and References that is, there was an easy sloping ascent in the side of Authorities. the outer wall, which, turning by very slow degrees in a spiral line, eight times round the tower, from the bottom to the top, had the same appearance as if there had been eight towers placed upon one another. In these different stories were many large rooms with arched roofs supported by pillars. Over the whole, on the top of the tower was an observatory, by the benefit of which the Babylonians became more expert in astronomy than all other nations. Diodorus is our authority for the fact that the great tower was thus used for an observatory, and the careful emplacement of the Babylonian temples with the angles facing the four cardinal points would be a natural consequence, and may be regarded as a strong confirmation of the reality of this application. M. Fresnal has recently conjectured that these towers were also used as sleeping-places for the chief priests in the summer time. The upper air is cooler, and is free from the insects, especially mosquitoes, which abound below; and the description which Herodotus gives of the chamber at the top of the Belus tower goes far to confirm this ingenious view. "The special purpose of the sacred records of the life of Abraham is written plain upon their surface. They are chosen with the one plain purpose of illustrating in this chiefest example the life of faith. They show us its root in the word of Jehovah; its fruit in simple obedience, in the grandeur of an unfaltering trust, in the fulness of a life of sacrifice. They show us its nourishment in secret communings with God, its reward in the gift of righteousness, and with that the promised inheritance of the world."-Bishop Wilberforce. and Authorities. The new era after the Flood. WE have seen that with the Flood a new era for References the human race was begun. A new set of conditions was established; man's life was shortened; he was scattered widely over the earth, and left to form into tribes and nations. So far as we may apprehend it, the Divine idea seems to have been this,-to educate References and confirm the human family in the first principles and Authorities. of religion, and then send the race freely out into the Man's free trial. Influence of climates. world, to put these principles into practice, to apply them to all the various scenes and relations of life under all kinds of conditions, and to adapt the application of these principles to all sorts of national characteristics, commercial associations, and social relationships. We know how great is the influence exerted by different climates upon individuals and upon nations. The people of the East differ from the people of the West in almost everything-in manners, in disposition, in preferences, in social life, and even in religious sentiment. If all the nations could now be made one; if they could be started again with a few great principles for their guidance, and then be scattered over the earth, and left to work out these principles as they best can-some under the oppressions and wearyings of blazing heat; some under the changing temperature of our own climes; some under the chilling influences of the North; some on the exquisite islands of the seas; some on the wide flat plains of Asia, and some among the breezy, soul-uplifting hills-it would only require a few generations to make those nations differ again in almost everything, the same underlying principles finding a wide variety of expressions and adaptations. That which we can see would be the result in a supposed case actually occurred in the ordering of God's providence. Well furnished with first principles of morals and religion, the nations began their separate careers. God, in some sense, left them to this natural religion, and the |