28S Oriental Literature. [Chap. XIV. 



Similar references to the Fall of man, and the 

 Deluge, have also been found by discoveries in the 

 east, as well as allusions of the most remarkable 

 kind to the mission and character of the Messiah ; 

 all tending to support the idea of a common faith; 

 having descended by tradition from the family of 

 Noah to their posterity; and thus to furnish a 

 new, and, considered in all its relations, a most 

 powerful argument in favour of the authenticity ' 

 of the sacred history. 



This tendency of literary and scientific disco- 

 veries in the east, to" confirm the sacred history, 

 has been ably displayed by sir William Jones, and 

 other contemporary writers whose inquiries appear 

 in tht Asiatic Researches ; but by none so exten* 

 sively, and in a manner so convincing and popu- 

 lar, as by the reverend Mr. Maurice, in his Indian 

 Antiquities, and his History of Hindostan, 



The illustration of sacred scripture by means 

 of circumstances incidentally mentioned in books 

 of eastern travels is a most interesting and in- 

 structive field of inquiry, both to the philoso- 

 pher and the Christian. Services of this nature, 

 more rich and valuable than ever before, have 

 been rendered to biblical criticism, during the 

 eighteenth centuiy. One of the most useful 

 writers on this subject that the age produced 

 was the reverend Mr. Harmer. He published aa 

 extensive and learned work, in which, by means 

 of information derived from voyagers and travel- 

 lers in the east, he placed many passages of 

 scripture in a light altogether new; ascertain- 

 ed tlic meaning of others not discoverable by 



