Until the Dispersion, Races as such were unkown, but must have become of that event, which brings us to the enquiry, What was the Original Man?
There is no doubt that, until the entry into the Ark of the family of Noah, the people were all of the One Race and Complexion; which leads us to further enquiry, What was the Complexion?
It is, we believe, generallly, admitted among linguists, that the Hebrew word Adam (ahdam) signifies red, dark red as some scholars have it. And it is, we believe, a well settled admission, that the name of the Original Man, was taken from his complexion. On this hypothesis, we accept and believe that the original man was Adam, and his complexion to have been clay color or yellow, more resembling that of the lightest of the pure blooded North American Indians. And that the peoples from Adam to Noah, including his wife and sons' wives were all of one and the same color, there is to our mind no doubt.
There are those of the highest intelligent and deepest thoughts, in spite of their orthodox training and Christian predilections, who cannot but doubt the account of the Deluge, touching its universality. On this subject says the Duke of Argyll in his "Primeval Man:" "That the Deluge affected only a small portion of the globe which is now habitable is almost certain. But this is quite a different thing from supposing that the Flood affected only a small portion of the world which was then inhabited. The wide if not universal prevalence among the heathen nations of a tradition preserving the memory of some such great catastrophe, has always been considered to indicate recollections carried by descent by the surviving few."
Believing as we do in the story of the Deluge, after the subsidence of the waters, there was but one family of eight persons who came forth from the Ark, to repeople the earth, Noah and his wife; their three sons and their wives. And according to Biblical chronology from the birth of Cain, the firstborn of Adam and Eve, to the subsiding of the waters of the Flood, the time was one thousand, six hundred and fifty five years, 1655, the Flood lasting but forty days and forty nights.
"And it came to pass, in the six hundredth and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from off the earth: and Noah removing the covering of the Ark and looked, and behold, the face of the ground was dry." Genesis C. viii. V. 13 Now what this six hundredth year means, we do not pretend to know; whether or not it alludes to the age of Noah, is inexplicable. For while chronology curiously enough would seem to make Noah only to have lived about one year after the Flood, the history tells us: "And Noah lived after the flood, three hundred and fifty years." Gen. C. ix, V. 28.
From the abatement of the waters to the building of the Tower, chronology makes it but one hundred and two years. This computation of time would seem to agree very well with the number of people who must have accumulated as the offspring of the Four Families who came out of the Ark, the males of which were engaged on the Tower, at the time of the confusion of tongues, and dispersion abroad.
Noah and family were Adamites, himself and wife being undoubtedly of the same color as that of their progenitors, Adam and Eve. And from the Garden of Eden to the Building of the Tower, there certainly was but one race of people known as such, or no classification of different peoples: "And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they began to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them which they have imagined to do." Gen. C. xi. V. 6.
Here we have inspired testimony of the unity of the people, speaking one language, in consequence of which, they imagined themselves all powerful, setting all things at defiance. Finally to check this presumption, something had to be done, fully adequate to the end to be accomplished, which was the design of the Divine will. God has a purpose in all that he does, and his purpose in the creation of man was the promotion of his own glory by the works of man here on earth, as the means of the Creator. And to this end man could best contribute, by development and improvement in a higher civilization.
Could this be done by confining himself to a limited space in one quarter of the earth, rearing up a building "whose top may reach unto heaven"?
Certainly not; because as the people were all one, as "like begets like," the acquired manners, habits, customs, and desires of these Tower builders would have been taught and schooled into their descendants to the neglect of all other employment and industries, confining themselves to comparatively limited spaces, caring nothing for the requirements of community, desiring nothing but to "make bricks and burn them thoroughly," and "building a city and a tower whose top may reach unto heaven." and "make for themselves a habitation and a name," lest they be "scattered abroad, upon the face of the whole earth." Here, just what God designed in the Creation of man, these descendants of Noah desired to prevent.
The Progress of Civilization was God's requirement at the hands of man. How could this be brought about, seeing that the people were all one, "speaking one tongue," gathered together and settled in one place? Says his Grace, the Duke of Argyll:
"The whole face of nature has been changed, not once but frequently; not suddenly for the most part, perhaps not suddenly in any case, but slowly and gradually, and yet completely. When once this fact is clearly apprehended, whenever we become familiar with the idea that Creation has had a history, we are inevitably led to the conclusion that Creation has also had a method. And then the further question arises: What has this method been? It is perfectly natural that men who have any hopes of solving this question should take that supposition which seems the readiest; and the readiest supposition is that the agency by which new species are created is the same agency by which new individuals are born."
How applicable is the above extract to the subject under consideration. Civilization is promoted by three agencies, Revolution, Conquest, and Emigration; the last the most effective, because voluntary, and thereby the more select and choice of the promoters.
The first may come in two ways: morally and peacefully as the Coming of the Messiah; or physically and violently, as a civil war or conquest by military invasion, the worst agencies of civilization; but which do not fail to carry with them much that is useful into the country invaded. A moral revolution is always desirable as an agency in the promotion of civilization.
What then was the "method" of the Creator in effecting this desirable separation and scattering abroad of the people?
Why simply the confusion of their tongues, by imparting to, or at least inspiring two divisions of them with a new tongue or dialect comprehended by all of those to whom it was imparted. Though on this subject the Bible is silent, it is reasonable to believe and safe to conclude, that one of the three divisions retained the old original Adamic tongue, so to speak, or that which they spoke when they commenced building; and that one was that which followed after Shem, the progenitor of the Mongolian Race, and eldest of the sons.
By this "method" then, of an All wise Creator, the people lost interest as communities in each other, and were thereby compelled to separate. And it will certainly be conceded by the intelligent enquirer, that there was a method in the manner, if allowed a paradox? But there were other changes said to be necessary to the final separation, in addition to that of the languages: the basis of race distinction, establishing the grand miracle, by changing for the occasion the external physical characteristics of at least two divisions of the people? He did not. This was not His method; He has a better and even wiser method than a miracle.
Again his lordship the Duke, in combatting the Darwinian development theory, and for this we thank his Grace, as a most valuable endorsement of our humble position on the subject of the "Origin and Color" ere his lordship had written his valuable "Primeval Man:"
"It is not in itself inconsistent with the Theistic argument, or with belief in the ultimate agency and directing power of a Creative Mind. This is clear since we never think of any difficulty in reconciling that belief with our knowledge of the ordinary laws of animal and vegetable production. Those laws may be correctly, and can only be adequately described in the language of religion and theology. 'He who is alone the Author and Creator of all things,' says the present Bishop of Salisbury, 'does not by separate acts of creation give being and life to those creatures which are to be brought forth, but employs His living creatures thus to give effect to His will and pleasure, and as His agents to be the means of communicating life.' The same language," continues his Grace; "might be applied without the alteration of a word, to the origin of species, if it were indeed true, that new kinds as well as new individuals were created by being born."
