But _Pith_, itself, is only a _conversion of Fidh_, the initial letters _P_ and _F_ being always interchangeable, and not more so than the penultimates _t_ and _d_. And _Fidh_, in its abstract and original position, such as we have early seen it, is _masculine_, the plural of _Budh_, conveying variously the significations of _Lingams_, _trees_, and _bulrushes_. Here, however, where it is _feminine_, its sex _reversed_, and the _anatomy_ of _nature_ pourtrayed by the _physics_ of _language_, the idea of the _bulrushes_ alone presents itself; and the _basket_ in which Moses was _saved_ from the waters, and which was made of such reeds, was appropriately denominated by this mysterious symbol, as a type of the _virginity_ in which the Messiah was to be incarnated, not less than of the _redemption_ which was to accrue from His sufferings. Another stage has been thus advanced; and lo! the beautiful union which subsists, _as to design_, between the results of our discoveries, and the consoling assurances of pure Christianity! Let us now proceed a little farther in this course-- “Sanctos ausi recludere fontes,”[288] and connect these truths with the _Tuath_-de-danaans and the _Pish_-de-danaans. “Noah was a just man,” observes the scriptural historian, “and _perfect in his generations_; and Noah walked with God.”[289] The name of this patriarch implies literally a _boat_: the character assigned him is not so well understood. To succeed in the investigation we must have recourse to the context: and here the first thing that strikes us is the observation “that the earth was _corrupt_ before God, and filled with _violence_; for all _flesh_ had corrupted his way upon the earth.”[290] A passage in the New Testament will be the best comment upon this subject, where the patience of God with the iniquities of mankind being at length exhausted, it is said, that He “gave them over to a _reprobate mind_,” “to dishonour their own bodies between themselves.”[291] But Noah did not participate in those unhallowed abominations, and he accordingly “found grace in the eyes of the Lord.”[292] We now, therefore, see the propriety of the name assigned to his _ark_;[293]--and the intimation of approval conveyed by the divine command of “Come thou and all thy house into it,” was but another form of the injunction elsewhere conveyed, to the same effect, in the words, “Be ye fruitful and multiply.”[294]