Peculiar traits of religion, like the one just noticed are strong evidences of the lineage of a people, as religious impressions and usages are the last to be obliterated of any other human impressions. Thus it is evident, that, from the days of Nimrod, the great rebel against God and his religion, down to the Hottentots, as well as among all the negro tribes of Africa, there has been a marked opposition to the virtuous religion of Noah, more than has marked the opposition of all the other nations of the earth put together. And, as a further proof that Nimrod alone, with his house, family, and tribes, were the projectors and builders of Babel, we notice that Moses says, Gen. x, 10, that Babel, with other cities, was the beginning of his kingdom. If, then, Babel, was the beginning of Nimrod's kingdom, then, of necessity, it was not the possession nor the dwelling of either the other sons of Noah, but that of Nimrod alone, as the text reads. According to the reading of a part of the eleventh chapter of Genesis, it would seem that all the people of the house of Noah were engaged in the project and building of Babel. But this was not so, as the scheme was for the advancement of idolatry, a scheme in which Noah and Shem could have had no hand. The confusion of the language, therefore, was confined to the people who were engaged on the tower, and to none else; the house of Noah, Shem, and Japheth, remaining, as to this matter, as they were; and even the negroes may have easily, after their dispersion, have recovered their mother tongue, as the confusion was miraculous, and meant only to affect their speech for the time being, not forming
