*

THE CURSE OF CANAAN.

It is not necessary--nay, it is not admissible--to take the words of
Noah, as to Shem and Japheth, as _prophetic_ We shall presently see
that, as prophetic, they have failed. Let us not, in expounding
Scripture, introduce the _supernatural_ when the _natural_ is
adequate. Noah had now known the peculiarities of his sons long
enough, and well enough, to be able to make some probable conjecture
as to their future course, and then success or failure in life. It is
what parents do now a-days. They say of one son, He will succeed,--he
is so dutiful, so economical, so industrious. They say of another,
This one will make a good lawyer--he is so sharp in an argument. Of
another, they say, We will educate him for the ministry, for he has
suitable qualifications While of another they may be constrained to
predict that he will not succeed, because he is indolent, and selfish,
and sensual. Does it require special inspiration for a father, having
ordinary common sense, to discover the peculiar talents and
dispositions of his children, and to predict the probable future of
each of them? Some times they hit it sometimes they miss it. Shall it
not be conceded to Noah that he could make as probable a conjecture,
as to his sons, as your father made as to you, or as you think
yourselves competent to make for either of your sons? Noah made a
good hit. What he said as to the future of his sons, and of their
posterity, has turned out, in some respects, as he said it would, but
_not exactly_,--not so exactly as to authorize our calling his words
an inspired prophecy, as we shall presently show.

But, if we set out to establish or to justify slavery upon these words
of Noah, on the assumption GOD _spake_ by Noah as to the curse and
blessings here recorded, we have a right to expect to find the facts
of history to correspond. If the facts of history do not correspond
with these words of Noah, then God did not speak them by Noah as his
own. Let us face this matter. It is said, by those who interpret the
curse of Canaan as divine authority for slavery, that God _has hereby
ordained that the descendants of Ham shall be slaves_. The descendants
of Shem are not, of course, doomed to that curse. Now, upon the
supposition that these are the words of God, and not the denunciations
of an irritated father just awaking from his drunkenness, we ought not
to find any of _Canaan's descendants out of a condition of slavery,