Even according to the Bible account, the garden of Eden, where man was first placed, was somewhere near the Euphrates; and in sixteen hundred years the race must have rambled over a large part of the earth's surface. The highest mountains in the world, the Himalayas, are within two thousand miles of the Euphrates. That splendid country, India, would have been occupied long before the time of the deluge; and, on the flanks of the Himalayas, man could have laughed at any flood that natural causes could possibly produce.
"How do you account, then, for these traditions of a deluge that we find all over the globe?"
Nothing more easy. In all times floods have occurred; some by heavy and long-continued rains, others by the bursting of lake-barriers or the irruption of the sea; and wherever traditions of these have been met with, men with the Bible story in their minds have at once attributed their origin to the Noachian deluge.
"But Jesus and the apostles indorse the account of the deluge."
Granted; but does that transform a fable into a fact? They believed the story just as our modern theologians believe it; because they were taught it when they were children, and had not learned better. Jesus says (Matt. xxv. 37-39), "But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For, as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be." If the man had regarded the story as false, he never would have referred to it in such a manner. And, in this manifestation of credulity on the part of Jesus, we can see the very false estimate placed upon him by so large a portion of the people of this country. Let the truth be spoken, though Jesus and all other idols be overthrown. So he would say, if alive, or he was not as good and intelligent a man as I think he was.
By this story the Bible stands or falls as a divine book. It falls, as we see, and takes its place with all other human fallible productions. For knowledge, we go to Nature, our universal mother, who gives her Bible to every soul, and preaches her everlasting gospel to all people.
Transcriber's Note:
Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. Variant spellings have been retained. Hyphenation has been standardised.