South of these, and where the rocky bank sinks, I am filling up the hollow and uneven spots with the same mixture and rotten leaves; for Mr. Biggs says that the natural soil of the beautiful North American shrubs is chiefly formed of decayed vegetables.
Groups of rhododendron, azalea, kalmia, and many more, which, as I have learnt from that delightful book, Miller’s dictionary, are suited to that soil and aspect, are to flourish there; and by Mary’s advice, they are to be mixed with some of the Scotch roses. These are rather scarce here; but Mr. Biggs has been so generous as to send me a small piece of the root of each of his own rose bushes. There are a few fibres on them, and he assures me they will sprout in spring—so it will be a good experiment at least. I shall also have a little grass plat, with a few small beds for choice flowers, which I expect will blossom very early in this little snug spot.
I have planted some of the lobelia fulgens, and a hydrangea, which is a native of marshy ground, near the edge of the pond—and when spring comes, I hope to execute many other grand plans which I have formed, from hearing Mr. Biggs. My cousins approve of them, and all help me, and Mary wonders she never thought of adorning the old quarry before.
I am now very busy in making a bed for ixia, gladiolis, lachenalia, and oxalis—they are usually in a greenhouse, but I hear that, if planted late in October, in a soil composed of peat earth, and sharp sand, and over this, if a layer of peat, eight inches thick, be laid, to prevent the frost from reaching them, they will be in beautiful blossom in spring. I will try this—my uncle encourages experiment; he says it is the high road to truth—and he assists all who wish to travel on it.
23rd., Sunday.—I asked my uncle this morning to tell me the meaning of Noah’s prediction, “God shall enlarge Japhet, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem.” In reply, he told us the opinions of a very learned person, for whose writings he has a high respect; and I will endeavour to give you the substance of what he said.
“The most obvious meaning of the expression is, that Providence would bless Japhet with a numerous progeny, which should not only spread over an ample tract of country, but that they would afterwards encroach on the territory of Shem’s descendants. And this sense of the words is supported by history; for the whole of Europe, and a considerable part of Asia, was originally peopled, and has been always occupied, by Japhet’s offspring, who, not contented with their own possessions, have repeatedly made encroachments on the sons of Shem; as, for instance, when Alexander the Great, with an European army, attacked and overthrew the Persian monarchy; when the Romans subjected a great part of the East; and still more, when the Tartar conquerors of the race of Genghis Khan destroyed the empire of the Caliphs, took possession of their country, and made settlements in all parts of Asia. Tamerlane also led his Moguls, who were another branch of Japhet’s progeny, into Hindostan; and their descendants gradually obtained possession of that immense country, a part of Shem’s original inheritance. These events, and others of the same nature, may be considered as the accomplishment of that prophecy; not only because they answer to the natural import of its terms, but because they have had great influence on the state of true religion in various parts of the world; so that in this interpretation we find the two circumstances which are the characteristics of a true interpretation,—an agreement with the facts recorded in history, and a connection of the particular prediction with the general system of the prophetic word.
“It would seem, however, that some amicable intercourse between parts of those two great families is implied by the expression, ‘Japhet’s dwelling in the tents of Shem’; for the settlements made by the Portuguese, English, Dutch, and French in different parts of India, which was a part of Shem’s inheritance, may be taken in this sense. And consequences cannot but arise of great importance, from such numerous and extensive settlements of Christians, in countries where the light of the Gospel has been for ages extinguished.
“There is still a third sense: but in order to make it more apparent, it will be proper to consider the precise meaning of Shem’s blessing—a blessing obliquely conveyed in this emphatic ejaculation, ‘Blessed be Jehovah, the God of Shem!’ This evidently implied that Jehovah was to be more peculiarly the God of Shem; and in the same sense that he afterwards vouchsafed to call himself the God of one branch of Shem’s progeny—of Abraham, Isaac, and of Jacob, and of their descendants the Jewish people. Although the universal Father of all the nations of the earth, he may be said to have more particularly adopted the descendants of Shem, in choosing them to be the depositaries of the true religion, while the rest of mankind were sunk in idolatry and ignorance. Among them he preserved the knowledge and worship of himself, by a series of miraculous dispensations; to them he confided the representative priesthood, the type of the Messiah; and when the destined season came, he raised the Messiah himself from among the offspring of that chosen family.
“But the expression, ‘the tents (or tabernacles) of Shem,’ alludes to the Jewish tabernacle, which was one of the external means of preserving the worship of the true God. The word in Hebrew is the same for both tent and tabernacle. This holy tent was Shem’s tabernacle, because it was entrusted to his descendants, and because none but them might bear a part in its sacred service. Now this tabernacle, and this service, were undoubtedly emblems of the Christian church and Christian worship. It appears, then, that in the mention of the tents of Shem, Noah was inspired to make allusion to the Jewish tabernacle, as the symbol of the Christian dispensation; and that the dwelling of Japhet in those tents of Shem, took place when the idolatrous nations of Japhet’s line became converted to the faith of Christ, and worshipped the God of Shem in Shem’s tabernacles; that is, worshipped God in the truth and spirit of revealed religion.
“This prediction, therefore, bears directly upon the general object of all the prophecies—the union of all nations in the faith of Christ. And the fact is notorious, that the Gospel has, from the beginning to the present time, made the greatest progress in Europe, where the early and wide-spreading conversions of the idolaters of Japhet’s line (among whom were our own ancestors) soon led to encroachments on the territory of Shem.