138) ° JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS. 
the famous Assyriologist, and other oriental scholars, for news- 
paper accounts of translation of the inscribed histories and tales 
(on stone and burnt clay tablets). In the library at Nippur 
the recently unearthed books of imperishable clay amount to 
100,000. My first paper on “ The Deluge ”’ was not published 
in the proceedings, because probably the Council concluded our 
clerical members may feel offended at accepted beliefs being 
questioned at all. There are two distinct accounts of the 
Noachian flood in the Babylonian records. The translation 
of the first tablet convinced me it was not ditucult to trace the 
origin of the early Bible tales to Chaldean myths. The writer 
subsequently ascertained this was also the belief of several 
bishops and leading clergymen in the church of England, as 
can be easily proved. Surely the Jewish Rabbis ought to be 
credited with knowing more about their national sacred writ- 
ings that men whose statements cannot be reconciled with the 
laws accepted by science or even with historical facts. The 
Greek version of the Old Testament differs from the Hebrew, 
they say, inserting, omitting and altering, and even the Hebrew 
version itself (we are told) contains books which are rejected 
by Hebrew’commentators. In a letter which I recently ex- 
tracted from the Weekly London Times, written by one who 
signs himself “Another Presbyter,’ I find the following: 
“They (the liberal broad church clergy) apparently feel that 
the Church of England cannot hope to retain its hold on the 
intellect of the country if its clergy are expected to hold opin- 
ions which have long since been abandoned by the great mass 
of the educated laity.” ‘This section of the Anglican church, 
less in numbers than the other branches, known as “high” or 
“low churches’ with such names as Deans Stanley and Far- 
rat, Maurice, Charles Kingsley, the late Lord Tennyson, intel- 
lectually towers above both (its bitter assailants). We hold 
(the writer above states) that the general assent to the contents 
of the prayer book and articles cannot be held to imply an ac- 
ceptance of every doctrine or every statement of historical 
facts contained therein in the sense which it was originally in- 
tended to bear. 
