AN APPEAL
TO
THE WORLD.
Often have I gazed on the face of the Australian, desirous if possible to ascertain his origin, as well as the time and the manner of his migration to a land utterly unknown to the rest of mankind; and as often as I surveyed the copper-colored countenance of this inhabitant of the woods and lawns of a country which has undergone no change since, fresh, interesting, and lovely from the fountain of creation, it floated at the command of the Supreme on the bosom of the Pacific, so often have I imagined that I could trace in his Malayan features some resemblance to the elder branch of the family of Shem—that family through whom came the Messiah, the joy of the redeemed and the hope of the world.
There have been occasional mixtures and admixtures of the human race to a limited extent, arising out of conquest, vicinity of abode, storms, and shipwreck; but the three great families from whom they all originally sprang, remain as distinct and distinguishable as they were immediately after the flood, when the pen of inspiration described them and the localities of their respective habitations.
While the posterity of Ham migrated to Africa, and that of Japheth to Scythia, Scandinavia, and Europe, the family of Shem, having the right of inheritance, took possession of Central, Southern, and Eastern Asia.
The Iapetus of the Greeks, is unquestionably the Japheth of scripture; and the Hellespont is but a corruption of Elis-pont; while this, as well as Elis in the Peloponnesus, bears too close a resemblance to Elisha, the name of the grandson of Japheth,
