LECTURE II.

THE PRIMITIVE AND PROGRESSIVE CHARACTER OF MAN.

Not having had sufficient opportunity, upon a former occasion, to finish my remarks, upon the primi tive character of man, which I had adopted as the subject of my discourse, I am constrained, at this time, to solicit your attention to a few additional ones.

History, both sacred and profane, explicitly declares the primitive state of man, whenever and wherever he has been thus found, to have been one of degraded, savage ignorance and ferocity. Nor could it have been otherwise, unless he were, once, supernaturally endowed with what he now acquires by study and experience. And this is a subject, we hope to live, hereafter, to discuss.

In addition to the testimony afforded us, by navigators, travelers and missionaries, from the renowned Christopher Columbus downward, of the ignorance, barbarism, and even cannibalism of the natives of our own continent, and of the numerous islands of the Pacific ocean, which ought to afford satisfactory corroboration of our remark, we have abundant other,

more ancient and perhaps more satisfactory historical evidence, that we can conveniently adduce, to the same point.

England, or more anciently, Britain, or Albion, when first visited by the Romans, about half a century before the Christian era, was inhabited by a race of savages, either naked, or but partly clothed with the skins of beasts, the earliest kind of covering, next to fig-leaves, ever adopted by our species, and in the case of our first parents, as has been before alluded to, manufactured by God himself, they being known, or supposed to be, incapable of doing it themselves. These savage islanders were divided into numerous petty tribes, each being governed by a chief of its own electing, under whose direction they were, more or less of them, almost unremittingly engaged in ferocious and exterminating conflicts. They were hunters, or roving herdsmen, without any knowledge of agriculture; and debased by the most absurd and Druidical superstition; in whose rites, scores of human beings were offered at a time, in their diabolical sacrifice to an imaginary God. And these pagan, upclad deer-hunters-these literal cannibals of nineteen hundred years ago, were the lineal ancestors of the present demigods of the cliff-bound isle, whose literary fallacies we are fain to mouth; and whose fashionable absurdities we aspire to imitate. Nor does history speak better of the early character of their continental neighbors, than of themselves. And that, even, God's reputed favorites, the Jews, were once in the same predicament, as other uncultivated sava

gas, is evident, not only from the testimony of the Jewish historian, but from the infallible source of divine revelation, wherein we find, that they, though under God's especial guidance and instruction, were no less Pagans, Polytheists, and detestable desecrators of both Reason and Justice, in the particular of human sacrifice, than any of those Gentile infidela, whom God so deeply cursed for Hebrew benefit. Did not Rachel steal her father's household gods, and subsequently escape detection, by a much less honest than ingenious artifice, although that would scarcely have succeeded with a Catholic inquisitor? Did not the idolatry of his brethren so enrage the godly leader! of the Jewish Exodus, that he brake the graven tåblets of his God; nor knew, that such an invaluable bequest would be repeated. Does not each Hebrew record, from Genesis to Chronicles, inclusive, declare idolatry to have been the crying, and almost unremisted sin of God's elected nation, for more than eleven hundred years? The Hebrews, then, form no exception to the rule, that savages are idolaters. And have you heard it from the sacred desk, as all, most surely, should have done; nor so seldom either, as that it shall have been forgotten, that this peculiar, pious people believed that God was pleased with hus man sacrifice, a sign of deepest moral degradation? However careful Theology has been to let this ques tion rest, without a comment, or a breath so free, that it might awake the sleeping dragon, there stands a witness of its own, amidst its treasured oracles, that says, emphatically, the thing is true! "None

devoted," (for sacrifice): which shall be devoted of men, shall be redeemed; but shall surely be put to. death." Thus we find, that one of the ordinances that God imposed upon the Levites, or holy priest hood, was to sacrifice human beings under certain circumstances, without the right of redemption at any rate whatever. And if corroboration is demanded, we will refer you to the fulfillment of Jeptha's vow, in which he promised the Lord, if he succeeded im his invasion of the Ammonites, that whatsoever camer forth of the doors of his house, to meet him, on his return, should be consecrated to Him, and offered up for a burnt offering. We think that Incredulity it self, would be ashamed to demand further corroboras tion of the truth of our remark. And to leave no doubt of a Hebrew Polytheism, or that religion which includes a catalogue of inferior deities, or subordinate gods, you have only to avail yourselves of a single fact, viz: That their language includes a nomenclature, of the kind in question, amongst which are the following: Elihoreph, God of winter or of youth; Eliashib, God of conversion; Elijah, God of strength; Eliphalet, God of deliverance; Elisha, God of salva tion; Elishah, God of help; Elmodam, God of measure; Ishmael, God that hears; Tabeal, God of goodness; Uriel, God of fire. Again we have the following, wherein father is synonymous with God, viz: Abidah, Father of knowledge; Abidan, Father of judgment; Abiezer, Father of help; Abihail, Father of strength; Abijam, Father of the sea; Abilene, Father of mourning, or of grief; Abinadab, Father

of willingness; Abinoam, Father of beauty; Abishalom, Father of Peace; Abishua, Father of salvation; Abishur, Father of uprightness; Abital, Father of the dew; Abitub, Father of goodness; Abiud, Father of praise; Abner, Father of light; Absalom, Father of Peace. Again, Baal-perazim, God of divisions; Baal-zebub, God of the fly, &c. ..

Here we close our evidence of the primitive barbarism of the human race, which we think should be satisfactorily received by any candid enquirer.

"The proper study of mankind, is man!"

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So wrote the poetic philosopher, Alexander Pope, whose works have successfully defied the most laborious attempts at emulation, for more than a hundred years. And yet we venture to suggest, that the study of man would be too limited and monotomous to compensate the trouble of its prosecution, were it not associated with that of other numerous phenomena, with which he stands in a more or less intimate relation. The proper study of mankind seems, therefore, that of the phenomena of nature, where man belongs, and where he rightfully claims precedence, "Nature is to be contemplated, as a magnificent "work-shop, wherein a few primitive principles are enabled, by indefinite modification, to produce the innumerable, and interminably diversified phenomena of the material world; which phenomena in the character of so many transformations of the matter of the universe, clearly illustrate, that its parts are in a per"petual state of action and reaction upon each other. And, strange as it may appear, it is becoming & ques