flesh saved, are grouped round about him. There is Ham, at the foot of
the green hillock, standing, in his antediluvian, rakish recklessness,
near the long-necked giraffe, type of his _Africa_,--his magnificent wife,
seated on the grass, her little feet nestling in the tame lion's mane, her
long black hair flowing over crimson drapery and covered with gems from
mines before the flood. Higher up is Shem, leaning his arm over that
mouse-colored horse,--his _Arab_ steed. His wife, in pure white linen,
feeds the elephant, and plays with his lithe proboscis,--the mother of
Terah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, David, and Christ. And yet she looks
up, and bows in mild humility, to _her_ of Japheth, seated amid plumed
birds, in robes like the sky. Her noble lord, meanwhile, high above all,
stands, with folded arms, following that eagle which wheels up towards
Ararat, displaying his breast glittering with stars and stripes of scarlet
and silver,--radiant heraldry, traced by the hand of God. Now he purifies
his eye in the sun, and now he spreads his broad wings in symbolic flight
to the _West_, until lost to the prophetic eye of Japheth, under the bow
of splendors set that day in the cloud. God's covenant with man,--oh, may
the bow of covenant between us be here to-day, that the waters of _this
flood_ shall never again threaten our beloved land!




Speech Delivered in the General Assembly
New York, 1856.



The circumstances, under which this speech was delivered, are sufficiently
shown in the statement below.