CHAPTER VIII.
The Progress of Races
When by Divine command to go forth through the earth, the separation took place, the people led by the three sons of Noah, began a new progress in life, as three distinct peoples, of entirely different interests, aims and ends. Shem remained in Asia; Ham went to Africa, and Japheth journeyed to Europe, permanently and forever severing their connexion with each other, henceforth becoming different peoples and divided as though they never had been united. And then the different Races of the Human Family had just begun. At this time, also, we reckon the commencement of the period of municipal law.
Previous to this time, doubtless headed and directed by Patriarchs or fathers of families, they had little else than traditional precepts to govern them, and neither books nor literary records of any kind. Their laws, then, must have been few and simple, private and public, restricted and limited, there being no large cities or towns requiring many police regulations.
Of the three sons, the history of the second, Ham, in the earliest is fraught with more interest than that of either of the others. Four sons he had: Cush, Mizraim, Phut, and Canaan. All of these, from all that we are able to learn, except Canaan, accompanied him to Africa, settling in different parts, where they may be readily traced; Canaan settling in Asia closely on the borders of Africa; his father, Ham, himself, permanently locating in Egypt, where doubtless he was deified as the Jupiter Ammon of Africa. Cush, the eldest son, pushed farther into the country, founding the Kingdom of Ethiopia, with Meroe as the capital. Cush was the father of Nimrod, a mighty Prince, who did not follow in Asia, becoming the first ruler after the Dispersion, a great Monarch, carrying conquest, and building great cities, establishing an extensive and powerful government. Of him the Scriptures say: "He began to be a mighty one in the earth, a mighty hunter before the Lord."
The progress of civilization now seems fairly to have begun by the establishment of extensive municipal governments. Chaldea and Assyria were included in this mighty Empire, which appears to have been almost unlimited in extent of territory.
The African branch of this family is that which was the earliest developed, taking the first strides in the progress of the highest civilization known to the world, and for this cause, if for no other, it may be regarded as the oldest race of man, having doubtless centuries prior to the others, reared imperishable monuments of their superior attainments.
It has been thought by some able writers that the different complexion of the three brothers had been caused by the confusion of tongues. This does not follow, as we have shown in another place that the complexions doubtless all existed previous to that event, to which the attention of the people became particularly attracted, as they had now become divided.
Noah, we are told in the Bible, was six hundred years old previous to the flood, and none but himself and wife, his three sons, and their wives, eight persons in all, entered the ark; all other people, whatever their complexion, having been destroyed by the flood. It is singularly remarkable, that of the three sons, though all married, none had children. How wonderful, though naturally simple, is this part of the plan of the Divine arrangement. Noah lived three hundred and fifty years after the flood, when he died; and his sons are all known to have survived him. One of the commands given by God to these four extraordinary families was: "Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth."
We recall here a fact in proof of the nearness or unity of the human family, which is singularly applicable; it is that one cross from the middle or medium complexion, yellow, either way, white or black, produces the quadroon nearly white or black. Indeed, the white quadroon or black quadroon, is simply either a white or black person, and should be classed as such, which is done by the black race, and also by the white in all countries except in the Western Hemisphere, especially the United States where the blacks have been held in bondage, and thereby degraded.
At the entering into the ark, two of the sons of Noah, Ham and Japheth, alone differed in complexion from all the other people then on all the face of the earth; one black, the other white; as Noah and wife, and Shem and wife, as well as the two wives of Ham and Japheth, must have been of the original complexion, yellow or "red," the standard Adamic color.
The three sons, previous to entering the ark, had no children, or took none with them, if the Bible be not at fault in the history of this family. This important fact proves that up to this period there was no mixed race, nor mixture of colors among the people previous to the exodus from the ark.
Three hundred and fifty years, the length of time that Noah lived after the flood, would produce an immense population under the command of God to "be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth."
And since there were two yellow men and women, as men and wives, Noah and Japheth, with their wives who were yellow, of the medium complexion, then the increase of progeny might have gone on at the ratio of two yellows to one black and one white (black quadroon and white quadroon) which, no doubt, to our mind may account for the Mongolian or yellow race to this day outnumbering in population by probably two to one, either black or white, the African or European race.
The Three Races it would seem, went steadily along on the increase, each holding its ratio with the other, the one which occupied the most favorable position in point of geographical location, advancing the most rapidly in the progress of civilization. This subject of the Origin of Races, is of vast importance and unabating interest. How beautifully comprehensive then is this plan, this "method" of the Divine economy, natural, simple, and almost indisputable!
Nimrod, the son of Cush, "Kusk," in Ethiopian, commenced as previously mentioned, his grand intellectual, moral (moral because pleasing in the sight of the Lord before whom he "began to be a mighty hunter") physical, and topographically structured improvements, which left their impress on two of the mightiest empires known to antiquity, Assyrian and Babylonian.
