one hundred and ninety-eight feet, and on its summit is a solid pile of brick, thirty-seven feet by twenty-eight in breadth, diminishing in thickness to the top, which is broken and irregular, and rent by a large fissure extending through a third of its height. The fire-burnt bricks have inscriptions on them, and so excellent is the cement that it is nearly impossible to extract one whole. The other parts of the summits of this hill are occupied by immense fragments of brickwork of no determinate figure, tumbled together, and converted into solid vitrified masses, as if they had undergone the action of the fiercest fire.' In regard to this latter appearance Sir R. K. Porter has no doubt that the effect was produced by fire acting from above, and that it was probably lightning. The circumstance is remarkable in connection with the tradition that the original tower of Babel was rent and overthrown by fire from heaven. At any rate it cannot now be seen without bringing to mind the emphatic prophecy of Jeremiah li. 25, I will stretch out my hand upon thee, and roll thee down from the rocks, and will make thee a burnt mountain.' It may be remarked that very striking testimonies to the event here recorded are to be found in several ancient profane authors. Josephus quotes from one of the Sibylline oracles the following words: When all mankind spoke the same language, some of them elevated a tower immensely high, as if they would ascend up into heaven; but the gods sent a wind and overthrew the tower, and assigned to each a particular language; and hence the city of Babylon derived its name.' Abydenus, as quoted by Eusebius, uses similar language: - There are who relate that the first men, born of the earth (giants), when they grew proud of their strength and stature, supposing that they were more excellent than the gods, wickedly attempted to build a tower where Babylon now stands. But the work, advancing towards heaven, was overthrown upon the builders by the gods, with the assistance

of the winds; and the name Babylon was imposed upon the ruins. Till that period men were of one language; but then the gods sent among them a diversity of tongues. And then commenced the war between Saturn and Titan.' Finally, Eupolemus, as cited by Alexander Polyhister, affirms, 'That the city of Babylon was first built by giants who escaped from the flood; that these giants built the most famous tower in all history; and that the tower was dashed in pieces by the almighty power of God, and the giants dispersed and scattered over the face of the whole earth.'

Thus, then, if we take the remains of the languages as we now find them, we find common affinities, indicating a common origin, and testifying also to some great dislocation; if we take next the geographical remains of Babel, as these are described by the historian and the traveller, we see these indicating the fact of there having been some great disaster produced, as Sir R. Ker Porter says, probably by lightning; if we next take the traditions among all nations, all converging to one point, we shall have the physical world, ethnography, physiology, and tradition, all concurring in pointing to this event, and showing that the original, the truth, the inspiration is here; and all nature throughout her varied provinces bears witness by pointing back to it that it is so.

CHAPTER XII.

THE TENT AND THE ALTAR — DIVINE MANIFESTATIONS — ABRAM'S SIN.

WE have here the first commencement of a selected or an elected Church, commissioned to go forth and flourish in the midst of an alien world, surrounded by hostile elements, and in the face of a people that were from nature opposed to it. The promise is, that all the families of the earth should be blessed in Abram. The marching order is, "Go forth to a country which I will show thee;" and, obedient to this, the message of his God, Abram departed, as the Lord had spoken to him, at once, and Lot went with him. Why Lot went with him it is difficult to say. There is some reason to believe that Lot, through the instrumentality of Abram, was brought to see that evangelical light which had begun to dawn, though the subsequent career of Lot shows an affinity to the world, and an attachment to its profits and its sins, that would seem to indicate at least not great maturity, if, indeed, the reality of Christian character.

We read that he took with him, not only Lot, but the souls that he had gotten in Haran; that is, not his children by nature, but those whom his ministry and efforts were blessed to the souls that were his reward, and whom he had brought to the knowledge of the living and true God after his own conversion, and with whom he was called to go forth into a land that God would show him.

It is also added, "And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Sichem, unto the plain of Moreh." That

expression," passed through," might be rather translated, 'sojourned in," passed to and fro; that is, did not settle in any one spot, either to build a city, or to raise a permanent habitation.

It is added, "The Canaanite was then in the land." This remark, of course, is made by Moses, the historian, and it is meant by the contrast to show the earnestness and the intensity of Abram's piety; that, although the hateful Canaanite, hateful from what he morally and wickedly was, and from what he had made himself, was in the land, yet, in spite of him, and in the face of him, he erected an altar wherever he pitched a tent, and openly and fearlessly worshipped God.

And we read that when Abram had come into this land, the Lord appeared to him. There has been a great deal written upon these appearances of God, and the strong conclusion of most of those who have directed their attention to the subject, has been, that this was the Second Person of the glorious Trinity. It would be too long a matter to enter into the evidences of this, but to my mind they are irresistible, and they prove as strongly as any such point can be proved, that it was our blessed Lord assuming the form of humanity before he was Incarnate, showing how truly his delights were with the children of men by his thus anticipating his sojourn among them before the era appointed for his incarnation and death.

We read, next, that Abram "removed from thence unto a mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west, and Hai on the east; and there he builded an altar unto the Lord, and called upon the name of the Lord." Wherever the patriarch went, there he felt it alike his duty and his privilege to acknowledge the true and the living God. When the inhabitants of Shinar found a plain that seemed to them suitable for a permanent abode,

they set about building a tower, that they blasphemously said would reach the heavens and defy God; but Abram, under a better and a purer inspiration, wherever he went, thought of no resting-place for a permanency, for he pitched a tent, not built a house; and he felt that wherever he pitched that tent, there he should raise an altar and worship God. What rebuke to some Christians, who have, not a tent as Abram had, but a house to live in, living amid greater light, and yet without the altar! Wherever Abram's tent was pitched, there Abram's altar was raised. Wherever man is, there he should recognize God. And the sequel of this history proves that it was he whose tent and altar were never separated, whose happiness increased like a river; and it was he, as we shall see in the sequel of this story, who went out with him, who pitched the tent, but omitted to raise the altar, who lost his family, and almost lost his soul.

We read, in the tenth verse, that there was a famine in this land of Canaan. This seemed very unlike a land of promise; it must have been very discouraging to Abram at first to find that the land he was sent to, with the idea that it was a land fit to live in, and, as the Israelites were told subsequently, overflowing with milk and honey, should yet be so barren that the very first providential incident that he should meet with was a famine. And, yet, he overcame by faith, and in spite of dark things, and, in the absence of encouragements, he trusted in God; for, in the language of the apostle in his Epistle to the Hebrews, he looked for a city that hath foundations. He had no desire to return back; for, if he had, he might have returned; but he had a confidence in his God, and therefore a certainty that his destiny must be right. If we are sure that God is in all, controlling all, governing all, we may be sure that the issue must be what infinite wisdom will select, what infinite love will prescribe; and, therefore, confidence in God is the secret of