BLENCcOWE. 285 
for us to indulge in anything like microscopic criticism as to an expression 
used here, or a remark made there, which might either have been improved, 
or which might have been omitted. We ought, I think, to have regard to 
the whole drift of the paper, which, I think is, in this case, one likely to 
advance the cause we all have at heart. (Hear, hear.) It certainly seems to 
me that the points the author has brought under our notice are well 
deserving of consideration, and that this is especially the case with regard 
to one or two of the matters he has discussed. A few days ago I happened 
to be present at the reading of a paper in the Divinity School at 
Cambridge, written by Professor MacAlister, a learned man of science, 
who has devoted himself, among other things, to the study of Egyptian 
antiquities. The paper he then read was a very remarkable one on 
the “Ritual of the Dead” (a paper on this subject will be found in 
vol. vi. p. 321.—Ep.) as employed in the early Egyptian religion, and 
it appears to me that there is one point which the author of the present 
paper has not brought out with sufficient distinctness, but which the facts 
actually prove to have been the case, namely, that the further we go back 
in the history of these ancient nations the more clear it appears to be that 
the religious principle was originally based on the monotheistic idea. It 
seems to me that in those early times the primary spiritual ideas con- 
nected with religion are more clearly displayed, and that, especially in the 
case of Egypt, the further we go back the more unmistakably do we find that, 
just as the Egyptian architecture was more pure and perfect in the earliest 
periods, so were the religious ideas of the Egyptian people of a purer and 
more perfect nature. The same remark will apply to the Assyrian religion ; 
but, as to the Persian and Chinese religions, I can hardly speak of them 
because I have not studied them. I think that the more we study the 
points set forth in this paper the more does the author, who is so far removed 
from all intercourse with modern thought and from the opportunities 
afforded by the libraries and other aids we have around us, appear to 
demand our sympathy and admiration for having so ably thought out and 
discussed these matters. There is one point on page 265 which struck 
me. The author says:—“The force of this important series of facts 
is not invalidated nor weakened by the consideration that in some of the 
cases referred to the objects of worship were spurious ; but it is rather 
strengthened by the fact that, so dominant is the sense of need, and so 
prevalent the persuasion of the possibility of access to God, on whom we 
depend, that when all true knowledge of Him was lost, and only false sub- 
stitutes for the living God existed, which could not help, yet, even then, the 
practice of worship was continued through successive generations of dis- 
appointment, all of whom were ready to ascribe the failure to the imperfec- 
tion of the worship rather than to the impotence or the indifference of their 
gods.” The author here puts in a striking form the argument that human 
nature cannot do without a power outside of and superior to itself, as 
Matthew Arnold says, “ A not-ourselves that makes for righteousness.” We 
cannot do without something beyond ourselves which will help us to fight 
VOL. XIX. 2G 
