Hebron; others on Mount Calvary. Some are of opinion that he died on the very spot were Jerusalem was afterwards built, and was buried on the place where Christ suffered, so that his bones might be sprinkled with the Saviour's blood!!!

It would be endless to relate all the whims that have been written on this subject, but we cannot omit the relations of Madam Bourignon, concerning Adam, which are peculiarly marvellous. According to this lady, Adam, before his fall, possessed in himself the principles of both sexes, and she affirms that he actually did produce a son before the creation of Eve, a perfect being like himself, and that this perfect being was, after the fall, associated with the Deity, and became the human nature of our Saviour!

She even imagined, that, in an ecstasy, she saw the figure of Adam before he fell, with the manner how, by himself, he was capable of procreating other men. "God," says she, " represented to my mind the beauty of the first world, and the manner how he had drawn it from the chaos; every thing was bright, transparent, and darted forth light and ineffable glory. The body of Adam was purer and more transparent than crystal, and vastly fleet; through this body was seen vessels and rivulets of light, which penetrated from the inward to the outward parts, through all his pores. In some vessels ran fluids of all kinds and colours, vastly bright, and quite diaphanous. The most ravishing harmony arose from every motion; and nothing resisted or could annoy him. His stature was taller than the present race of men; his hair was short, curled, and of a colour inclining to black; his upper lip covered with short hair, and he was fashioned as our bodies will be in the life eternal, which I know not whether I dare reveal. In that region, the nose was formed after the manner of a face, which diffused the most delicious fragrancy and perfumes, whence also men were to issue; all which principles were inherent in him.

"Woman was formed by taking out of Adam's sides the vessels that contained the above principles, which she still possesses, as is discovered by anatomists."

After retailing so many incredible stories and whimsical fancies, respecting our first progenitor, no reader of sensibility will be displeased, that we add a few lines respecting the probable cause of his fall. Of all the conjectures that have been formed, with regard to the motives that influenced him to partake of the forbidden fruit, none appears more probable than that of Milton, when he supposes that it proceeded from his excessive love for his wife, which made bim willing to embrace certain death along with her, rather than live, even in paradise, without her. Indeed, it is hardly to be accounted for upon any other principle, that a being, in a state of innocence and perfection, who had received prohibition personally from his Creator, and who had such frequent and immediate communication with the Deity, could have been prevailed on to disobey a command so express, and incur a punishment so great as was threatened, if he had not been under the irresistible impulse of an extreme degree of the purest and best of human passions, accompanied with the distracting thought of for ever losing the beloved object of his affections, by death and annihilation.

Dub LONGEVITY OF THE ANTEDIEUVÍA'NS ACCOUNTEDİFOR,CONV415 bajjud esy bus thed ebrewtitle »ng mycle canal o

ONE of the most extraordinary circumstances which occurs in the antediluvian history, is the vast length of human lives in those first ages, in comparison with our own. Few persons now arrive at eighty or one hundred years; whereas, before the flood, they frequently, lived to nearly 1000, a disproportion almost incredible, though supported by the joint testimonies of sacred and profane writers. Some, to reconcile the matter with probability, have imagined that the age of those first men might possibly be computed, not by solar years, but months, an expedient which reduces the length of their lives rather to a shorter period than our own. But for this, there is not the least foundation, besides the many absurdities that would there follow, such as their begetting children at about six years of age, as some of them in that case must have done, and the contraction of the whole interval between the creation and the deluge to considerably. less than two hundred years, even according to the larger computa tion of the Septuagint.

Josephus, and some Christian divines, are of opinion, that before the flood, and some time after, mankind in general did not live to such a remarkable age, but only a few beloved by God, such as the patriarchs mentioned by Moses. They reason in this manner: Though the historian records the names of some men, whose longevity was singular, yet that is no proof that the rest of mankind attained to the same period of life, more than that every man was of a gigantic sta ture, because he says in those days there were giants upon the earth, Besides, had the whole of the Antediluvians lived so very long, and increased in numbers in proportion to their age, before the flood of Noah, the earth could not have contained its inhabitants, even sup+ posing no part of it had been sea. Hence they conclude, that God extended only the lives of the patriarchs, to such an extraordinary length. But most writers maintain the longevity of mankind in general in the early world, not only upon the authority of sacred, but likewise of profane history. And for such a constitution, the moral reasons are abundantly obvious.

en When the world was wholly unpeopled, except by one pair, it was necessary to endow men with a stronger frame, and to allow them a longer continuance upon earth for peopling it with inhabitants. In the infant state of every mechanical art, relating to tillage, building, clothing, &c. it would require many years' experience to invent propertools and instruments to ease men of their labour, and by multiplying essays and experiments to bring their inventions to any degree of maturity and perfection. Every part of their work must have been exceedingly arduous, from such a penury and coarseness of tools, and must have required longer time, and more strength of body, than afterwards, when mechanical knowledge was introduced into the world. If parents at this period had not continued long with their children, to have taught them the art of providing for themselves, and have defended themselves from the attacks of wild beasts, and other injuries to which they were exposed, many families would have been totally extinguished.

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But one of the best and most valuable ends which longevity would answer was, the transmitting of knowledge to mankind. And thus, before writing was invented, or any such easy and durable mode of conveyance was found out, a very few men served for many generations to instruct their posterity, who thus would not be at a loss to consult living and authentic records.

The natural causes of this longevity are variously assigned. Some have imputed it to the sobriety of the Antediluvians, and the simplicity of their diet; alleging, that they had none of those provocatives to gluttony, which art and vice have since invented. Temperance might undoubtedly have some effect, but not psssibly to such a degree. There have been many temperate and abstemious persons in later ages, who yet seldom have exceeded the usual period. Others have thought, that the long lives of the inhabitants of the old world proceeded from the strength of their stamina, or first principles of their bodily constitution: which might indeed be a concurrent, but not the sole and adequate cause of their longevity; for Shem, who was born before the deluge, and had all the virtues of the antediluvian constitution, fell three hundred years short of the age of his forefathers, because the greatest part of his life was passed after the flood. Others have imputed the longevity of the Antediluvians to the excellency of their fruits, and some peculiar virtue in the herbs and plants of those days. But to this supposition it has been objected, that, as the earth was cursed immediately after the fall, its productions, we may suppose, gradually decreased in their virtue and goodness, till the flood; and yet we do not see the length of men's lives decreased considerably, if at all, during that interval. Waving this objection, as the import of the curse is variously interpreted, it appears certain that the productions of the earth were at first, and probably continued till after the deluge, of a different nature from what they were in future times.

Buffon supposes their difference may have continued gradually to diminish for many ages subsequent to that catastrophe. The surface of the globe, according to his theory, was, in the first ages of the world, less solid and compact, because gravity having acted only for a short time, terrestrial bodies had not acquired their present density and consistence. The produce of the earth, therefore, must have been analogous to its condition. The surface being more loose and moist, its productions must, of course, be more ductile and capable of extension. Their growth, therefore, and that of the human body, must require a longer time to be completed. The softness and ductility of the bones, muscles, &c. would probably remain for a longer period, because every species of food was more soft and succulent. Hence, the full expansion of the human body, or when it was capable of generating, must have required one hundred and twenty, or one hundred and thirty years; and the duration of life would be in proportion to the time of growth, as is uniformly the case at present; for if we suppose the age of puberty, among the first races of men, to have been one hundred and thirty years, as they now arrive at that age in fourteen years, the age of the Antedilivians will be in exact proportion to that of the present race; since by multiplying these

two numbers by seven, for example, the age of the present race will be ninety-eight, and that of the Antediluvians nine hundred and ten. The period of man's existence therefore may have gradually diminished in proportion as the surface of the earth acquired more solidity by the constant action of gravity: and it is probable that the period from the creation to the days of David was sufficient to give the earth all the density it was capable of receiving from the influence of gravitation; and consequently, that the surface of the earth has ever since remained in the same state, and the terms of growth in the productions of the earth, as well as the duration of life, have been invariably fixed from that period.

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It has been further supposed, that a principal cause of the longevity under consideration was, the wholesome constitution of the antediluvian air, which, after the deluge, became corrupted and unwholesome, breaking, by degrees, the pristine crasis of the body, and shortening human life in a few ages, to near the present standard. The temperature of the air and seasons, before that catastrophe, are, upon very probable grounds, supposed to have been constantly uniform and mild: the burning heats of summer, and the severities of the winter colds, were not then come forth, but spring and autumn reigned perpetually together; and indeed, the circumstance, above all others most conducive to the prolongation of human life, in the postdiluvian world, appears to be an equal and benign temperature of climate, whence it seems reasonable to infer, that the same cause might have produced the same effect in the antediluvian world.

ANCIENT AND MODERN INSTANCES OF LONGEVITY.

THAT the common duration of men's ages has been the same in all periods since the general deluge, is plain both from sacred and profane history. Yet instances of lives greatly exceeding the common extreme, are not only to be found in the history of all ages and countries, but even in our island and in the present age. Mr. Whitehurst, in his Inquiry into the Origin, and Strata of the Earth, has given a list, since enlarged by Dr. Fothergill, of thirty-two persons who died between 1635 and 1681, all of whom had lived above a century, most of them considerably longer, and one, who was living in 1780, had attained the astonishing age of 175.

Lord Bacon assures us, from the most incontestable evidence, that in A. D. 76, when a general taxation was made over the Roman empire by Vespasian, there were found living in Italy, between the Appenines and the Po, no fewer than one hundred and twenty-four persons, aged one hundred and upwards. Of these, fifty-four were one hundred years old; fifty-seven were one hundred and ten; two, one hundred and twenty-five; four, one hundred and thirty; four, one hundred and thirty-six; and three, one hundred and forty years old, each besides nineteen others in Placentia, Faventia, Rimini, &c. of whom six were one hundred and ten years old; seven, one hundred and twenty; one, one hundred and twenty-five; two, one hundred and thirty; one, one hundred and thirty-one; one, one hundred and thirtytwo; and one, one hundred and fifty; and in our own age and country,

Sir John Sinclair's statistical account affords numerous and authentic evidences, that longevity is far from being uncommon. In proof of this, we might, if room permitted, give quotations from above four hundred of the nine hundred and thirty-eight parochial accounts in that work, but we shall content ourselves with only one from that of Crossmichael in Galloway :-" Within these twenty years," says the Rev. J. Johnstone, "at least twelve persons have died in the lower parts of Galloway, from one-hundred to one hundred and fifteen years old. William Marshal, a tinker in this place, is now one hundred and eighteen. He might pass for sixty: his faculties are unimpaired, and he walks through the country with ease."

From the various instances of longevity given by Mr. Whitehurst and others, we shall only select a few of the most remarkable :