Page:Emigration - a paper read at the Burdett Hall, Limehouse.djvu/11



, or migration, is the natural necessity of an increasing population: men must either "move on," or stand in each other's way, and quarrel in the labor and food markets. I am disposed to conclude that, during the 1500 or 2000 years which intervened between the creation of man and the flood, there was but little migration, and no emigration; that the antediluvians had not gone beyond the seas, or taken possession of any large island, inasmuch as they knew nothing of a trade or art for which you are so famous in this district, namely, that of ship-building; and that, as the consequence of over-crowding, "the earth was filled with violence."

This is my reading of the 6th chapter of Genesis, but I do not lay too much stress upon it. I am an emigrationist; you must, therefore, receive what I say cum grano salis—" with a grain of salt." I might possibly press passages of scripture into the service that would not pass muster with cooler and calmer interpreters.

But if you turn over a few pages of the Book of Genesis, containing a description of the descendants of Noah, after the flood, you meet with this very significant verse: "And unto Eber were born two sons: the name of the one was, for in his days was the earth divided." , or , in Hebrew, signifies "division." What did this division of the earth mean? Simply and plainly, that God,—who at this early period had given the earth to man to be inhabited,—had, about the time of Peleg's birth, divided it out among the descendants of Noah. This Peleg, in whose days the earth was divided, was the great-great-great-grandson of Noah.

But let us proceed a little further. What do we find in the next chapter, the 11th of Genesis? That the descendants of Noah are "on the move;" that a portion of them—that is, the descendants of Shem—are migrating from the East, to take possession, no doubt, of those parts of the earth that had been marked out for them in the days of Peleg.