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RIGHT REV. THE BISHOP OF DOWN^ B.D., ON 



largely owing to their ignorance of modern science. It is with 

 mingled feelings of regret and satisfaction that I wish to draw 

 attention to the mistake of regarding Bergson as a pioneer in the 

 views he has given us upon life. These so-called new views have 

 long since been contributed to the Victoria Institute by the late 

 Professor Beale, and, as regards life's relations to free-will, are 

 fully expounded in several of my own works. In short, Bergson 

 does not here contribute one original thought, but, as 1 have 

 pointed out to Mr. Balfour, lays himself open to having drawn 

 heavily upon others without any acknowledgment. 



Upon the ever burning question of Biblical Criticism I could 

 wish that his Lordship had been more explicit. The critics con- 

 tinually declare that archaeology, " the discoveries of the spade,'^ 

 make no difference whatever to their views — they show no tendency 

 whatever to restore anything The fact is, all their views have 

 been framed without regard to the principles of right evidence or 

 right reason or anything in the shape of any true science, and there- 

 fore they can still hold them in the face of the most convincing 

 facts to the contrary. 



We have before us at this present time an object lesson pointing 

 to the entire truth of what I have just said. The Times has been 

 reporting the lecture of the Eev. J. M. Thompson, Dean of 

 Divinity, Magdalen College, Oxford, in which he rejects the 

 Virgin Birth and Resurrection of our Lord. The late Professor 

 Huxley said that from the standpoint of modern science the 

 doctrine of the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection presented no 

 difficulties to him. Men of science have generally followed Huxley's 

 pronouncement. But here is a theologian almost absolutely 

 ignorant of modern science, with a leading College of Oxford at 

 his back, parading his difficulties and rejecting these doctrines, 

 through sheer ignorance of the subject itself. 



Mr. Rouse said: When, by diligent excavations and careful 

 decipherments, archaeologists have proved that in the earliest 

 dynasties of Egypt, Babylonia or Elam, men were already skilled 

 artists and builders, wrote inscripticms or books with an elaborate 

 alphabet, and gave other signs of a high civilization, one would 

 expect thoughtful men to conclude that, since the Bible was correct 

 in its description of men and manners at that early epoch, it was in 

 all likelihood correct in its account of the first building of Babel 



