the boat with
evidence of the subsidence of the waters--a fir-cone in its bloody
beak. Rolled down the long stream of ages, the true history is more or
less changed, and even fragmentary, like a water-worn stone. Still,
between these traditionary records and Bible story there is a
remarkable agreement. They sound like its echo. In them pagan voices
proclaim the holiness of God. Lest we also should perish with those
who, looking on the placid sea and starry sky of the Old World's last
night, asked, "Where is the promise of His coming?" they warn us to
flee from wrath to come.

Of all these venerable legends painted in colours or embalmed in
verse, written in story or sculptured on stone, none are more
remarkable than those where the serpent appears. Old divines imagined
that the creature whose shape Satan borrowed for the temptation had
originally no malignant aspect; neither the poisoned fangs, nor eyes
of fire, nor cold, scaly, wriggling form which man and beast recoil
from with instinctive horror. They fancied that the curse, "Upon thy
belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat," was followed by a
sudden metamorphosis, and that till then the appearance of the serpent
was as lovely as it is now loathsome. They gave the words of the
curse a literal interpretation. They bear a deeper meaning, no doubt;
yet the fancy of these old divines may have approached nearer to fact
than many perhaps suppose. Science reads the history of remote ages as
she finds it inscribed on the rocks; and, on turning over these stony
leaves, we find that the earliest form of the serpent was different
from that which, as it crawls and wriggles along the ground, so
forcibly recalls the very words of the curse. Though they have now
only such powers of motion as belong to the meanest worm, those
skeletons which the rocks entomb show that the serpent tribe had once
feet to walk with, and even wings to spurn the ground and cleave the
air. Such is the testimony of the rocks! And, taking the words of
Scripture in their literal sense, there is, to say the least of it, a
very curious coincidence between the voices of the rocks and the voice
of revelation. But, be that as it may, what else but fragmentary
traditions of Eden and the Fall are the forms of serpent worship among
the heathen, who acted, as they still often act, on the principle of
propitiating the powers of evil, the many old monuments on which its
figure is sculptured, and the many old lege