other Bible apologists, it is evident from their writings, were ready to resort to any scheme, however wild.

I read (Gen. vi. 7), "I will destroy both man and beast, and the creeping thing." How could a partial deluge accomplish this? (v. 13); "The end of all flesh is come before me. I will destroy them with the earth." How could all flesh be destroyed with the earth by any other than a total deluge? (v. 17); "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." Not only is man to be destroyed, but all flesh wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven, and every thing in the earth is to die. Can this be tortured to mean a partial deluge? (vii. 19); "And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills that were under the whole heaven were covered; and all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man. All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died. And 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; and they were destroyed from the earth, and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark." Had the man who wrote this story been a lawyer, and had he known how these would-be-Bible-believers, and at the same time geologists, would seek to pervert 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 only covered those parts of the earth that were occupied by him."

The Bible states, however, that it was intended to destroy every thing wherein was the breath of life; and your account and the Bible account do not at all agree. But, if man was intended to be destroyed, the flood must have been wide-spread. We know that Africa was occupied before that time, and had been for thousands of years, by various races. We learn, from the recent discoveries in the Swiss Lakes, that man was in Switzerland before that time; in France, as Boucher's and Rigollet's discoveries prove; in Great Britain, as the caves in Devonshire show; in North America, as the fossil human skull beneath Table Mountain demonstrates. Hence, for the flood to destroy man alone at so recent a period, it must have been as wide spread as the earth.

Even according to the Bible account, the garden of Eden, where man was first placed, was somewhere near the Euphrates; and in sixteen hundred years the race must have rambled over a large part of the earth's surface. The highest mountains in the world, the Himalayas, are within two thousand miles of the Euphrates. That splendid country, India, would have been occupied long before the time of the deluge; and, on the flanks of the Himalayas, man could have laughed at any flood that natural causes could possibly produce.

"How do you account, then, for these traditions of a deluge that we find all over the globe?"

Nothing more easy. In all times floods have occurred; some by heavy and long-continued rains, others by the bursting of lake-barriers or the irruption of the sea; and wherever traditions of these have been met with, men with the Bible story in their minds have at once attributed their origin to the Noachian deluge.

"But Jesus and the apostles indorse the account of the deluge."

Granted; but does that transform a fable into a fact? They believed the story just as our modern theologians believe it; because they were taught it when they were children, and had not learned better. Jesus says (Matt. xxv. 37-39), "But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For, as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be." If the man had regarded the story as false, he never would have referred to it in such a manner. And, in this manifestation of credulity on the part of Jesus, we can see the very false estimate placed upon him by so large a portion of the people of this country. Let the truth be spoken, though Jesus and all other idols be overthrown. So he would say, if alive, or he was not as good and intelligent a man as I think he was.

By this story the Bible stands or falls as a divine book. It falls, as we see, and takes its place with all other human fallible productions. For knowledge, we go to Nature, our universal mother, who gives her Bible to every soul, and preaches her everlasting gospel to all people.