original translators of King James' edition did not know as much Hebrew as they could have put on their little fingers; and yet I am obliged to believe their translation or be eternally damned. If the window went clear round, the inspired writer should have said so, and the learned translators should have given us the truth. No one pretends that there was more than one door, and yet the same language is used about the door, except this--that the exact size of the window is given, and the only peculiarity men- tioned as to the door is that it shut from the outside. For any one to see that Mr. Talmage is wrong on the window question, it is only necessary to read the story of the deluge. Mr. Talmage also endeavors to decrease the depth of the flood. If the flood did not cover the highest hills, many people might have been saved. He also insists that all the water did not come from the rains, but that "the fountains of the great deep were broken "up." What are "the fountains of the great deep"? How would their being "broken up" increase the depth of the water? He seems to imagine that these "fountains" were in some way imprisoned--anxious to get to the surface, and that, at that time, an oppor- tunity was given for water to run up hill, or in some 32 mysterious way to rise above its level. According to the account, the ark was at the mercy of the waves for at least seven months. If this flood was only partial, it seems a little curious that the water did not seek its level in less than seven months. With anything like a fair chance, by that time most of it would have found its way to the sea again. There is in the literature of ignorance no more perfectly absurd and cruel story than that of the deluge. I am very sorry that Mr. Talmage should disagree with some of the great commentators. Dr. Scott tells us that, in all probability, the angels assisted in getting the animals into the ark. Dr. Henry insists that the waters in the bowels of the earth, at God's command, sprung up and flooded the earth. Dr. Clark tells us that it would have been much easier for God to have destroyed all the people and made some new ones, but that he did not want to waste anything. Dr. Henry also tells us that the lions, while in the ark, ate straw like oxen. Nothing could be more amusing than to see a few lions eating good, dry straw. This commentator assures us that the waters rose so high that the loftiest mountains were overflowed fifteen cubits, so that salvation was not 33 hoped for from any hills or mountains. He tells us that some of the people got on top of the ark, and hoped to shift for themselves, but that, in all proba- bility, they were washed off by the rain. When we consider that the rain must have fallen at the rate of about eight hundred feet a day, I am inclined to think that they were washed off.