which was done under the Providence of God, is frequently attributed to the personal interference of the Deity, the inference was easy, that the builders of Babel were stopped in their work by the indignation or the jealousy of their fellows; and the "confusion" arose from oriental Normans being driven amongst oriental Saxons; so that, in the words of the sacred record, they "did not understand one another's speech."

What was the PRIMITIVE language? Are all languages derived from one? Did man receive or invent the power? Here it was that Peter Jones felt the enormous deficiencies of his early education, and the vast amount of his ignorance. So extreme was his humiliation, so deep his shame, that his first impulse was to stop short in his career, to aim at acquiring no more knowledge, and to be content with jogging on through the world, earning his daily bread. But recovering from his depression, he returned to his pursuit; and contenting himself with drawing from others, he learned that though the evidence is not yet strong enough to warrant the assumption that all languages come from ONE common root, there were many probabilities in favour of the conjecture, that the primitive roots were very few in number. Throughout the continent of America, from north to south, the various languages of the aborigines indicated a common relationship; in Africa, a whole group of tongues betokened a similar consanguinity; and though the Chinese was radically different from the Sanscrit, the latter was the apparent origin of the words, as it was the receptacle of the ideas com mon to the Hindu, the Greek, Roman, and Saxon; the inhabitants of Britain and the United States were covering the earth with a form of speech, clearly

descended from a language which enshrined the theology of the Hindus during the time of the Patriarchs. Was the Sanscrit a primitive tongue ? Or was it preceded by another? How did man acquire his power of shaping ideas into words, and representing these words by signs?

A short consideration soon enabled Peter Jones to reject, with scorn, the puerile idea that man learned to talk by trying to imitate the sounds which fell on his ear. He heard the winds rush, the thunder roll, lions roar, dogs bark, and birds chirp; but it might as well be conceived that the eye, that wonderful evidence of constructive wisdom and skill, was formed by the action of light, or the desire to see, as to suppose that the speech of man originated in imitation of the sounds produced by animate and inanimate nature. "No, no," muttered Peter Jones," none of these silly, childish notions for me! Man has a wonderful and magnificent organ; the larynx, as they call it, has a range, a compass, a melody, and a power, which artists may imitate by mechanical means, but cannot rival, far less surpass; the human race was made to talk as well as to walk; and language, or the formation of words to express ideas, is as much associated with the origin of man, as is the eye to see, or the ear to hear.

Aye, but how did man find out the power of writing? Peter Jones was puzzled. From association, he had hitherto imagined that there was some relation between spoken and written language; that the words "dog" or "cat" had some pictorial connection with that which they represented-that "fire” conveyed to the eye, and through the eye to the brain, the same essential idea of burning, as did the spectacle itself. But when he tried himself, he found

P

that his own language-his own words-his own alphabet-were mere arbitrary signs; for if they were not, how was it that he did not at once comprehend the meaning of all words in all languages, the moment that he saw them? Yet when he pursued the investigation, it seemed palpable that the ART OF WRITING originated in primitive efforts to represent ideas by PICTURES. The HIEROGLYPHICS of the Egyptians were "sacred engravings," as the expression signified; and from these came, by abbreviation, the more common characters in common use; whilst a comparison of other ancient alphabets, as the Hebrew or the Greek, seemed to justify the assumption that their earliest forms were pictorial emblems, which were gradually broken down into arbitrary signsthe long hand of the first writers was reduced to the short hand of general use.

And now a new idea dawned on the mind of Peter Jones. The earliest SCIENCE was associated with the earliest RELIGION; the earliest LETTERS with the earliest LAW. Though in the study of the stars originated astrology and astronomy, as applied to divination and the worship of the heavenly bodies; yet the movements of the sun and the moon were watched and recorded, to guide men in the proper celebration of religious festivals; and the primary maxims of duty, regulating the social intercourse of men, were sculptured on stone or in bronze, that they might be preserved as perpetual memorials. All earthly power was stamped with the authority of heaven; and those in whose hands were the mysteries of science and letters became the ministers of the deity, the medium of intercourse between heaven and earth. In all countries and in all ages, the Brahmins of Hindustan, the priests of Egypt, the rulers

of Etruria, the patricians of antique Rome, the Druids of Britain, were the depositaries of learning, the guardians of letters, the ministers of science, the interpreters of the divine will—the only men who could read the stars, record events, embody laws, heal diseases, and instruct in the arts. And though Tacitus says that the ancient Germans were ignorant of letters, it is probable that their priests kept as a secret the art of writing on rods or sticks-the Runic alphabet, regarded by the common people with superstitious awe, was doubtless the same art as is men tioned in the Pentateuch and in the book of the prophet Ezekiel. And herein did Peter Jones see a great link between times the most remote and times the most recent. For the art of writing on rods or sticks has scarcely yet expired amongst the English people. In one of Hogarth's pictures, a milkmaid exhibits a scored tally, such a one as has been in use down to our own day; and the notched sticks with which the accounts of the Exchequer used to be kept were burned in 1834, and were the cause of the destruction of the Houses of Parliament. Again did the question recur, but again no answer was returned-Was there a primary MIGRATING people, possessors of the mysteries of science and letters, who moved over the face of the earth, as the first MISSIONARIES of human knowledge ?

CHAP. VIII.

THE CALL OF ABRAHAM.

"The best simile for DATES is to say, that they are to history what the latitude and longitude are to navigation-fixing the exact position of, and serving as guides to, the object to which they are applied."-SIR HARRIS NICHOLAS-Chronology.

"For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings,
Carry them here and there; jumping o'er times;
Turning the accomplishment of many years
Into an hour-glass: for the which supply
Admit me Chorus to this history."

SHAKSPERE-Henry V.

PETER JONES was renewing his acquaintance with the Book of Job, and pausing, at intervals, over the obscurities and the beauties of that antique poem. He came to a well-known passage, which, as rendered into English in the rhythmical form of the original, struck him as full of significance:—

"There is a mine for the silver,

And a bed for the gold which men refine :
Iron is dug from the earth,

And the rock poureth forth copper.

Man delveth into the region of darkness,

And examineth to the utmost limit

The stores of darkness and death-shade:

He breaketh up the veins from the mattrice,

Which, though nothing thought of under the foot,
Are drawn forth, are brandished among mankind.
The earth itself poureth forth bread;

But below it windeth a fiery region:
Sapphires are its stones,

And gold is its ground;

The eagle knoweth not its pathway,

Nor the eye of the vulture descrieth it;

The whelps of ferocious beasts have not tracked it,
Nor the ravenous lion sprung upon it.