This small space was to see the origin and growth of the human race; thence we were to derive our first and only accounts of primitive history; and such a locality was to lie before our imagination, no less simple and comprehensible than varied, and adapted to the most wonderful migrations and settlements.  Here, between four designated rivers, a small, delightful spot was separated from the whole habitable earth, for youthful man.  Here he was to unfold his first capacities, and here at the same time was the lot to befall him, which was appointed for all his posterity; namely, that of losing peace by striving after knowledge.  Paradise was trifled away; men increased and grew worse; and the Elohim, not yet accustomed to the wickedness of the new race, became impatient, and utterly destroyed it.  Only a few were saved from the universal deluge; and scarcely had this dreadful flood ceased, than the well-known ancestral soil lay once more before the grateful eyes of the preserved.

Two rivers out of four, the Euphrates and Tigris, still flowed in their beds.  The name of the first remained:  the other seemed to be pointed out by its course.  Minuter traces of paradise were not to be looked for after so great a revolution.  The renewed race of man went forth hence a second time:  it found occasion to sustain and employ itself in all sorts of ways, but chiefly to gather around it large herds of tame animals, and to wander with them in every direction.

This mode of life, as well as the increase of the families, soon compelled the people to disperse.  They could not at once resolve to let their relatives and friends go forever:  they hit upon the thought of building a lofty tower, which should show them the way back from the far distance.  But this attempt, like their first endeavor, miscarried.  They could not be at the same time happy and wise, numerous and united.  The Elohim confounded their minds; the building remained unfinished; the men were dispersed; the world was peopled, but sundered.

But our regards, our interests, continue fixed on these regions.  At last the founder of a race again goes forth from hence, and is so fortunate as to stamp a distinct character upon his descendants, and by that means to unite them for all time to come into a great nation, inseparable through all changes of place or destiny.

From the Euphrates, Abraham, not without divine guidance, wanders towards the west.  The desert opposes no invincible barrier to his march.  He attains the Jordan, passes over its waters, and spreads himself over the fair southern regions of Palestine.  This land was already occupied, and tolerably well inhabited.  Mountains, not extremely high, but rocky and barren, were severed by many watered vales favorable to cultivation.  Towns, villages, and solitary settlements lay scattered over the plain, and on the slopes of the great valley, the waters of which are collected in Jordan.  Thus inhabited,