His fidelity to the cause of God was unquestioned; and for his faith and correct living, he and his entire household were saved from the Deluge.  But after his miraculous deliverance from the destruction that overcame the old world, his entire character is changed.  There is not a single passage to show us that he continued his avocation as a preacher.  He became a husbandman; he kept a vineyard; and, more than all, he drank of the wine and got drunk!  Awaking from a state of inebriation, he knew that Ham had beheld his nakedness and “told his two brethren.”  But “Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father’s nakedness."[19] It is quite natural to suppose, that, humiliated and chagrined at his sinful conduct, and angered at the behavior of his son and grandson, Ham and Canaan, Noah expressed his disapprobation of Canaan.  It was his desire, on the impulse of the moment, that Canaan should suffer a humiliation somewhat commensurate with his offence; and, on the other hand, it was appropriate that he should commend the conduct of his other sons, who sought to hide their father’s shame.  And all this was done without any inspiration.  He simply expressed himself as a fallible man.

Bishop Hopkins, however, is pleased to call this a “prophecy.”  In order to prophesy, in the scriptural meaning of the word, a man must have the divine unction, and must be moved by the Holy Ghost; and, in addition to this, it should be said, that a true prophecy always comes to pass,—­is sure of fulfilment.  Noah was not inspired when he pronounced his curse against Canaan, for the sufficient reason that it was not fulfilled.  He was not speaking in the spirit of prophecy when he blessed Shem and Japheth, for the good reason that their descendants have often been in bondage.  Now, if these words of Noah were prophetic, were inspired of God, we would naturally expect to find all of Canaan’s descendants in bondage, and all of Shem’s out of bondage,—­free!  If this prophecy—­granting this point to the learned bishop for argument’s sake—­has not been fulfilled, then we conclude one of two things; namely, these are not the words of God, or they have not been fulfilled.  But they were not the words of prophecy, and consequently never had any divine authority.  It was Canaan upon whom Noah pronounced the curse:  and Canaan was the son of Ham; and Ham, it is said, is the progenitor of the Negro race.  The Canaanites were not bondmen, but freemen,—­powerful tribes when the Hebrews invaded their country; and from the Canaanites descended the bold and intelligent Carthaginians, as is admitted by the majority of writers on this subject.  From Ham proceeded the Egyptians, Libyans, the Phutim, and the Cushim or Ethiopians, who, colonizing the African side of the Red Sea, subsequently extended themselves indefinitely to the west and south of that great continent.  Egypt was called Chemia, or the country of Ham; and it has been thought that the Egyptian’s deity, Hammon or Ammon, was a deification of Ham.[20] The Carthaginians were successful in numerous wars against the sturdy Romans.  So in this, as in many other instances, the prophecy of Noah failed.