alike all the members of the same family, and give it a peculiarity
of its own, without, however, interfering in the least with the moral
freedom of the individual; and as in him there is free-will, so also
in the family itself to which he belongs may God find cause for
approval or disapproval. The heart of a Christian ought to be too
full of gratitude and respect for Divine Providence to take any
other view of history.

It would be presumptuous on our part to attempt an explanation of
the object God proposed to himself in originating such a diversity
in human society. We can only say that it appears He did not wish
all mankind to be ever subject to the same rule, the same government
and institutions. His Church alone was to bear the character of
universality. Outside of her, variety was to be the rule in human
affairs as in all things else. A universal despotism was never
to become possible.

This at once explains why the posterity of Japhet is so different
from that of Sem and of Cham.

In each of those great primitive stocks, an all-wise Providence
introduced a large number of sub-races, if we may be allowed to
call them so, out of which are sprung the various nations whose
intermingling forms the web of human history. Our object is to
consider only the Celtic branch. For, whatever may be the various
theories propounded on the subject of the colonization of Ireland,
from whatever part of the globe the primitive inhabitants may be
supposed to have come, one thing is certain, to-day the race is
yet one, in spite of the foreign blood infused into it by so many
men of other stocks. Although the race was at one time on the verge