all those long-drawn
centuries, a patriarch of twenty generations, recognised as the one
great and faithful witness, the only worshipper and friend of his
Creator. Could a finer sample be conceived? was not Noah the only spark
of spiritual "consolation" in the midst of earth's dark death? and was
not he the best imaginable champion to stand against the wiles of the
devil? Verily, reason might have guessed, that if Deity saw fit to renew
the fight at all, the representative of man should have been Noah.

Before we touch upon the immediate fall of this new Adam also, at a time
when God and reason had deserted him, it will be more orderly to allude
to the circumstances of his preservation in the flood. How, in such a
hurlyburly of the elements, should the chosen seed survive? No house,
nor hill-top, no ordinary ship would serve the purpose: still less the
unreasonable plan of any cavern hermetically sealed, or any aerial
chariot miraculously lifted up above the lower firmament. To use plain
and simple words, I can fancy no wiser method than a something between a
house and a diving-bell; a vessel, entirely storm-tight and water-tight,
which nevertheless for necessary air should have an open window at the
top: say, one a cubit square. This, properly hooded against deluging
rain, and supplied with such helps to ventilation as leathern pipes, air
tunnels and similar appliances, would not be an impracticable method.
However, instead of being under water as a diving-bell, the vessel would
be better made to float upon the rising flood, and thus continually
keeping its level, would be ready to strike land as the waters assuaged.

Now, as to the size of this ark, this floating caravan, it must needs be
very large; and also take a great time in building. For, suffering cause
and effect to go on without a new creation, it was reasonable to suppose
that the man, so launching as for another world on the ocean of
existence, would take with him (especially if God's benevolence so
ordered it) all the known appliances of civilized life; as well as a
pair or two of every creature he could collect, to stock withal the
renewed earth according to their various excellences in their kinds. The
lengthy, arduous, and expensive preparation of this mighty ark--a vessel
which must include forests of timber and consume generations in
building; besides the world-be-known collection of all manner of strange
animals for the stranger fancy of a fanatical