No. 7.

The Historical Accuracy of the Bible.

The Historical Accuracy of the Bible.

MR.
CHAffiMAN, LADIES .\ND GENTLEMEN,

This afternoon, in response to your request, I shall endeavour to put down what I deem to be a positive argument in favour of Bible accuracy. In the former lectures I have been dealing, chiefly from the defensive standpoint, with the topics that have come before us. It was thought requisite that someone who believes in the Bible should take a defensive stand against the attacks that are being made at the present time, and, so far as I am concerned, I am quite satisfied to leave that part of my work just where I finished my last lecture. Now, in compliance with your request, I am to speak to you from the positive standpoint, and to give you what I think is a satisfactory reason why we may believe that the Bible is to be trusted to the full historically. You will understand why I limit it in that manner if I say that what I have presented to you hitherto has been largely in reference to what may be called the doctrinal teachings of the Bible, though bearing upon the Historicity of Jesus, because it is the doctrinal teachings relating to Him and His work that are assailed. So I have tried to vindicate the doe. trines by, what I think to be, adequate reasonable proof, insisting specially on the significant manner in which these things are presented in the Bible; but when I now say that I wish to speak to you about the Historical Accuracy of the Bible, I mean that I desire to speak about its truthfulness as an historical record. If we can, for the time being, divest ourselves of the thought that there are certain great doctrines in that Bible which are to be taught, and wiII confine our attention chiefly to the historical aspect, we shall do what I wish to be done. Of course, the Bible does not ask us to accept one and put aside the other. But for investigative purposes that we all may follow a very clear and decided pathway, along which both Christian and non-Christian may walk, I wish to confine my attention to the historical aspect presented to us by the Bible, and if I can keep your minds on that track, I hope I shall be able to put before you such things as should fully warrant our placing credence in the Book as a veracious historical record.

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In the arguments which I have presented to you hith~rto, I have insisted very strongly that those who have investigated must have noticed that there is a purpose running through t~e Bible from beginning to end, and he who examines any ?ne of its phases and yet ignores that great governing purpose, IS no~ an unbiassed investigator. He does not set out as a true enqurrer. He professes to want all the facts, but just as if one would examine, say, any part of a building, he ought to see the plan of the whole to understand the relationship of that one part to all the others, so must he who would study the Bible try first ~f all to get a telescopic view of it, and when he sees the run of It from end to end and gets the perspective aright, he will be able to understand the relation of the one part to the other. Only as he does this is he in the fit attitude of mind to offer criticism against the faith. I would strongly advise anybody who wishes to be a real truth-seeker, that he will take that line and say,' " Is there a governing purpose 1 If there is a ruling purpose that runs through the Bible holding all together, weaving it into a perfect and compact whole, I want to see that purpose, that I may accurately determine what relation these different parts bear to one another and to it." Only so can he, according to my judgment, be a fit critic or investigator into this great and important matter. . My present object is, then, to supply an incentive to fUlth:r investigation. I want this afternoon to put before you certain testimony which will act upon you as an incentive to further examination. I have been searching the Bible for a good many years now-somewhere about forty-and I do not think that I have reached anywhere near the limit yet. It seems to me that in Bible knowledge I am something like Newton in science, who said he was as a child by the sea shore, playing with a few pebbles, while the whole ocean before him remained unexplored. The Bible is still a vast ocean to be explored, and one might crave for years long and numerous in order that there should be further satisfaction in the quest. I desire, then, to put before you that which shall be a stimulus to you to become an investigator, that will induce you to join the army of those who find delight in searching into the ways and workings of God, and if I can do that much, I shall feel that in this course of lectures something has been accomplished that will tell for the permanent good of man and for the glory of God. The Bible differs from every other religious book that is known to mankind; there is no other that can be put in the same category with it. I know something of what OUr friends say about the sacred books,.of the East, and how they enlarge upon their excellence; how they bring them into parallelism with the Bible, but I can assure you that not all who commend them read those sacred books of the East, or if they do they do not observe

the striking differences which exist. Now, let me say that one main point in which this Book differs from them is that it is a history; they are not. You can examine the Koran-it is not a history. It is a book of religious maxims and teachings, some good, some bad, and some indifferent-but it is not a history. You will find much of ritual teaching in it. You will see from it that there was a teacher who, in his day, saw far, and who tried to lift his people to a higher level, but his book is not a history. Upon my shelves stand the Texts of Confucianism; in many respects they are remarkable, but they are not history. In no one' of them is there any approach to history; but this Book is a history. Let me illustrate. Some few years ago I had a Rationalistic friend with whom I often discussed religion. One day we met, and he said, " Supposing there came to this world a visitor from Mars to examine into our customs, our habits, our laws, our everything, and your Bible were put into his hand, what would he think about it ~" And then my friend thought he had put a question that was very troublesome. They say there is nothing like detachment; when you want to examine a thing you should stand away from it and put awa.y your prejudices and bias, etc. And I suppose he thought he was doing a good thing when he said, " What would a visitor from far-off Mars think about this Bible ~" I thought for a minute or two, and replied to this effect: " Supposing he possessed a mind equal to what I would call an average human intelligence, he would find as the very first thing that this Bible claims to be an historical record. He would find that it puts its history on a well-defined part of this earth's surface-the Land of Palestine--and that it refers to Egypt to the South, Babylonia to the North, and Greece to the West, and it occasionally mentions a few other places contiguous to its centre. He would further find that there is now a people living upon the earth, scattered the world wide over, amongst all nations from the torrid zone to the Arctic and Antarctic zones, and he would learn tha.t that people claims the Bible as the history of their nation which once inhabited the land of which it speaks. He would also find that this people constitute the strangest race that lives upon the earth. They live everywhere, in Russia, Poland, Austria, Germany, France, England and over here in these islands, as I say, the world wide over they are found, and although they become part and parcel of a nation so that you can speak of them as-and they will claim that they are -English or French Or German, always there is attached to them a name which is a special racial distinction-they call themselves Jews, and so we speak of the English Jew, or the French Jew, or the German Jew, always. He would further find that their present scattered state is that of a people related to the story of the past, and, opening that Book, which contains their history, he would find that the men who Wrote 500 years before

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that people became dispersed, declared that such state wo~d be -just the state in which they now are-without a home, without a temple without a priest and without an altar, and yet they retain the characteristics that mark them racially in the past. Thus that visitor from Mars would have to his hands something to go on with. If he start~d there he could go fur~her st,ill, b~t I think that would be sufficient for any honest, unbiassed investigator to say, " I have got hold of the end of the Ariadne clue, and I will follow wheresoever it may lead me." Well, then, this book is a history which claims to record t~e story of the past, but it is a history which is limited-that is, It belongs to a people of a time-a period-in one place, and it has to be judged according to that time, to that place and to that people. My next step is that it is a history that is well attested-it is a history that can be verified. If you are reading, reasonable men, you can test it, and find that it will bear the strain of all the weight of investigation put upon it. There was a Yorkshire manufacturer in the days before factories came into existence, and when men still worked in their homes, who thought he would make a very fine piece of cloth that would give him a name above his neighbours. He set to work carded the wool and spun it, and dyed it, and wove it into ~ cloth that he believed was a splendid piece of workmanship. Part of the work was that it had to be hung out to dry. The custom then was for it to be hung out on tenterhooks. He hung out the cloth on the tenterhooks about his house. He left it there overnight. In the morning that piece of cloth of which he was so proud had gone-he looked at the empty hooks with amazement-somebody had taken advantage of the darkness and taken it away. Some weeks later he heard there was a piece of cloth in Manchester which answered the description of his, and he set off at once to see it. He saw a number of rolls of cloth that had been stolen, and, selecting one, said, " That is mine." " But," he was asked, " what is the proof you offer that it is yours 1" Proof 1 Well, he thought, and thought hard. He said "That is my weaving, that is my selvedge-I know the piec~ of cloth." But, it was persisted, " What proof can you, give 1" and he had to go away, not being able to give the proof that would satisfy. He went to a neighbour, and the neighbour smiled and said, " The kind of proof you want to offer is Bible proof. " "What do you mean 1" "Ask permission to bring that piece of cloth to your home, and put it on the tenterhooksif the holes in tae selvedge of the cloth fit on the hooks around your piece of ground, that will satisfy them, because that will prove that it is your cloth; for no other piece has been on those tenterhooks. " He obtained permission, and brought it home. He put it on, and every hole came to its hook, and every hook to

its hole. He said, " It is my piece of cloth," and the proof was satisfactory. Afterwards he said to his friend, " What did you mean by Bible proof 1 If I had as satisfactory proof that the Bible is true as that that piece of cloth was mine, by its test on the tenterhooks, I would believe it." "Well, you can do the same thing," said the friend. "Put the Bible on the tenterhooks -travel with it, go to Palestine, see the places t~ere, note the villages, go wherever you like, in Egypt, Palestine, or Babylonia, and you will find that this Bible is your guide-book-it will tell you just where you are, and the events that happened there. There are the tenterhooks, and the Bible fits." So I say the Bible will answer to the tenterhooks, as I will try to show this afternoon. . How shall we examine the Bible ? By verification-by scientific investigation. Let me say I do not think a man has a right to limit the idea of the scientific method to his own particular view of things. I hold, as I have already said, that he who investigates the Bible can do so scientifically, and the process will answer to the demands of every phase of the scientific method if he brings the Bible to the test of the things thait legitimately correspond to it. So, I say, scientific proof is what we demand. "But, ' , say our sceptical friends, "Science opposes the Bible. Are there not books written which speak of the conflict between religion and science, and is it not generally conceded that the Bible is opposed to science and science opposes it 1" Yes, gentlemen, I am perfectly aware of that modern attitude, but I am not troubled by it; I simply ask, "What science opposes the Bible?" Observe; we live in days when science is very much specialised. The man who can claim to have an all-round knowledge of science is one you very rarely meet with, and even his claim is not likely in these days to be conceded. What man is there who knows all there is to know of science? At the time when Humboldt wrote his Cosmos he was one of the few men who could grasp the science of his day, but now science is too specialised for men to give time and attention to all things. And so to-day I stand before you and ask, "What science opposes the Bible? Does Chemistry?-that marvellous science that has done so much for civilisation and for advancement in human comfort. Does Chemistry oppose the Bible? One of the finest books ever written is entitled Religion and Chemistry, written by the Professor of Chemistry in Harvard University, and it is written to show that Chemistry is in perfect harmony with the Bible. Do Mathematics contradict the Bible? Not that I know of. Another very fine book is entitled Geometry and Faith, written by Dr. Thomas Hill, a mathematician and a believer in the Bible. Does Astronomy contradict the Bible 1 It is supposed it does; but two of the latest books on Astronomy are written by

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.Dr. Maunder on The Bible and Astronomy and the other by Professor Schiaparelli, Director of the Milan Observatory, on Astronomy in the Old Testament, and these two books do not show that the Bible, when it speaks of astronomical things is in conflict with science. ' Try Navigation-for it is a science. Does it oppose the Bible Y I think not. Since the year 1850 the course followed by the ship on which St. Paul travelled over to Rome has been charted and it has been said that the winds and the currents and the localities, as described by Luke ar~ all vindicated by the experience of nautical men. ' Geography-another great science of the present time-does it 1 I think not. If you will read such books as those of Colonel Conder's Tent Work in Palestine, or Petrie's Researches in Sinai, or Ramsay's books on Asia Minor, you will soon find it do~s ~ot con.tradict the Bible, but that those investigators are bringing to light the truth that the geographical allusions in the Bible are in accord with facts. So, gentlemen, you will understand me when I ask "What science is it that contradicts the Bible Y" and I wai't for an answer, because I am convinced there is no science-no ascertained knowledge, which contradicts the Book we call the Word of God. .But there is one science which is unaccountably overlooked by our Rationalistic friends when this matter of Science and the Bible is :un?er discussion. I again take up Mr. Vivian's book, because It IS the popular modern presentation of the position taken against the Bible, and I examine it, and do not find in it so mu~h as ~ shadow of ~ refe~enc~ to the science which ought to be immediately under investigation when the question of the Historical Accuracy of the Bible is mooted. The names of such men as Conder, Petrie, Rawlinson, Pinches, and Sayce, of England; Grotefend, Schrader, Hommel, of Germany; Dieulafoy, de Morgan, of France, and others are not alluded to and the work they have done might neve; have been accomplished so far as any mention of it is concerned and yet here are men who ha,:e gi,:en their life's labour to th~ investigation of a science yrhlC? directly bears. upon the truthfulness of this book. Why IS this fact not mentioned 1 If a man says the Bible is untrue a;lld affirms that sC.ience oPI?oses!t, and yet leaves out any alln: SIOnto ~he o~e sCl~nceWhIChdI~ectly bears upon the subject, and WhIChYIelds Important testimony to it what are we to th~nk of ~im and his methods Y Do you ask, '" What science is thI~ to WhI~hyou [efer 1 . I reply it is the science of Archreology, WhICh,during the l~st SIxty years or so has come prominently to ~he front as a wltne.ss for the truth of the Bible-a science WhIChoffers ma~:r tangible proof~ ~n support of its testimony. You can VISItthe great Br-itish Museum in London, and

walk through its Assyrian and Egyptian galleries, and note there the obelisks, cylinders, slabs, tablets, and mural figures. Or cross to the great Museum of the Louvre in Paris, and the Boulak Museum at Cairo, or to the Berlin Museum, and examine the precious treasures of antiquity garnered in them. It has not been my privilege to see any of these, save those in the British Museum, and the more important stored there are described and pictured in a book entitled The Bible and the British Museum, which thus brings the matter easily within the reach of all. These contribute to the story of the past and confirm the accuracy of the Word of the Living God. We ought to know something about this scientific testimony if we would be abreast of investigation, so that when we open the Bible we shall know that we are reading that which now has contemporaneous historical testimony that certifies to its truth. The work of these men has been brought prominently to the front in this manner. Towards the end of the 18th century, writers in France- Voltaire and others-said that the Old Testament record was simply a collection of myths, legends, and traditions, and that in it you cannot move anywhere and feel that you have ground beneath your feet. There is nothing in the Bible that is trustworthy; therein are simply things that have been handed down from the far-off past, and they are so mythical that nobody can put any confidence in them at all. So it was said; but it is a most remarkable thing that no sooner is an assault made upon any part of the Bible than immediately that particular portion is strengthened by some wholly unexpected discovery. This opposition arose in France, and it is a remarkable thing that France was the instrument of bringing to light that which vindicates Bible accuracy, and has proved to be of such immense value in opening up the whole story of ancient Egypt. Shortly after the rising of the tide of Voltairian affirmations and ridicule, Napoleon went over to Egypt on a war of conquest. There was occasion to construct a fort at a place named Rosetta. The foundations were being dug, and there was turned up from the sand. a block of stone with strange figures upon It. A few feet either way and the important find would have been missed. That stone is now in the British Museum. It has upo~ it an ins~ription in three languages, the old Greek, the Demotic or Coptie, and the Hieroglyphic. The Greek was read, but beyond that no one was then able to go. A Frenchman, who was a boy of nine years of age at the time of the .expedition, had early showed ~ taste for languages, and gave himself to the study of the Coptie, which had been a dead language for two hundred years. When he applied himself to the second inscription on the stone he found that he could read . it, and that it was practically a copy of the Greek. He assumed therefore, that the hieroglyphic portion was identical with th~ .

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other two, and, using that suggestion as a key, he applied it, and found that it fitted the wards of the lock, and thus was made possible the commencement of the reading of the story of ancient Egypt as that is told in the abundant supply of papyri, wall paintings and rock inscriptions brought to light by exploration and excavation. Hardly had men begun to read that story than they found evidences which bore testimony to the accuracy of the Bible history. In the old lands of Assyria and Babylonia had long been observed strange marks upon the walls, and upon tablets, and although a few thought that they represented a language, the idea was scouted by others. The wedge form which appeared in so many combinations was considered to be a kind of Babylonian favourite ornament, or flower representation. Sir Henry Rawlinson, who had given his attention to the study of the old Persian language, visited the Behistun rock, in order to take copies of the inscriptions which are there cut upon its face some hundreds of feet above the ground. He found that one of the slabs was in the old Persian , and another in the wedge, or cuneform letters, as they are called. Copies of these Were taken, and then Grotefend in Germany, and Rawlinson and others set to the task of finding the key to them. Success attended their efforts, and it was said, " Here is a wonderful discovery. The history of the past is coming before us. We learn something of old Babylonia, and from these contemporaneous records something of the story that the Bible has already told." Thus testimony came from the South and from the North, and men began to read the old-time stories that had to be retold to men in the present day Here is another remarkable thing. In 1887, an Egyptian peasant woman was digging in some mounds, and as she turned the sand she found in it a little piece of clay about the size of one's hand, and on it were certain strange figures which she did not understand, but the finding of that baked tablet led to the opening of the mounds of Tel-el Amarna, and out of those mounds those tablets came by hundreds, until there were some . 10,000 collected, written, not in the hieroglyphics of Egypt but in the cuneiform of Babylonia, and men asked, " What cad this mean 1" There came to light a story of bygone times, the story of an Egyptian king who started a new religion, and because he did so had to forsake his metropolis and found another city. To it he took his library, and to it there came from all parts of the Egyptian Empire the documents that told how the different provinces fared. From Palestine and from Syria they came and the remarkable thing to be observed is that although this was an Egyptian centre, yet the writing on those old tablets was in the old cuneiform, the languag: of Babylonia. They showed that the old Babylonian language was evidently the diplomatic lan-

guage of the past, just as the French is of to-day, or as t~e Latin was years and years ago. These letters brough~ to light the story of the past, they tell of Jerusalem, of the ~ng who ruled over Jerusalem one hundred years after Melchizedek, and the description of this man as a priest-king agreed with that found in Genesis concerning Melchizedek Later in the soil of ancient Babylonia, at the site of Sippara, was found another library, and there were discov.eredother of these baked tablets inscribed with the old cuneiform letters. Some 70 of these are now in the British Museum. It.was found that these had to do with King Amraphel, spoken of m the 14th of Genesis of whom it had been freely said that there never was such a peison, and that it was most unlik~ly .that t~,ere was ~ver a combination such as the chapter descnb~d of . four .kIngs against the five." "Amraphel, king of Sh!nar, ~rIOch, kI~g o~ Ellasar, Chedorlaomer, king of Elam, and TIdal, king of nations, were myths and nothing more, and, lo! f~om the sa~ds of Babylonia started up the witnesses, silent, and indestructible, who tell that the Bible rightly named these men, and located them. I~ ':Vas claimed, and not very long ago, either, that the. art of ':Vntmg was not known before the days of Solomon; indeed, It was boldly declared that the ancient Greeks ~id not kno.wthe art of writing up to within 600 years of the time of <?~nst, although it was somewhat grudgingly conceded that writing may have been known in Israel in the days of ~?lomon,.but not before. Thus when the Bible spoke of the writing of Its code of laws, that ~as a simple absur.dity. But. these d~scoverieshave shown that writing was known m that region, and It has been found that schools and libraries were in existence, and that the~e were poets and prose writers, and an advanced. state of literature, so that the objection is now as dead as Julius Cresar. It is this field-the field of Archreo~ogy,whic? is left so severely alone by those who loudly proclaim tha.t SCIence contr~diets the Bible. Here is a scienc~w~ich bears dlr~ctly upon this matter of Bible accuracy. Why ISthis not dealt wIth! T~e onl,Y sceptical writer known to me who h3;s done anytlllng. I!l t~IS respect is Mr. Laing, in his book entitled HU'Yr!'anOr~g~ns! m which he reproduces a few stateme~ts conce~nmg th~ things alluded to in Genesis 14. He says, virtually, Supposing that this is historically true, then the time betwe.enthe days Chedolaomer and the Exodus is too long for the BIble account.. Gentlemen one might say, the ink on that book had hardly dried before Dr. 'King, of the British Museum, showed.that there were two dynasties reigning contemporaneo,;!sly,WhIChhad been .treated as successive, and the difficult! disappeared and the BIble account was vindicated. Mr. Lamg wIll have It that the Ol~ ~estament was gradually "built up from myths and traditions

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which have no pretensions to true statements or real history." Very well, that is the matter now to be examined. I will put before you now some items of evidence bearing upon this subject, and, to make it easier to follow me, I will proceed backwards through the Old Testament, starting at the nearest point first. . Allow me, however, to call attention to an important item, and that is, that whilst I have insisted upon the Bible as history, I must now affirm that it is selective history. I mean by that that it is a history that has been selected for the purpose which the Bible contains, and according to this purpose it must be followed. That history early sets aside the story of the race as such, and proceeds to record only the doings of the people of Israel. It begins with the family of Abraham, and locally with the land of Palestine, and that people and that land constitute the focus of Bible history. It is therefore to be expected that only when this people come into contact with other nations shall we learn anything at all about contemporaneous history from its pages, and it can only be at such times. It cannot be supposed that a Babylonish writer would give the history of Israel, nor an Israelitish writer the history of Babylonia, but when the two nations come into contact then we may expect some contemporaneous verification, and this we do find. When Israel was obedient to God it did not come into contact with other peoples, but when it was disobedient it did, and it is just on those points that within the last sixty years the evidence has come showing that the Bible story is true. I ask you to look at the Book of Jeremiah, 43rd chapter 8th verse. (I notice there are not many Bibles amongst you. 'It is handy to have a Bible open sometimes.) In that passage is a little story that lies in the record, apparently without any particular bearing upon the question that I have put before you; When Judah had transgressed against God and come under the dominion of the Babylonian king, then there was a little rebellion roused in the land, and the leader said, ' , We will go down to Egypt." And so he went down, and took with him a number of those Jews, and amongst them Jeremiah and the daughter of Zedekiah, This story in Jeremiah tells us that when they got down to Tahpanhes there came the word of the Lord to Jeremiah saying, " Take great stones in thine hand and hide them in the clay in the brick kiln which is at the ent~y of Pharaoh-s house in Tahpanhes in the sight of the men of Judah." There is just an allusion only to a house of Pharoah at Tahpanhes and to the brickwo~k which w~s in fr?nt of it. .An eminent E'g,Y.ptologist, Prof. Flmders Petrie, who IS engaged m exploration has written a book entitled " Ten Years' Digging in Egypt,'" and in that boo~ he says: " When I was exploring in the marshy desert about Tams, I saw from the top of a mound-Tell Ginn:-a shimmer-

ing grey swell on the horizon through the haze; and that, I was told, was Tell Defenneh, or, rather, Def'neh, as it is called. It was generally supposed to be . . . the Tahpanhes of the Old Testament; but nothing definite was known about it, and as it lies in the midst of the desert, between the Delta and the Suez Canal, twelve miles from either, it was not very accessible." So curious was he that he determined to investigate, and so he went over to that place and examined it, and says: " On reaching the place I found a wide, flat plain bordering on the river, strewn all over with pottery, and with a mound of mud-brick building in the midst of it. I asked the name of the mound, and was told KaS1 bint el Yehudi, " the palace of the Jew 's daughter." This at once brought Tahpanhes to my mind. Can there be any readition here? I thought. I turned to Jeremiah, and there read how he came, with Johanan, the son of Kareah, and all the officers, and the king's daughters, down to Tahpanhes and dwelt there. We can hardly believe that the only place in Egypt where a celebrated daughter of a Jewish king lived, was called in later times' the palace of the Jew's daughter' by accident, especially as such a name is only known here." He then proceeded with the investigation, and says later: " Another remarkable connection with the account given by Jeremiah was found on clearing the fort. The entrance was in the side of a block of buildings projecting from the fort; and in front of it, on the opposite side of its roadway, similarly projecting from the fort, was a large platform or pavement of brickwork suitable for outdoor business, such as loading goods, pitching tents, etc.-just what is now called a mast ab a-and this would be the most likely place for Nebuchadnezzar to pitch his royal tent as stated by Jeremiah. " Now I go back to the Book of Daniel, and there, without bringing to light the numerous things that are spoken of, you will remember that Nebuchadnezzar said, as he looked out upon that matchless city, " Is not this great Babylon which I have built?" But men have said, " No, he did not build the city; it was built before his day." But, strange to say, from the old mounds where Babylon stood, men have turned out bricks by thousands and thousands, stamped with the name of Nebuchadnezzar. In India House there is a large slab of black diorite inscribed with the things which Nebuchadnezzar did. On it he claims to have rebuilt Babylon, and thus that stone verifies the statement made in the Book of Daniel. In the fifth chapter of that book there is a story told about King Belshazzar which has long been the object of the scoff and ridicule of the sceptic. It has been said that there never was a king called Belshazzar. They had found the Cylinder of Cyrus which said that the King of the time was called Nabonidus. "If it was Nabonidus, then it was not Belshazzar." There were a

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few Bible believers who said, c probably there was another king at the time because Belshazzar proinisedDaniel that he should be the ' third ruler in the kingdom.' Why didn't he promise that he should be the second ~" Now the tablets' have been found that show that Belshazzai- was the son of Nabonidus, and he was ruling over the city of Babylon, whilst Nabonidus was ruler over Borsippa, and have found receipts of the bills he had to run up sometimes, and they say, " There is the name of Belshazzar, the king's son." So that has been another verification. Now let me go back. In the book of Isaiah there is a statement that could not possibly be verified until just recently. The 20th Isaiah opens with this verse: " In the year that Tartan came unto Ashdod (when Sargon the king of Assyria sent him)." " Why," said our critics, " there never was a king at that time called Sargon, and nothing was known of a person named Tartan, and if there were he never went so far west as to conquer Ashdodo' , We had no verification, and there the matter had to rest. The only thing-we had to go upon was what the Bible said. But there is verification to-day, because the palace of King Sargon has been found, and I suppose that of all the places which have yielded fruitful results that palace of Sargon has given up some of the greatest. There is the inscription which tells the whole story, and one learns that the official name of his commandant was Tartan, and he went over and fought against Ashdod and took it ; and the Bible is again verified. - Or you go Back further to the days of Hezekiah, and read the story told by the Bible historian of the invasion of Sennacherib. Outside the Bible, nobody had a word to say in proof of that. Nobody could say anything because nothing was known. Here was the record that told how Sennacherib came down with his army. How Hezekiah made promise to defend the city; how he made a conduit and brought in the water so that there should be no lack of water if he was besieged, and all the rest of it. If you were in the British Museum to-day, I could take you into the Assyrian saloon, and you could see the slabs which show Sennacherib on his throne receiving the spoils of Lachish, and you could see the cylinder of his in the Babylonian and Assyrian - Room, which tells that he c shut up Hezekiah like a caged bird within Jerusalem, his royal city," and of the tribute which Hezekiah paid to him. And when you saw all these things you would surely say, " Here is verification. Here is the testimony from himself that the Assyrian king did besiege Laehish, and that the Judean monarch was distressed because of him;" and thus, again, the Bible is vindicated ! Yet another step backward to the time of King Jehu. At that time Elisha gave a prophecy to Hazael of Syria. He said, , , You will kill your master, Benhadad, and you will become king. " In those particular verses in the 2nd Book of Kings,

viii. 7-15, the names of the three kings-Benhadad, and Hazael of Syria, and King Jehu-are linked together. In the Nimroud saloon of the British Museum there stands what is called the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser. It is about 7ft. high, and there are severallin~s of inscriptions and five tiers of bas reliefs, which tell of the varIOUSevents of the time of that King's reign and amongst. other things it recounts that one of the campaig~s of Shalmaneser n. was against Benhadad, and that the next Was against Hazael, both of Syria, and one of the pictures is that of the King of Israel paying his tribute, and it is said (and I think that it is true) that the features of those bringing that tribute are Jewish, and that thus King Jehu, or his representative, is presented on that Black Obelisk. So again is verified that which we read in the Bible when outside of it these things were not known at all. I come now to another item a little further back, and this is found in the days. of ~ing Ahab, where it tells that Mesha, King of Moab, had paid tribute and then revolted, and there is a chapter which tells the story of the battle which, as consequence of the revolt, was fought between the Moabites and the Israelites in the days of Jehoram (2nd Kings, iii.). Thus the record ran and nothing more was known further, but in the year 1868 ~ German missionary was riding over the plains of Dibon, and as he rode he saw the corner of a stone sticking up out of the sand. He examined it, and found it was a stone about 3%ft. high and 2ft. broad, and on it were several lines of writing that looked very much like Hebrew. He wanted to purchase it from the Arabs: they asked 80. In the meantime the French Consul at Jerusalem heard of it, and sent men to take impressions of it. When the Arabs saw that this was being done, they thought there must be a particular charm in the stone, and they wanted more money for it. The French Consul offered 375. This was too much, for it showed them that it was very valuable, and they would not let it go out of their possession. They put it on stones and lit a fire under it and made it hot, and then poured water on it, and the stone broke into fragments, which were distributed -amongst the various tribes. The French Consul and others Bet to work and collected most of those fragments, and they were put together and now stand in the Louvre at Paris. There is a cast of this Moabite stone in the British Museum. That stone gave an inscription, put up in the land of Moab by King Mesha, who says he was under tribute to Omri, King of Israel; and that in the reign of Omri's soil he freed himself by war and henceforth Was not under the rule of that monarch, and so once more the Bible was vindicated by the discovery of contemporaneous testimony. Passing over the striking confirmation found at Karnac of the story told of the invasion by Shishak in the days of Rehoboam, I go back now to the time of the Exodus, the time which

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is, of course, supposed to be in the very midst of the religious myths and legends of bygone days. Who can believe that a vast host of Israelites were in Egypt and came out from that land in the manner described? It is not very long ago that a railway station was being built in the land of Egypt, and, singularly enough, they called the name of that station" Rameses. '.' It turned out, however, when investigation was made, that there were several mounds there which were opened, and it was found. that instead the name of the place was really Pithom, which Was spoken of as having been built by the Israelites. Excavations further showed that it was a place that had heen used as a grain store for the land of Egypt, and this remarkable thing was revealed-that the lower course of the bricks was composed of mud from the Nile mixed with straw; but in the courses above they found the bricks were composed of mud and stubble, and in the' highest courses that they were composed of mud and no stubble, and no straw. The Bible says the Israelites built with bricks made with straw, that at the time when Moses came, in the course of their building, Pharaoh said, " No straw will be given you," and they sought for stubble, and when that gave out had to " deliver their tale of bricks" without straw or stubble. Once more, these are the only places found in Egypt where mortar is used at all, and the Bible says that they built them" with mortar."

-But of late close interest has been taken in the journey taken by the people of Israel from the Land of Goshen through Sinai to the Promised Land. This route has been followed by such men as Sir Henry J ames, Major Palmer and later by Petrie, and they certify that this Bible is the guide-book to that district, that whoever wrote that story went over the ground; he knew all the places and recorded them, and, just according to the record there, so do the modern 'travellers find the route to-day. There may be doubting in your minds as to whether the miracles were wrought-that is not my point-I am now calling attention to the' historical accuracy, and the geographical part of it is no mean thing. Here is one of the latest books by the eminent man Dr. Sayee called Facts and Hiqh.er C1'itical Fancies. He says that whoever wrote the story of the Exodus must have lived at the very time for the very reason that the geography of the land of ' Palestine 'changed when the 19th dynasty went out (that is the dynasty of the Oppression)-was changed by canals and by buildings etc. and the geography of that time could be written only by ~ nla~ who lived at that time, and this is a verification that tells us that it is no late story; and, gentlemen, let me say, here is a remarkable thing, that we know from the record the kings who then ruled the 19th dynasty, Seti 1. began the oppression' Rameses H. carried it on, and in the Boulae Museum today there lie Seti and Rameses, and the casual European visitor

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can look upon the very monarch before whom those Bible men stood when the~ pleaded to let their people go. , T~e story IS a long one, but I must tell you one thing more, and this takes you back to the ver! early dawn of history; to the days of Abraham, ~he great patriarch, who is now supposed to be one of the ~ythlcal founders of the Israelitish race. 'I'hat is held to be a tIme. of which nobody knows anything at all, with accuracy, of the history of the past but I have already recited to you t~e history of the discovery of 'those tablets-the letters Bent to Kmg Amraphel-and when they were found it was said " Now we know there was a King Amraphel and an Arioch and th~re ?lay have been a Chedorlaomer." 'But the remarkable thing IS that there .has been discovered that which throws an immense amount. of light upon the whole Patriarchial story. The Book of Genesis ~n~ the early b~oks ~p to the time of the giving ?f the law on Sinai have been illumined by a discovery made m 1901. In tha~ year M. Dieulafoy and his wife, with M. De Morgan, we~e ':Vorkmg m old Susa (Shushan), and their labours were ve.rlfymg the Book of Esther. They traced out the palace of Kmg Ahasuerus, and were enabled to say that whoever wrote the Book of Es!he: knew about that palace very exactly, and must have b~en m It as ~ regular dweller. One day IVL de Mo1'gan found hIS men working along a trench, from which stood out a .large block of bl~c~ marble. It was found to be broken in three pieces, It was originally abou.t 8ft. high, and on it from the top to the bottom. were numerous lines of cuneiform writing. At the top was the VIew of a figure of a man who was receiving from the Sun God the code of laws inscribed beneath. This slab contains the law code of King Khammurab~-or Amraphel-of Babylonia. Professor. Johns, of Oxfo~d, has Issued a translation, and that law code IS found to contain the laws under which all the people in the land of Babylonia and unjler its control lived. This Was o~ly one of a number of stones set up for his people so that they might k~ow ~he laws. It establishes not only that writing Was so early m existence, but that the power to read was existent for by means of the published code the people were to regulate their condu~t .one to~ard another and towards the State. It was in my originaldesign to te!l you more about that code, but I will confine my remarks to this phase. By means of this code light is thro~n u~on the pat:iarchial record, inasmuch as we can explain ~ertam things that hitherto were not explainable; how it was for ~nst~nc~, that Abraham could take Hagar as his concubine at the mstIgatI0n. of his wi.fe. The law~ of Khammurabi explain it. In !hem ale many things that explain the social life of the people their customs, and how their relationship to one another and t~ the State was regulated by this code read and known. Thus we know of the man Khammurabi, of the power of his empire and

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the laws under which the people and the patriarchs lived until the time when the Israelites passed into Egypt, and when later, the law was given on Sinai. I have now put before you several items of testimony from the Science of Archreology. I hold that that particular Science has its word to say, and that we must listen to its evidence, because it is the Science which bears directly on the question. Does Science contradict the Bible 1 Contemporaneous evidence is the attestation required when a question of history is before us, and it is of immense significance that Arehteology began to yield its witness when men were boldly saying that the Old Testament history was not true. They denied, and lo! From the soil of Babylonia, from Syria, and from Egypt, there came a long line of long-buried, silent witnesses who affirmed, " This Bible history is true." First the spade of the explorer found the witnesses, and then the skill of the decipherer was applied, and thereby God has been honoured, His Truth has been vindicated, and His .people have been strengthened. M. Paulin, of France, was chosen to hand a prize of 20,000 francs to M. Oppert, an eminent scholar, for the work he had done in deciphering the cuneiform writings, and, in the course of his. speech, he said, " These men go.out to the far East, and when they begin to dig, the Arabs crowd around them, and as they see what comes to light they say, ' How is this? Our fathers camped upon this soil for hundreds of years-we have built our villages here, and they have stood for many years. Neither we nor our fathers dreamed of these. But you Franks from the far-off West come here with your measuring rods. You have opened the mounds and brought to light long-buried cities, palaces and trophies of the past. How have you done it. Do your books or your prophets tell you of these things 1 How does it come to pass '" And they might well answer, " Our Book, the Bible, has told us of them. It speaks of these cities of bygone times, of great Nineveh and Babylon, and Susa, and Ur of the Chaldees, and when it told us we believed. The prophets of olden times told us how these cities should be brought to the dust, and when we came, we came to find that which we knew was here, because the Bible declared it." And he said this: " These men nave been satisfied with the answer;" but mark what that answer me~ns. It means that no longer will the students say that these things 80 discovered confirm the Bible, but they will say that the Bible confirms them, for it spoke of them when men had forgotten the cities and nations of the past. 'Now when I have reached that point, I think I may press upon you my sincere wish that you will give yourselves to an earnest, thoughtful study and comparison of these things. I hope that in this course of addresses I have shown you that .a Christian can hold his faith on reasonable grounds; that there 1S

evidence that appeals to the mind as well as to the heart. Whilst I believe that religion is rooted in the heart-that my faith is a matter of the heart-I hold that my mind so far as it may be clear and vigorous in weighing the evidences, goes all the way and vindicates every step that faith may take. My plea to you is that you will use your minds, and you will seek for yourselves to know whether or not these things are so and if you find that they are as presented then I ask that you will, as honest, true men, give yourselves t~ Him Who gave 'the Word, and in these last days has so abundantly verified it. " Within this awful volume lies The Mystery of mysteries, Happiest he of human race To whom God has given grace To read, to fear, to hope, to pray, To lift the latch and force the way. But better had he ne 'er been born Who reads to doubt or reads to scorn." QUESTIONS mandments AND CLOSING ;REMARKS.

Question: Have any tablets in connection with the Ten Combeen found 1 One of the things found not very long ago at the site of ancient Gezer was what was called a boundary stone, which at one time stood in the Temple court and marked off the court of the Gentiles from that of the Jews.' The inscription was' in the ancient Hebrew, and that 'makes it very valuable. It shows that the Gentile had before him, when he entered the Court, the inscription which warned him that' he must go no further. It shows that in the temple of ancient times there was such a division. There has nothing been found, so far as I know, relating to the Ten Commandments. Some of you will have read just lately of the investigations that have been made beneath the old Temple site. in search of some of the Temple furniture, such as the Ark. What may come of that we cannot tell. There is one thing which I look upon as pretty certain some day to come to light. You know that it was the custom of the Egyptians to embalm their people, and from Genesis we learn that Jacob was embalmed, and was carried over into the Land of Palestine, and now lies in the Cave of Macpelah, which is very jealously guarded by the Turks. The late King Edward, when he was Prince of Wales, was allowed to see the tombs, but they have not been opened. Should these ever be opened I have no doubt whatever they will find there the body of the Patriarch Jacob, as the Scriptures state.

Answe1': Not that I know of.

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Question: Is it possible to obey the Ten Commandments implicitly, and does God expect us to do so 1 Answer: With regard to my friend's question I understand him to ask, Can we live under the Ten Commandments now ~ I do not think we are called upon so to do. That was ?- code of laws given to the people of Israel, and, so far as I know, no other people on the face of the earth have been called upon to live under that particular code of laws. That does not mean that we are to be lawless. For instance, I live under the law of New Zealand, which says, " Thou shalt not kill thou shalt not steal. " I s?ppose the law in 4~erica sa~s precis~ly the same thing. If I kill a man, what law ISIt that will put its hand upon me 1 The American law cannot come over here and correct me' because I am a citizen of New Zealand, but the New Zealand law can. The two laws are precisely the same, but I am under the one and not u~der the other. It is the same with regard to the Law that was given to Moses. I am not under that Law, because it was given to the people of Israel, and I am not an Israelite. I am a bel~everin the Lord Jesus Christ, and the laws which govern Christian conduct are to be found in the teachings of those men who were specially commissionedto write and teach according to the New Testament, as in the Epistles, written by Paul and others, , Question: Doesn't it say that the Gospel does not make void the law, but establishes the law ~ Answer: Certainly. I hold that the grace that came through Jesus Christ has brought into existence a governing principle of conduct which, if obeyed, will carry you to a higher plane than can any possible law or code of laws given to a nation centuries upon centuries before. Question: The New Testament says "If ye love Me keep My commandments," and the 11th Com~andment, "Love one another." Answer: Jesus Christ gave those commands to His disciples. He was a Jew, and so were they. He urged them to keep the Commandments. When He ascended on high they met together as faithful Israelites, serving the law, obeying the Commandments with all zeal because they. were Israelites. But when the Gospel went abroad to the Gentiles, that very question was referred to the Council, d~scribed in the 15th chapter of Acts, and according to that Council the law of Moseswas not laid upon the Gentiles. It was upon the Jew, and upon the Jew only and because I am a Gentile, of course I am not under the law of Moses. . Question: Is the Jew still under the Mosaic law 1 Answer: So I understand. It has never been abrogated for the Jew, as a Jew.

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Q1testion: There are two different codes ? Answe1' .There is no Mosaiclaw code for a Jew who comesby faith unto Jesus Christ, because in Jesus Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile, but " Ye are all one in Christ Jesus." But outside the Christian Church' the Jew to-day is under his law, just as in the long, long years ago. He is in a worse position because he has not those things available which enabled him to escape some of the consequences of transgression, such as the Offerings. .Question: Is he still saved under it ~ Answe1': He is in this position, that when the Judgment takes place he will be judged as " having the law;" according to his deeds, that is the statement; and when he is judged according to his deeds, be they gooflor bad, so will be the awards meted out to him. ,Question: Do I "dnderstand that the law which rules the world is simply done away with ~ . Answer: The Ten Commandments never ruled the world. ~ But the Law was never to be done away with. A " It is better not to know so much than to know so many things that ain't so," The Law was given from Mount Sinai to one people, and one people only. Let us be sure about our starting-point. Go It was given to all people. Oh! Let us see, " And God spake all these words saying, I am the Lord the God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt out of the house of bondage." Thou shalt have none other gods before me. Who was brought out of the house of bondage ~ Who was brought out of the land of Egypt All the world ~ The preamble of this code determines to whom it was given, and he who says it was given to all the world is saying that which goes beyond the preamble. Now, let me say that I have not been afraid of your questions, not that I have claimed to be able to answer them all, but on the line I have followed I felt secure. One of my friends has said that I have enjoyed them, but that is doubtful. I have been delighted with the close attention that has been paid, and have appreciated the kindly manner in which you have treated me. I have said some things that must have been hard to bear, but through these seven afternoons I have been listened to courteously, and to that extent you have done your part to make these meetings the success they have been. They will be a happy memory and a stimulus in the days to come,and I shall think you will not forget them very soon. I have been before the people who meet at West Street for nearly thirty years, and they have not yet indicated that they are tired of me, and I am pleased to

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know that these meetings have brought me into touch with others, not members of my congregation, and I hope that the feeling of amity thus begun will continue whilst we live, and until the Lord returns. Mr. J. T. White said: I think it would be ungracious for us to part without an expression of gratitude to our lecturer for the pleasure given, and for the information we have received. As one who has heard and read a great deal of literature of all kinds on religious topics, I must say it is refreshing to listen to a man who knows precisely that what he says is the faith of his heart, and whatever our opinion may be as to the evidence put before us, there can be but one opinion as to our gratitude to Mr. Aldridge, and I beg to move that we tender him our best thanks for the service he has rendered to the cause of religion, and I think I might say freethought, in the senies of lectures given in this hall. Mr. : I have great pleasure in seconding the resolution. Though not a member of the church in West Street, I have been delighted to come here Sunday after Sunday to hear these able lectures. Having been a reader of Christian Evidences for some years, I think, if I may be allowed to say so, that I can form a pretty good opinion as the merits of Mr. Aldridge's lectures. I must say that he has had a very difficult task to perform. There is such a mass of evidence on the Christian side .that it has always seemed a difficulty to me to sever the wheat from the chaff; but the lecturer has shown great skill in the separation and he kas, I am convinced, given us the very cream of thought,'and I feel personally that my faith is mightily strengthened and that I shall in future be able to go forth and do a little more, and with greater confidence in God, and in Jesus Christ, and in that Bible which we love so much. Mr. I have attended most of the lectures, and must say that I have been deli~hted with ever!thing that has been said. I do not belong to hIS church. I believe that the lecturer's heart is right, and what he says he believes in. He has convinced me of many things I did not know before, and I am delighted to have listened to such able discourses. Mr. : I endorse what the previous spe~ker~ have said. Personally I have derived great benefit from listening to these lectures. If the course is renewed at any future time, I would suggest strongly that you hold your meetmgs ~ear 9u~en Street, perhaps under the auspices of the Young Men s Christian Association in order to get at another class of people who are hostile to these questions. . . Rev. Mr. Keay: There are a great many <?hrIstI!lns ~ho. are wobbly, and I think these lectures h~ve p?-t !l little stiffening into them. They who read nothing outsIde Titbits or Scraps, or other
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of the wonderful literature of these times, are not able to judge of the worth of a lecture such as the one we have had this afternoon. The bulk of the men whom our friends talk of reaching are not anxious to be reached. I am confident that these lectures have been of incalculable good to the community, and I have the greatest possible pleasure in putting the resolution. (The resolution was carried with prolonged applause.) Allow me, sir, to tender to you the sincere and heartfelt thanks of the gathering for your able discourses, and we pray that God, the great Father, may long spare you and strengthen you to carry on this great work for His sake. Mr. Aldridge: Of course I must allow you to have your own way, but we folk of West Street do not care very much for this kind of thing. I like to know that you are satisfied with the efforts made, but I really do not desire anything more. You will gratify me a great deal if you will examine if these things are so; then, I shall be more satisfied. Let me add, that if you are satisfied, then I am gratified, and that is the end of it.

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