How strange that God should dictate an account of the deluge that led everybody to a false conclusion with regard to it, till science taught them a better. But let us read what the account says, and see whether it can be explained to signify a partial deluge. To save the Bible from its inevitable fate, such men as Buckland, Smith, Miller, Hitchcock, and other Bible apologists, it is evident from their writings, were ready to resort to any scheme, however wild. I read (Gen. vi. 7), "I will destroy both man and beast, and the creeping thing." How could a partial deluge accomplish this? (v. 13); "The end of all flesh is come before me. I will destroy them with the earth." How could all flesh be destroyed with the earth by any other than a total deluge? (v. 17); "I do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall die." Not only is man to be destroyed, but all flesh wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven, and every thing in the earth is to die. Can this be tortured to mean a partial deluge? (vii. 19); "And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills that were under the whole heaven were covered; and all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man. All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died. And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth, and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark." Had the man who wrote this story been a lawyer, and had he known how these would-be-Bible-believers, and at the same time geologists, would seek to pervert his meaning, he could not have more carefully worded his account. It is not possible for any man to express the idea of a total flood more definitely than this man has done. He does not merely say the hills were covered, but "_all_" the hills were covered; and lest you should think that he certainly did not mean the most elevated, he is careful to say "all the _high_" hills were covered; and lest some one should say he only meant the hills in that part of the country, he says expressly "all the high hills that were _under the whole heaven were covered_." He is even so cautious as to introduce the phrase "_whole_ heaven," lest some one in its absence might still think that the deluge was a partial one. To make its universality still more evident, he says, "All flesh died that moved upon the earth." This would have been sufficiently definite for most persons, but not so for him; he particularizes so that none may escape,--"both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man." To leave no