tion, in fact, to the disembodied spirits of those who had refused to obey the voice of God when the judgment of the flood was hanging over them. Why these, rather than others, are mentioned-whether merely as a sample of the like gracious work on others, or for some special reason unimaginable by us-we cannot say. It is ours to deal with the plain words of Scripture, and to accept its revelations as far as vouchsafed to us. And they are vouchsafed to us to the utmost limit of legitimate inference from revealed facts. That inference every intelligent reader will draw from the fact here announced. (?) It is not purgatory; it is not universal restoration; but it is one that throws blessed light on one of the darkest enigmas of the divine justice-the cases where the final doom seems infinitely out of proportion to the lapse which has incurred it; and as we cannot say to what other cases this knovyμa (preaching) may have applied, so it would be presumption in us to limit its occurrence or its efficacy.

These are remarkable words; and especially so when presented as the language of the learned and eminently conservative exegete and theologian from whom they proceed. But in a case of this kind authority avails nothing against rational criticism, and at that tribunal these words must be tested. And here it is objected, first of all (as has been already shown), that in determining the sense of the word iκýpužev (preached) we are not inevitably shut up to the single meaning of proclaiming the grace of salvation. Of the sixty times that the word in some one or other of its forms occurs in the New Testament, a not inconsiderable proportion cannot be made to bear that sense. The passage in Isaiah already referred to (chapter lxi, 2), applied to Christ and his work in the New Testament, speaks not only of preaching "the acceptable year of the Lord "—evayyɛλíoao0aı—but it has coupled with it, in the language of the prophet, as a part of the same proclamation, "the day of vengeance of our God." The "strong triumphant traveler" who comes "from Edom, with dyed garments," stained with the blood of his enemies, and in whose heart was the "day of vengeance," synchronizing with "the year of his redeemed," is the same ONE who "went and preached to the spirits in prison." If, then, Christ is set forth in prophecy as a Destroyer, as well as a Redeemer, why should not his own proclamation of himself and his Messianic work in the spirit world contain the announcement of his wrath—a certain fearful expectation of judgment — against those who

had filled up the measure of their lives in unbelief and disobedience? The future manifestations of Christ of which we read in the New Testament are certainly as strongly marked with punitive and destructive elements as the opposite; and yet these are parts of his Messianic work; and by analogy we might expect that his manifestation of himself to the dead would show forth the same characteristics. The first approaches of the Gospel are uniformly with offers of mercy, and therefore the proclamation of the Gospel as something new is uniformly an evangel; but to the unbelieving and disobedient it becomes a malediction. Is it not, then, the more rational to understand the preaching of our Lord to "the spirits in prison,” who were in their life-time disobedient rejecters of God's messages of mercy, as revelations of wrath rather than offers of grace?

The passage in chapter iv, 6, which reads, "For unto this end was the Gospel preached even to the dead," has been referred to as in its sense parallel with that first considered, but, as it seems to us, evidently without any good reason. In that place the word used (evŋyyedío0ŋ) uniformly implies the good tidings of the Gospel, and it relates to something that had certainly occurred in human history; and the word veкpois, the dead, can scarcely be made to bear any other meaning than that of persons now deceased, to whom, during their life-time, the Gospel was preached with the intent indicated. This, and the still more remote and far-fetched passage about "those who are baptized for the dead" (1 Cor. xv, 29), are all the Scriptures that are claimed to support Dean Alford's interpretation.

And here it may be well to suggest, that, in interpreting obscure texts of Holy Scripture, if they are to be explained at all—and there are those that defy all attempts in that direction-it should be done in the light of passages and doctrinal statements that are clearly intelligible, and of certain and well-determined import. That the text under consideration is obscure and of doubtful meaning has been confessed ever since the early ages of the Church; it seems, therefore, scarcely allowable to give precedence to such a text, and to accept it as teaching an article of faith that is not learned from the not obscure statements of the New Testament, an interpretation the manifest drift of which, indeed, seems to be opposed to its

uniform teachings, and to the "analogy of faith." Nor are we at liberty to accept any man's determination as to what are the due proportions between this or that form of sinning, and the final doom incurred by it. To do that belongs to God alone; and we can learn nothing respecting the demerits of sin, or the relative punishableness of different forms and degrees of sin, except as we receive our instruction from the word of God. If there is one prerogative of the divine SoVEREIGN that is sacred above every other, it is that of judgment—the vindication of his righteousness and his throne. It is for us to confess that "the Judge of the whole earth will do right;" and it is great presumption, not to say impiety, making fearful approaches to blasphemy, for any creature to attempt to say what God may or may not do, or to mark out a proportion between the "final doom" of the divine judgment and the "lapse" by which that doom is incurred. Who will measure "the exceeding sinfulness of sin," and determine with mathematical exactness the due proportions between any of its concrete forms and the divine judgment against it?

We end as we began, confessing the very great difficulty of reaching an altogether satisfactory understanding of some things in the passage that we have been considering, though much that it teaches is very evident. It presents the this-world side of the history of Christ's death as an indisputable reality; and over against this is presented the spirit-world side as equally real. It assumes, and so virtually asserts, the continuous living of human souls after physical death-that to die fleshwise is to be made or found alive, spiritwise. It opens a scene in the world of spirits, and so opens to us a revelation in eschatology, perhaps the fullest and clearest in all the Scriptures. It enables us to follow Christ in his "descent into hades;" his personal subjection to death for a little while, as a man with men, and his coming from under that subjection by the power of the Father, and according to the word of prophecy (Psa. xvi, 10), which was a Messianic act, performed in our nature, and in behalf of all who shall be found in Christ, who is "the resurrection and the life." With so much clearly taught in the passage, it must always be esteemed invaluable, even though some of its parenthetical parts defy all our attempts to expound them.

ART. V.-ETHNOGRAPHY OF NORTHERN AND CEN TRAL AFRICA.

ETHNOGRAPHERS, who describe the different races of men, with their characteristics, circumstances, manners, and habits; and ethnologists, who treat of the origin, relations, and marked differentiations of those races, find among the peoples who inhabit Northern and Central Africa an ample field for their researches, and abundant material for the exercise of their skill in classification. And as, according to Elisée Reclus, ethnology is related to ethnography as the juice is to the grape, so do the relations of language and the similitude of appearance aud habit help to trace the oneness of origin of all related types of man.

The Bible is the only volume that pretends to impart authentic information about the primitive settlement of Africa. The "Toldoth Beni-Noah," remarks a writer in the "Asiatic Society's Journal," vol. iv, p. 230, "is the most authentic record we possess for the affiliation of races." The biblical gene

alogies are of great historical importance,

as marking strongly the vital truth, that the entire framework and narrative of Scripture is in every case real, not ideal; plain and simple matter of fact, not fanciful allegory evolved out of the author's consciousness; and often these passages of Scripture, dry and forbidding as is their first aspect, will well repay a careful and scholarly study. They are like an arid range of bare and stony mountains, which, when minutely examined, reveals to the investigator mines of emerald or diamond.*

What is dark in them now may hereafter receive floods of light from the researches of judicious explorers. The history of antiquarian science fully justifies this expectation.

The earliest of the post-diluvian genealogies is that in the tenth chapter of the Book of Genesis. Under its surface is concealed "a very considerable amount of important historical and ethnological truth." The majority of the names there given occur elsewhere in the Bible in an ethnic, or else in a geographical, sense. Cush, Lehabim, Naphtuhim, Mizraim, Caphtorim, Pathrusim, Ludim, Phut, Seba, etc., indicate either countries or nations-sometimes both. The object of the author is * Rawlinson's "Origin of Nations," p. 106.

evidently to give a sketch of the interconnection of races. All the names he mentions, with the exception of those of Noah and his three sons, are probably ethnic. This document is, in fact, the earliest ethnographic essay in existence. It relates chiefly to the nations with whom the Jews, at the time of its composition, had some acquaintance. It indicates the principle of ethnic subdivision. It exhibits the fact that races, as they increase, subdivide; and that "as mankind spread over the earth there was a constant breaking up into a larger, and still larger, number of nations," distinct politically, also linguistically, and so ethnically. This fact, as G. Rawlinson observes, furnishes "the only theory of ethnology which at once harmonizes with, and accounts for, the facts of language as coinparative philology reveals them to us."

Four principal races are alleged to have descended from Ham, the second son of Noah. These are designated, respectively, Cush, Mizraim, Phut, and Canaan. (Gen. x, 6.) Cush is usually synonymous with Ethiopia, the modern Habesh, or Abyssinia. But there was also an Asiatic Cush, which Ezekiel coupled with Persia (Ezek. xxxvii, 5), and Isaiah with Elam (Isa. xi, 11), and which included a portion of the Arabians, the primitive Babylonians, and the Cissians. Between Arabia and Abyssinia there has been much of intercourse that has modified the physical type of both nations, and especially of the latter. The Mizrim, or Egyptians, descended from the same source as the Ethiopian inhabitants of the upper Nile valley, with whom they were frequently and intimately associated. Phut, or "the Phut," are probably identical with the people called Pet by the Egyptians - a people whose emblem was the unstrung bow, and who dwelt in Nubia, the tract of country between Egypt and Ethiopia. Canaan was the district on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean. Some of its inhabitants, it is conjectured, migrated to Africa after their expulsion from their native seats by the Israelites under Joshua.

The Cushites of Ethiopia, settled in the south and southeast of Egypt, between the main stream of the Nile and the sea-coast, sent out colonies to new localities. Of these, Seba, situated between the Nile and the Atbara, was thus occupied. Meroe (Saba), its capital, became famous for its eminence, and for the physical superiority of its citizens. From