Men in remote times may have had more highly-developed instincts, which enabled them to avoid or use poisons; but the late Archbishop Whately has proved, that wholly untaught savages never could invent anything, or even subsist at all.  Abundant corroboration of his arguments is met with in this country, where the natives require but little in the way of clothing, and have remarkably hardy stomachs.  Although possessing a knowledge of all the edible roots and fruits in the country, having hoes to dig with, and spears, bows, and arrows to kill the game,—­we have seen that, notwithstanding all these appliances and means to boot, they have perished of absolute starvation.

The art of making fire is the same in India as in Africa.  The smelting furnaces, for reducing iron and copper from the ores, are also similar.  Yellow haematite, which bears not the smallest resemblance either in colour or weight to the metal, is employed near Kolobeng for the production of iron.  Malachite, the precious green stone used in civilized life for vases, would never be suspected by the uninstructed to be a rich ore of copper, and yet it is extensively smelted for rings and other ornaments in the heart of Africa.  A copper bar of native manufacture four feet long was offered to us for sale at Chinsamba’s.  These arts are monuments attesting the fact, that some instruction from above must at some time or other have been supplied to mankind; and, as Archbishop Whately says, “the most probable conclusion is, that man when first created, or very shortly afterwards, was advanced, by the Creator Himself, to a state above that of a mere savage.”

The argument for an original revelation to man, though quite independent of the Bible history, tends to confirm that history.  It is of the same nature with this, that man could not have made himself, and therefore must have had a Divine Creator.  Mankind could not, in the first instance, have civilized themselves, and therefore must have had a superhuman Instructor.

In connection with this subject, it is remarkable that throughout successive generations no change has taken place in the form of the various inventions.  Hammers, tongs, hoes, axes, adzes, handles to them; needles, bows and arrows, with the mode of feathering the latter; spears, for killing game, with spear-heads having what is termed “dish” on both sides to give them, when thrown, the rotatory motion of rifle-balls; the arts of spinning and weaving, with that of pounding and steeping the inner bark of a tree till it serves as clothing; millstones for grinding corn into meal; the manufacture of the same kind of pots or chatties as in India; the art of cooking, of brewing beer and straining it as was done in ancient Egypt; fish-hooks, fishing and hunting nets, fish-baskets, and weirs, the same as in the Highlands of Scotland; traps for catching animals, etc., etc.,—­have all been so very permanent from age to age, and some