Those who have studied the languages of the world and compared them with each other have something to say, and it is this: All languages can be grouped into families or classes of speech, and all these families are seen to have started from one common source. This, too, agrees with the story of that older record. That tells how God made first a man and then a woman, how that they were very good at the outset, but soon became bad. It goes on to tell how their children were very wicked, and how God punished them by sending a great flood of waters which destroyed all but one family. Then this family increased, and they too became wicked. They finally planned to build an immense tower, so, perhaps, that they should not be drowned again in a flood; at any rate, if this was not the reason, it was for some other wicked purpose that they builded. God was angry with their wickedness, and to stop their building confused their language. They had all spoken the same language before, but now some spoke one and some another. Just here other histories begin, and the stories in these and in the record we have referred to, go on very much alike. But the traditions, which are older than the histories, agree with the record, as we shall see in a future chapter. This record is the Bible, especially the first part of the Book of Genesis. So here is found one answer to our question,--_all_ religions grew out of one original system of worship. ANOTHER WITNESS: COMPARATIVE RELIGION. There is still another way to get an answer. Place the religions side by side, study their principles, examine their legends, and see if, after all, there are not resemblances beneath the surface. Let us strip them of those things which are the additions of a later day, and of those things which the peculiar conditions of their countries, climates and languages have added. Take for instance their legends or household stories. Some of these traditions are written in the inscriptions on the ancient monuments of Egypt, or especially of Babylonia, or in the sacred books and histories of the older nations; others have been handed down by word of mouth. It was long after these legends were old, that even neighboring nations held any communications with each other. It had been just as if a great high wall was built around each nation--a wall without gates. So they could not have told these stories to each other. Then, too, some of these stories are told by nations thousands of miles apart.