S6 



even the reeds of the marsh ran short, or the time to gather 

 them. 



But there are some topographical traces which lead beyond 

 Succoth on the route of the Exodus. A large and most im- 

 portant tablet of Ptolemy Philadelphus gives indications of 

 other places, and among them of Pi-keheret, which seems to be 

 the Pi-ha-Jchirot (m»nn*£5) of the Exodus. And now we must 

 patiently look for further results from the labours of those who 

 are continuing M. Naville's researches for the Egypt Explora- 

 tion Fund Committee, and you will not think me unreasonable 

 in appealing for support to the Committee in that work, so 

 needful to fill up the measure of Biblical archaeology. 



I^he Palestine Fund has already accomplished grand things, 

 and is still engaged in a suspended survey on the east of 

 Jordan, of which Captain Conder, R.E., has just published a 

 most interesting account in his volume, Heth and Moah. 

 The Egyptologist has already come to the assistance of the 

 suiweying oflScer, as we know, and it is clear that in the 

 neglected ruin- heaps of Goshen, and the unexhausted quarry 

 of monuments in ''the field of Zoan," we may hopefully expect 

 to find materials for the further elucidation of Israel's sojourn 

 in the land of Mizraim and divine deliverance by the hand of 

 Moses. 



It is not the scientific explorer, nor the assiduous archaeolo- 

 gist, who will lightly speak a word of doubt, much less of 

 supercilious rejection, while he ponders the sacred archives of 

 the Bible. ''Always it speaks," says Bishop Temple, "with 

 the authority of its origin. I have read many books,'' he con- 

 tinues, " which do much for the human intellect and for the 

 human spirit, and have felt that I have learned much ; and 

 still feel that these books, though they are my teachers, are 

 not my rulers; that, though they instruct me, they cannot com- 

 mand me. But when I turn to the Word of God it takes me 

 straight, as it were, into His very presence, and gives its 

 message there by an authority of His and His alone." 



These are the solemn words of one who has not been easily 

 inclined to take sacred things for granted. Let me add, for 

 my own part, the witness of an honest and diligent student of 

 the earliest historic antiquity. The most searching and micro- 

 scopic examination only leads to higher degrees of conviction 

 that the history is recorded by Moses; that the revelation 

 which transfigures this history is supreme and divine, and 

 "able to make us wise unto salvation through faith which is 

 in Christ Jesus." " If ye believed Moses," said our Lord 

 Himself (St. John v. 46), "ye would believe me; for he wrote 

 of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe 

 my words ? " 



