Correspondece.

Abydencos , Polyhistor and Apollodorus , we learn that the deluge ivas the grand epocha of every ancient nation , and that until the time of Moses nothing appears to have been generally known antecedent to the time of Noah . The Egyptians , therefore , believing him to have been the first man and to have been floated into tin ? Ayorld in an ark or ship ,

TIITi COPTIC ALPHA . used tlie Il pha or ship as a symbol of him , which figure or character was afterwards chosen b y the Greeks as the first letter of their al phabet , and ivith very slight alteration adopted as their Alpha , which implied not only tlie first letttor but tlie fii ' . sfc of known human beings ; and from them AVC copy tlie figure of speech"the alha and —the first and

, p omega the last . " It is a coincidence worthy of remark , and which may have escaped the observation of sonic brethren bettor versed in thc Greek language than myself , that the alpha , and omega , , the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet , are two vowels whicli when pronounced together form a Greek verb expressing the first and last act of animal

exist-TI 1 E CREKK lir . f / i'A . once , tho , spiro , to breathe . In like manner with the appropriation of the ilpha , to alphabetical purposes , the triangle , which had in the days of Ham been accepted as a symbol oi the flood , and consequent division of the world , and afterwards as a representative of Ham or Jupiter , was selected b y the Greeks letter

as a corresponding to our D , and called delta , which was used as the capital of , and frequently substituted for tho word Awe , the genitive case of Eeoc , Jove or Jupiter , the supreme god of the heathens : thus " meaning " of or belonging to the supreme God . " Or the word may lie considered as the adjective Aioc , pnestcmtimmut , " most excellent ' " or "most hidi . "

Correspondece.

Shem , Ham , and Japhet , being thus distributed over the world , all immediate descendants of Noah , who was the tenth generation from Adam , it may easily be conceived that their traditions would correspond respecting the flood and subsequent division of the world . Canaan , the sou of Ham , who had received the curse of his grandfather Noah , was the

first to fall from the worship of the living God , and consequently Egypt soon merged into the grossest systems of idolatry , whicli gradually spread themselves into the possessions of Japhet and of Shem ; and we learn that in process of time these three roots or persons were by their descendants deified and worshipped singly—but , nevertheless , from an

imperfect tradition ofthe flood , ( hey ivere frequently united by an emblem , implying a triad , whicli for the present we will continue to trace in the possessions of Japhet . In the ceremonial worship of Phrygia , the number three was employed with mystic solemnity ; and in tbe emblematical hands , which were borne on the point of a staff or sceptre in the Tsiac processions , the thumb and two forefingers arc held up , to signify thc three primary and general personifications . This emblem , like the triangle , is an hieratic or

THE EMBLEMATICAL HAND . sacerdotal abbreviation of a more full and copious hieroglyphic , as will be seen on comparing it with those ive are about to bring under notice . The hippo , triceps at Corinth is an emblem of a more complex character , and , according to that learned author Briant , from whose book this drawing

has been taken , is the figure of a female with three horses ' heads , the latter forming an exact triangle . The figure ol the female is allegorical of thc ark or Noah , by both of which was implied fecundity , the one being frequently substituted for or mixed with the other ( as has been already shoivn in the Phoenician ilpha ) and the three heads refer to Shem

, Ham , and Japhet . Another drawing ofthe same emblem gives more freely the figure of the hippo , , or sea horse , perfecting the figure by the tail of a fish . This figure is notonly a representative of Noah , who , like a fish floating on the waters , survived the flood ; "but was symbolical of the generative attribute . Our own familiar emblem of Neptune

seated on a dol phin , and carrying a trident in his hand , is an ancient symbol ofthe flood , and its consequences ; the ark is represented b y the fish , Noah by the figure of Neptune , and his three sons by the trident . The placing figures upon some kinds of fish is a very ancient method of consecration