ANCIENT SCRIPTURAL HISTORY.

Maori Messenger : Te Karere Maori, Volume I, Issue 12, 2 September 1861, Page 9

ANCIENT SCRIPTURAL HISTORY.

CHAPTER 111. THE OFFSPRING OF NOAH. The children of Noah were three: they were all saved together in the ark. Japheth is the ancestor of the inhabhants of the West, of Europe ; Ham, of the tribes residing towards the South, and in Africa; and Shem, of the Jews, of the dwellers in Asia, and towards the rising sun. Whilst Noah was yet alive, he spoke to them of the doings of their generations. He said, — " Cursed be Canaan : A servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. Blessed be the Lord God of Shem; And Canaan shall be his servant. God shall enlarge Japhelh, And he shall dwell in the tents of Shepi; And Canaan shall be his servant." In this discourse the name of Ham is not mentioned, but rather that of Canaan his son. But it is correct of all the descendants of Ham, of the residents of Africa: they are the people who are the subjects of slavery and oppression, both by themselves, and by the foreigu nations of Europe and Africa. The people found by the Jews on their return from Egypt to Canaan, were: Canaan's offspring ; their land was taken, some of them were killed, and others made 1 to pay tribute.

Sliem was the source of the Jews, of the people whom God had chosen, and lo whom he was well affeciioned : hence the saying, "The God of Shem." Shem was also" the ancestor of the races of Asia, that is of the land lo the eastward of Canaan. Now Japheth (the men of Europe) has dwelt in his tents:—in his ten!?, that is, in his tabernacle, in his worship, for the beginning of worship was with the Jews:—in his tenls, that is, in his dwelling place, for the men of Europe abide in many of his kaingas, which have been laken by them. The places which were the earliest inhabited by the sons of Noah, together with their other history, is not narrated in the Bible. All that God has been good enough to disclose, are the things which promote the knowledge of his ways. Hence all irrelevant matter is left out by him, and hence the reason why we are not told about the chief sons and daughters of Adam and his descendants. And this is why the great nations of the world, and their history is not discoursed about. One people only is largely spoken of in the Scriptures, that is the Jews, the church. Now afier a lapse of one hundred years from the Flood, we come to a great incident whereby God's work is shewn. That is it in Genesis Mth chapter.— Whakapapa.