16 



Conclusion. 



It is only due to my audience and to this vast and fertile 

 subject that I should end as I began by craving your kind 

 forbearance. 



There are some branches of the inquiry into Biblical names 

 too sacred and dark with glory, some too fresh and uncertain, 

 some too old and familiar, to serve our purpose this evening. 

 But within my old line of historic illustration I must affirm 

 that to me there appears a coherency between the names, 

 brought from quarters scattered and for all the intervening 

 ages forgotten and unexplored, and their position and surround- 

 ings, in the scripture narratives, or oracles, or poetry, which to 

 an honest seeker after truth is "confirmation strong," and 

 may well rank high as "proof of holy writ." It has been 

 elaborately shewn by the recent surveyors and explorers of 

 Palestine, that the geographical and topographical names men- 

 tioned in Egyptian and Assyrian monumental records, and in 

 classic and rabbinic literature, and now found in the mouths of 

 the fellahin, in numberless instances chime with the Bible 

 story. 



If we have caught this evening startling glimpses of " high 

 places " and " chambers of imagery," it is only what a 

 thoughtful student of scripture might expect ; and readers of 

 Pleyte, Tiele, and similar writers, have seen the dark shadows 

 cast in gigantic proportions. Out of how rough and deep a 

 " hole of a pit " has our Redeemer in all ages drawn the fair 

 stones of His new Jerusalem ! How does the perverse mind 

 of man forsake the living fountain, and hew out for itself 

 broken cisterns. 



We would "justify the ways of God to man." We cannot 

 justify the ways of man to God. 



APPENDIX. 



My best thanks are due for several kind contributions of notes and 

 suggestions received since the above paper was printed. 



The Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells torites . 



Very many thanks for your valuable, interesting, and suggestive paper. 



The animal names strike me as very interesting, and the argument from 

 the agreement linguistic, moral, and religious, between the names and the 

 surrounding circumstances of those who bore the names, is very cogent as 

 unmistakable evidence of historical truth. As regards Caleb, to Avhom I 

 see you refer at p. 15, I believe the discovery of his Edomitish ancestry 



