1 THE GREAT AGE OF THE ANTEDILUVIANS. "Thankless for favours from on high, Would he improve the boon ?" LINES SUBJOINED TO A BILL OF MORTALITY. ANNE. I HOPE you had a pleasant walk, my dear Harriette; I saw you and your little visitor in such earnest conversation, that I longed to know what interested you so much. HARRIETTE. Then you will soon hear, for I wish very much to tell you of some things we talked about, and to ask you to explain them to me. I shall not tell you all now, but one particular thing I wish very much to know. Do you think the Jews used to reckon every month as a year? ANNE. I am sure they did not; and if you look to the end of your Bible, you will see the name's of their months. What reason had you for supposing they did ? HARRIETTE. Why, as we were returning home, we passed the old clerk, and I told Miss L-that he was nearly ninety years old. She said "she had seen some persons at that age quite hearty, but that once she was taken to see a woman upwards of a hundred, and that her flesh was terribly shrivelled, and she looked as old as Methuselah." I did not think that a very kind remark, so I was silent, and presently after she said, "perhaps she was as old as Methuselah, for that it was impossible any body could have lived as many years as he did, if their years had been as long as ours; and that if, as was generally supposed, the Jews counted a month for a year, there would not be much difference between his age and that of the old woman." 3 ANNE. I am glad you mentioned your doubts as to the accuracy of Miss L's information, because if you had gone on reading under that impression, you could not have failed to confuse the different periods at which things have happened, in a manner which would have rendered all your conclusions, formed while labouring under such a mistake, erroneous. It is highly necessary that you should, with the history of the Bible, study what is called chronology, sufficiently to be able to know what celebrated characters mentioned in it were contemporaries (that is, lived at the same time), or what intervals of time there are unaccounted for in the Jewish History. HARRIETTE. I always know how to make that out, because when I am in doubt, I go to papa's large Bible, and there are all the dates in the margin. ANNE. From such a little girl, perhaps that is as much as I should expect; but as you cannot always have your papa's Bible within reach, it will be desirable for you to exercise your memory with a few of the dates at a time, which will soon become as easy to you as repeating the books of the Old and New Testament; and by comparing the times at which different persons lived, and the periods at which different events occurred, with the age of the world at the birth of our Saviour, you will see that the age of man was really as great as you have been accustomed to consider it. Each month was a little shorter than ours, but as they had a thirteenth month which was occasionally added to the year, it brought their calculations and ours to nearly the same length in the course of a century. HARRIETTE. Can you tell me when people left off being so very old? ANNE. The change did not take place all at once; and if you look to the Bible, you will see that Adam lived nine hundred and thirty years, and several of his descendants to nearly the same age. Methuselah, who was Adam's great grandson, you know, lived nine hundred and sixty-nine years. Abraham, who lived about a thousand years after the death of Adam, only attained the age of one hundred and seventy-five years; and David, who lived about a thousand years later, speaks of threescore and ten as the usual period of the life of man. HARRIETTE. Í remember, in the 90th Psalm, he says "the days of our years are threescore years and ten, and if by reason of strength, they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow. So that David's age was most likely not greater than that of many persons of the present day, but it only says, "he died in a good old age, full of years, riches, and honour." But nothing which you have told me explains the reason for the change, which has taken place. As far as I am able to judge, the age of man was not materially diminished till after the Flood; and the reason for its extreme length which seems most probable is, that as there were fewer persons in the world, they were suffered to live so much longer, in order to supply the deficiency of inhabitants that there would otherwise have been; and also to supply the want of books, by relating to their children |