nal language." Although it does not come within our province to enter here into the religious question of the Fall, yet no one can readily deny that in the primeval state man stood in direct connection with nature, which to a certain extent may be likened to that in which the soul now stands to the body; no one can doubt that the earth was then moved by a much more energetic life than now, and that man was more strictly in communion with it than at present; that he was simple, and less separated in body and spirit, and possessed a more comprehensive and reflecting mind. than the present seeking, but everywhere confined and faulty intellect it is from this that we must draw the above conclusions, and that we are also able to regard the ancient mythologies in a true light: hence it may not be out of place to make some further observations as to the systems of magic, and their mysterious character may be by that means more easily explained.

If originally mankind was more allied to nature and the Divinity, language must necessarily have been more simple and expressive; there must have been "one tongue" among races living together under the same influences. With time and increase wants were created; men were scattered mentally as well as locally, and became strangers to each other in their habitations and strivings; and those who felt themselves spiritually attracted, for this very reason, associated the more intimately together. It was therefore probable that men were impelled by their natural instincts to take possession of those countries which were most adapted to their natures and inclinations. It is remarkable that according to history there were three principal directions in which the descendants of Noah dispersed, and in perfect accordance with the characters and inclinations of his three sons. The descendants of Shem retained Asia; those of Japhet scattered themselves over the north and west; and southward the children of Ham. As the community of interests was thereby scattered, was also language, and mental adaptation for religion. Although Noah had possessed the original faith to a great degree, yet his sons were of lesser capacity to receive it; and how much would not these divine feelings be scattered and changed as their descendants became modified by the various

influences of the earth. The descendants of Shem remained in their chosen habitations in Asia, their manners and forms of government were less changed, and, therefore, more of the wisdom of their ancestors was retained by them than by the world-wide scattered children of Japhet, or by those of Ham, who have been followed even to the present day by Noah's curse, that "they should be servants of servants unto their brethren." In those words used by Noah, "Blessed be the Lord God of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant; God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant," will be found the whole course of the future history of the human race. "Shem's form," says Jacob Böhme, was transmitted to Abraham and Israel, when the word of the covenant was revealed. Japhet's form was perpetuated by the wisdom of nature, and from it descended the heathens. As Shem's descendants looked upon the light of the covenant, Japhet's descendants therefore lived in the habitations of Shem, as the light of nature is comprehended in the laws of grace. Ham's progeny became animal man, on whom was the curse, and from whom the Sodomites and other perfectly animal nations arose, who neither regarded the light of nature nor the light of grace in the covenant." These remarkable words are prophetic of the true course of history. Shem's children retained the word of the Spirit in their minds and language more perfectly than the others, and the mysteries then founded in the whole of Asia retained their power and vitality for thousands of years. But when these gradually lost their pristine purity through the want of mutual intercourse and encouragement, and by the always increasing adherence to the earthly element of the unchanged habitations, when the true perception of the glory and majesty of God gradually faded away and was transmuted into the heathenish spirit of star-worship, it was then that God singled out the race of Abraham from this people, who was destined to preserve and transmit the true knowledge and love of God to all times and peoples, through his children, who should multiply like the sea sands. "In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice," said the Lord, who had rescued him from the oppressive influence of heathenish practices

to make him by continued wanderings a stranger in the earth which should offer him no resting place but the grave. In the nation chosen through Abraham, the true unity of religion, faith, and the true worship, were transmitted and retained, amid the surrounding disbelief of the other pagan nations. The true revelation of a reconciliation with God, and the reattainment of the original power of representing the Almighty, first in laws and mysteries, and lastly by direct communication from the lips to the heart, took place by this selection of the seed of Shem through Abraham, through the children of Jacob, through the prophets; and lastly, in the radiance of the living word through our Lord Jesus Christ.

If the Shemitic races had already lost the inner communion with nature, and the susceptibility to all higher spiritual impressions, how much more must this have been the case among the descendants of Japhet. In accordance with their naturally impulsive feelings and unstable character, they always made, during their extension over the earth, nature and its appearances, rather than the Divine Spirit, the object of their strivings; their instinct explored every nook and hidden valley of the many countries lying beyond the rivers and mountains; but they had lost the recollection of the Almighty, or at most retained but a faint reflection of the divine power which, like their mind, was deeply imbued with the material; for the divine light was no longer able to reflect itself in the dimmed and confused surface of their inner being. However, these children of Japhet did not all sink into the darkness of a perfectly spiritless world of matter; some of them, as the Greeks, the Germans, carried with them the idea of God, and the presentiment of a connection with a higher and more spiritual world than this earth, but which they were unable to discover with their outward senses, however acute and educated they might be. The Greeks regarded the Divinity in a multiplicity of forms, but in highly ideal shapes; and their sages, as for instance Socrates and Plato, had often the most just conceptions of the Divine Being. Among the Germanic tribes the idea of an all-powerful Godhead, even monotheistic, had never been

entirely lost, although possibly viewed with less acuteness, but still felt with greater reverence and power than in any other people.

As regards the magic powers in particular, the Japhetic nations distinguished themselves by the open use of them, and as it were changed the actual world into one of magic; from which idea the enlightened Japhetic mind has even now scarcely freed itself.

The children of Ham, lastly, who inherited the impure mind of their father, and, leaving their brethren, settled down in a part of the earth where they degenerated under the baneful influence of the climate, are those savage nations who have sunk into the most abject fetichism and the lowest form of worship. This mental density, savage nature, and entire disregard to religion, cannot be anywhere met with so completely as among the black African races, and among the rude nations who, it is supposed, have been offshoots from them to the South American and Australian continents.

In a work entitled "God, and his Revelation in Nature and History," by Julius Hamberger, but which for its merits is far too little known, he says, "The countenance of the Lord was hidden from them; even the majority of the nations of Shemitic origin were without a perception of the divine power and attributes: and this want is without doubt to be regarded as the real night of Heathenism. The divinity of nature was the origin and end of their mythology, with an occasional appeal to a dark, blind fate, a sad incorruptible necessity, from whose power even the gods themselves were not always enabled to withdraw themselves. However rich and magnificent their mythologies may have been, the heathen religions were yet earthly, and may be well compared to the waters of creation, the light and spiritual particles of which are said to have floated upwards to form the sky, whilst the coarser and more fruitful portions sank downwards to form the earth. The character of these religions must therefore have been, a want of vitality. For as the heathen enjoyed the belief in the immediate presence of a populous mythology, so did the chosen people of God firmly hold the expectation of a future revelation of the Lord, in the spiritual unity and singleness of His nature:

in this they formed a striking contrast, as the representatives of the true inner humanity, to the surrounding and unbelieving nations.

"Although the nations were gradually retreating from the knowledge of their connection with nature and the Almighty, till at length the true goal was almost lost to view, yet this separation of the various nations, and this straying from the path, was not destined to be lasting. No one people of the earth has probably ever been entirely forgetful of God; and as firmly as religious feeling is rooted in humanity, so certainly are also the traces to be discovered of a remembrance of former higher spiritual relations, although they may be merely as fleeting dreams or intangible visions. Neither did these scattered nations always remain so separated or entirely isolated, that they were unable mutually to influence each other, which influence is always spiritual. As in religion, so did the nations also separate in language: but in a gradual manner: that which is once known cannot be so easily forgotten, even when the power and vitality have decreased; for as natural forces influence each other at a distance, so does mind influence mind much more directly. As the natural powers were at least guided by instinct, although by no means as powerfully as at first, so was man, as the last and most perfect creation, certainly never so far abandoned by his Maker, that every bond between humanity and God was severed. Although, as it were, man was unable to perceive the Almighty from the depths of misery into which he had fallen, yet God, in the fulness of his love, descended to him, and gave him the assistance of a father, to raise him to the ethereal regions by counsels sent to him through the Prophets. We therefore find among all nations traditions, recollections, and views pointing to the same origin, and in many particulars strikingly similar; and there are but few where the same conclusions may not be arrived at from such traditions. Wherever the separation threatened to be destructive, there the divine hand has guided the falling people. We must therefore regard all national migrations as resulting from higher causes, and consider that, like thunder-storms, they clear the atmosphere, and prepare the ground for a new fruitfulness where the former