most terrible and destructive creatures; to which the enemies of God are sometimes compared.

Gen. i. 21. the whale is mentioned as a striking instance of the great power of the almighty Creator :* "God created great whales."

But the most extraordinary reference is in the history of the prophet Jonah. Jonah, a prophet of God, having received a commission from which he shrunk, fled from the face of God, and took shipping in an opposite direction to that in which he was commanded to go. Divine justice pursued and overtook the fugitive; a most unusual tempest threatened the ship in which he was, and no means could avail for its preservation, so long as the disobedient prophet was on board. The mariners, though heathens, were convinced of this, and, after much deliberation, found themselves constrained to cast him overboard: they did so, and immediately the sea ceased her raging. But Jonah was not suffered to perish: the Lord had prepared a great fish (called in the New Testament a whale, Matt xii. 40.) which swallowed him up, and after three days cast him forth uninjured on the dry land. It has been observed, that whales are seldom found in the Mediterranean where this miracle occurred; moreover, that the whale, though so large a fish, has a comparatively small swallow, quite incapable of

* Even this is supposed rather to refer to the crocodile, which was an object of worship to the idolatrous Egyptians, and which therefore Moses was directed to teach the Israelites to consider only as a creature of God.

receiving a man. To these objections two answers may be given: first, that we are told that God had prepared this great fish, which puts an end to all questions. There could be no difficulty to Omnipotence, in enlarging the capacities of one of his creatures, or bringing it to a part of his dominions, a few hundred miles distant from its native residence, and in an opposite direction to that which it instinctively chose : but, secondly, though the Greek translators have used the word "whale," and though Matthew has adopted it, it is by no means certain that the creature is intended, which is known to Europeans by that name. The word is probably used in a general sense, as applying to large fishes; and very learned men have supposed that the creature made use of for the prophet's preservation was probably the charcarias or lamia, which has a throat and belly so prodigiously great, that it can easily swallow a man, without the least hurt. However that may have been, the miraculous preservation of the prophet is unquestionable; and the fame of it reached even to Greece, whence was, no doubt, derived the story of Hercules escaping alive out of a fish's belly, alluded to by Lycophron and other of their poets.

Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites, to whom he was sent to preach repentance, and with whom his mission was successful. He was also a type of our Lord Jesus Christ, for as Jonah was buried in the fish, yet came forth thence to fulfil his mission; so the Son of man, after being laid a similar time in the grave,

came forth alive, and lives for ever, to fulfil the glorious work he undertook. "I am He that liveth and was dead, and behold I am alive for ever more, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death," Rev i. 18.

The word dragon frequently occurs in our English Bibles. It usually answers to a Hebrew word than, thanin, and thanim which words are variously rendered dragons, serpents, sea-monsters, and whales.

Learned men have differed greatly as to the creatures intended; some supposing that all these various passages refer to the crocodile; others applying them, or some of them, to the whale; and others to sea-serpents: we shall not here enter into the discussion farther than to remark, that several of these allusions belong to a class of amphibious creatures, very affectionate to their progeny-vocal-and breathing like the snorting of a horse; which characters answer to a kind of seal well known in the Mediter

ranean.

The tenderness of these creatures is finely contrasted, Lam. iv. 3. with the apparently cruel inattention to the wants of their offspring, to which the Jewish parents were reduced by the pressure of their calamities. In closing this chapter, we beg to remark, that though there is often uncertainty resting on the precise animal intended in the references of Scripture, we have no reason to suppose that any of its allusions are to monsters resembling the mere fictions of imagination-the dragons, the griffins, and the unicorns of heraldry.

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SERPENTS.

The word serpent frequently occurs in Scripture, and in several instances it is very uncertain what creature is intended. Serpents in general are regarded by mankind with the utmost dread and detestation; for though some species are perfectly harmless, it is not easy to ascertain which are so; and some of the race are among the most malignant and destructive creatures those that can injure, inflict injury of the most deadly kind.

There are serpents of various sizes: some very nearly resembling eels, both in size and appearance; and others thirty or forty feet in length, and fifteen or eighteen inches in thickness. The joints of their back-bones are very numerous, and those of their ribs still more so; thus they move in all directions with amazing facility and speed. They have no legs, but creep, or rather glide, along the ground on their bellies. Their jaws are amazingly wide, and constructed with a muscular joint or hinge, and their throats capable of being stretched so as to receive substances much more bulky than themselves.. A toad has been taken out of the belly of a snake, which was thrice the diameter of the animal that swallowed it the throat, like stretching leather, dilates to admit the morsel, of which the stomach receives but part, and the rest remains in the gullet till putrefaction, and the juices of the serpent's body, unite to dissolve