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speculate upon them as to whether Moses knew the number and character 

 of the bones in the icthyosaurus or the megatherium, but we have a number 

 of problems presented to us in the Bible the only solutions of which can be 

 found in the bricks brought from the ruins of Babylon. I say, therefore, that 

 it is the duty of all of us at the present time, when so many attacks are being 

 made on the statements of the Old Testament, to endeavour to bring 

 prominently forward those facts, the explanations of which still lie buried 

 beneath the mounds of Chaldea. (Hear, hear.) We have ^ot a great deal 

 already, but we want a great deal more, and until we obtain what we still 

 need we should not rest. Therefore I think that an Institute like this, 

 numbering as it now does over a thousand members, nnist surely have the 

 power to assert itself and to agitate in regard to this matter ; because lam 

 grateful even for the help that a little well-directed agitation Ls likely to afford. 

 (Applause.) It Ls easy to sit still and say that this or that ought to be done, 

 but that is not enough. We have had no end of such sympathy, and the 

 promises of aid have been numerous, but I am tired of promises only 

 and want to see our friends really take the matter up, and, if possible, get 

 up an influential deputation to the proper authorities so that the voice 

 of a Society like this may not only be raised but be heard by those 

 officials whose duty it Is to undertake the carrying on of the work, so that 

 it may at length be satisfactorily accomplished (Applause.) If this 

 were the case the " Transactions " of the Victoria Institute might be filled 

 with papers such as that we have just heard, so that questions of a 

 critical character with regard to the matter contained in the Bible, — not 

 the criticisms evolved from the brain of some learned member of the 

 University of Oxford, Leipsic, or Cambridge, but critical njatter, written 

 almost before some of the books of the Bible were indited, and which come 

 to us untainted and undamaged by popular or theological prejudice, — may 

 be fully and fairly set forth and discussed. (Applause.) 



Rev. W. Wright, D.D., a visitor. — I have had very much pleasure in 

 listening to the paper that has been read to-night. All look forward to great 

 things on this subject from Mr. Budge, and I think may expect to get 

 them. He is, I think, a man whose scholarship no one will question, 

 and who is so zealous as to collect the dry details of recent Assyrian 

 research and put them together in a sufficiently attractive literary form to be 

 placed before the public. There are a good many things stated in this paper 

 that cannot but interest not only those who belong to this Institute, but 

 Christians at large. The passage which I find on the fifth page of the paper 

 is well worth the attentive consideration of all believers in Christianity ; 

 here, at any rate, apart from the suggestion made by the last speaker as to 

 the notion of a mediator, we have the Great Father. Tlien we have Mar- 

 duk, the 8on ; and we find that son put forth here as a mediator between 

 man and the great God— between sinful humanity and Ea— the penitent 

 sinner coming direct to Ea through Marduk. This, I think, h worth 

 considering. The natural forms common to the Biblical lands are worked 



