615th OKDINAEY GENEKAL MEETING, 



HELD IN COMMITTEE ROOM B, THE CENTRAL HALL, 

 WESTMINSTER, S.W., ON MONDAY, FEBRUARY 16th, 1920, 



AT 4.30 P.M. 



Professor H. Langhokne Orchard, M.A., B.Sc, in the Chair. 



The Minutes of the previous Meeting were read, confirmed and signed 

 and the Hon. Secretary announced the Election of the following Members 

 and Associates : 



Members. — Miss M. Mackinlay, Miss L. M. Mackinlay, Miss K. M. 

 Cor deux. 



Associates. — ^Mrs. H. Ellis Dobson, Mrs. Spackman, Lt.-Col. A. S. 

 Roberts, W. E. Leslie, Esq., Ernest A. Dubois, Esq. 



Life Associate. — Miss F. E. A. Parker, F.R.M.S. 



THE SILENCES OF SCRIPTURE. 



By the Rev. A. H. Finn. 



rilHE Bible narratives are so vivid and often so full of 

 JL minute detail that it is easy to gain the impression — 

 and many seem to think — that we have a complete 

 account of the whole period embraced. It is only on more 

 attentive consideration that we reahze how very much there is 

 that is not told us. 



There are long periods of which we know practically nothing. 

 The 2000 years between Adam and Abraham are only broken 

 by the narratives of the Deluge and the Tower of Babel ; from 

 the migration of Jacob's family down to the beginning of the 

 Egyptian oppression, about 150 years, only two events — the 

 deaths of Jacob and Joseph — are recorded; between the Old 

 and New Testaments there is a lapse of four centuries only partly 

 filled in by the Apocrypha and Josephus. 



Even where the history does give us some records, closer 

 examination shows them to be very fragmentary. The period 

 of the Judges gives us a few remarkable names and incidents, 

 but the greater part of the life of the nation is untouched ; 

 from the death of Solomon to the destruction of the Temple, 

 we have little beyond the succession of kings, and even of these 

 we have but few details in most cases ; the activities of Ezra 



