohesions and similarities that only external violence has been found of sufficient power, when once formed, to dissolve them.

This sentimental tendency must have been strongly augmented by the political considerations of those who were born into human life after the deluge. Awe, and fear, and wonder, and long-continuing alarm would be in every bosom for a considerable time after the catastrophe, which could not but be, for many generations, the predominant subject of their thoughts and conversation. They would feel more safe from calamity by congregating together. They would dread new and unknown regions. They would be afraid to separate, lest disaster should attend them. They would hardly know where to be safe; and therefore the historical fact which the Hebrew Genesis announces to us is quite natural, that they should resolve to live together as one people, and should found a city for their residence and social aggregation, that they might not separate. It is equally probable that in order to protect themselves from a recurrence of overwhelming waters, they should think of forming lofty edifices, in whose upper portions they might find a refuge against such inundations as might rush upon the level plains. The level of fifteen cubits might have seemed surmountable by human ingenuity.

But this determination to adhere together as one nation,, and to become distinguished by remaining such, and thereby becoming in time a multitudinous and mighty population, was in direct opposition to the design of their Creator, in that part of the plan of human nature which was now to be carried into execution. This required that mankind should not grow up into one dense population, or be massed and con

* Genesis xi. 3, 4.

fined into one vast empire, living in a few overcrowded cities, and thereby occupying a very small portion of the earth. It was not suited to the improvement of human nature, that one uniform system of habits, and manners, and pursuits should pervade all the human race. It was not for the advantage of mankind that there should be only a Chinese form of human nature in the world. It was, therefore, the settled determination of the Creator, that as soon as the renewed population became numerous enough to be divided, they should be disparted and moved into distinct and separated portions, which should be scattered and placed at a distance from each other, and, in these different locations, should gradually be formed into many varieties of mind, manners, and occupations, and be kept aloof from each other until these diversities were secured and established; and afterward should only have that sort of intercourse and relations with each other which the appointed economy of human affairs should make expedient for the accomplishment of the purposes of the divine government.

The united population resisted this intention, and pursued their own schemes to prevent the ordained division and dislocation; and nothing less than a superhuman interposition could have effectuated the separation. But when this was resolved upon, the mode chosen for realizing the divine purpose was one of simple, sagacious, and irresistible operation. Nothing unites associating mankind more naturally and more cordially than a similarity of language. It creates a social relationship wherever it exists; and the new race had continued, after the deluge, with this interesting and effective band of intellectual kinship.* It was therefore to this that the divine agency was directed. This mental chain of social alliance was broken up. A supernatural operation on their vocal organs and memorial associations, separating the sounds of their utterance from their sensorial ideas, so far as to confound this connexion, and to make certain portions unintelligible to the other, was put into action.† The confusing effect was instantaneous, and the consequences de

"And the whole earth was of one language and of one speech;" or, as the Hebrew literally is, "of one lip and of the same words.”— Genesis xi. 1.

"Let us go down and confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech." Gen. xi. 7.

cisive. Those who could understand each other would soon collect together, apart from the rest. Every one would separate from those who were incomprehensible by him. The awful change would be felt to be a production of divine power; and being accompanied by a declaration of the great purpose for which it was inflicted, the wiser individuals would soon concur in the counsels of their better judgment, indeed of obvious common sense, and would recommend an immediate obedience to the requisition of that Omnipotence whom it was absurdity to oppose. The mode of execution was easy, by all who were intelligible to each other separating from those who were not so, and by those uniting into little societies who found they could harmonize together. As these would severally live most peaceably and comfortably by themselves, and therefore in a different locality from others, migrations of this sort would be resolved upon; and suitable stations would be selected, either according to such divine suggestions as should be communicated, or according to such natural agencies and circumstances as would then be operating to similar results. The divine purpose was thus accomplished of causing them to settle in different colonizations.*

If we

What history and revelation thus concur to assure us did take place, we may perceive, by glancing at the geographical state of the earth, had been foreseen and provided for, when the configuration and condition of the surface were arranged and settled after the diluvian commotion. compare the geological face of the globe with this historical certainty of the division and dispersion of the human population into distinct and separated tribes and nations, and with their permanent continuance in this state, we shall be struck with the manifest adjustment of the one circumstance with the other. For as ground is prepared by human skill and industry to be a garden or fields of corn, so was the surface of the earth put into those shapes and conditions which would correspond with these intended divisions of the human

"So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence, upon the face of all the earth; and they left off to build the city."-Gen. xi. 8. Of Eber's sons," the name of one was Peleg for in his days was the earth divided."--Gen. x. 25. As the word Peleg signifies division, it is reasonably inferred that the disparting of mankind occurred at the period of his nativity, and Peleg was born in the 101st year after the flood.-Ib. 10. 12, 14, 16.

race; and which would separate its populations from each other, and keep them in this state, and prevent them from again intermingling and amalgamating, and from ever becoming one people, one empire, one uniform set and kind of assimilated human beings.

The continental land of the earth, that part which the ocean waters did not cover, was therefore not made to be one level plain, one circuitous series of even surface, everywhere cultivable and everywhere accessible, which the human race might traverse with ease and celerity, from north to south, or from east to west. Such facilities of movement and intercourse were reserved for the later ages of the world, of which the present day seems to be a commencement, when art and science would be led to surmount the opposing obstacles of established nature. Our canals, roads, steamvessels, improved navigation, railroads, and other contrivances of safe and rapid motion, are overcoming distance and impediment, by the applicable resources of mechanical knowledge and experimental assiduity. But communications, passage, conveyance, travelling, and marching with this mutual freedom and rapidity, were inconsistent with the divine purposes in the ancient state of his human world; and therefore every natural obstacle to such intercourse was established in the form and condition of the surface of the earth, at the secession of the diluvian waters, which for many succeeding ages of human nature would prevent such a result. Hence the general superficies was divided into distinct terrestrial compartments, separated from each other by mountains, deserts, forests, lakes, marshes, rivers, wild heaths, and frozen regions, which were long unpenetrated, or inaccessible, or which could not be traversed by mankind, with their ancient means and resources of distant transport. These geological obstructions insulated tribes and nations from each other, and kept them so disparted, and protected them from each other's invasion and hostilities, and made the one even ignorant of the other's existence, and averse to any political intercourse. A slight glance at the state of the earth in this respect will show you how fully and how naturally this special object was provided for and produced.

The portions of the earth which have been ordained to be in the state of sandy deserts, separating large tracts of continent from each other, chiefly prevail in the Asiatic and VOL. II.-Ee