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first from the embers of an "older mental activity” exhausted 
(as the Professor goes on to say) by this creation of myths, is 
surely the most unlikely thing imaginable in itself, and con- 
trary to what we find in the dedications, prayers, and hymns 
of earliest date, both in Chaldsea and Egypt. If our author 
denounces as inhuman, and therefoi’e monstrous in itself, the 
opinion of Renan that “ the Semites never had a mythology,” 
surely we may, on similar ground, repudiate the dogma that 
all mankind were destitute of religion until in the course of 
ages they produced it for themselves. 
Again, the life of Abraham is a vital part of that unique, 
coherent, and divine development which St. Paul calls “ the 
purpose of the ages” (Eph. iii. 11), whereby the book of 
Genesis is intelligibly correlated with the Apocalypse through 
all the intermediate range of that sacred literature. I appeal 
to sound historical criticism, to sober psychology, to pure 
religion ; and trust that we may this evening see how consonant 
these are with a straightforward belief in the record as it 
stands.* 
T HE internal coincidences of the Old Testament have been 
well developed by the late Professor Blunt and later 
writers, and we may be thankful that the very absence of 
external evidence of an historical kind enforced this delicate 
and sagacious line of proof. 
2. The researches of later years, however, call us to the study 
of extraneous records, where we find much in the shape of 
actual parallel evidence, but far more in the scarcely less 
valuable form of historical illustration, Avhereby we may re- 
present to ourselves the conditions under which the worthies 
of the former covenant fulfilled their course. 
3. Every day is adding to the mass and value of this kind of 
testimony, and to the number of its students. 
4. While the few eminent scholars are engaged in their 
arduous task of original research, it may be permitted to 
ordinary students of history to utilize the data thus bestowed 
on them. 
5. With such an aim your attention is now entreated to a 
few points of illustration by which the life of Abraham may be 
the better appreciated. 
* In the notes the initials T. S. B. A. signify “ Trans, of Soc. of Biblical 
Archaeology”; P. E. F., “Statements of Palestine Exploration Fund.” The 
word Records refers to “ Records of the Past ” ; Her. to “ Rawlinson’s 
Herodotus, ed. 1S62; Anc. M. to “Ancient Monarchies,” ed. 1871. 
VOL. XII. I 
