147 
Conclusion, 
It is only due to my audience and to tMs vast and fertile 
subject that I should end as I began by craving your kind 
forbearance. 
There are some branches of the inquiry into Biblical names 
too sacred and dark with glory^ some too fresh and uncertain, 
some too old and familiar, to serve our purpose this evening. 
But within my old line of historic illustration I must affirm 
that to me there appears a coherency between the names, 
brought from quarters scattered and for all the intervening- 
ages forgotten and unexplored, and their position and surround- 
ings, in the Scripture narratives, or oracles, or poetry, which to 
an honest seeker after truth is confirmation strong,^^ and 
may well rank high as proof of holy writ."’^ It has been 
elaborately shown by the recent surveyors and explorers of 
Palestine, that the geographical and topographical names men- 
tioned in Egyptian and Assyrian monumental records, and in 
classic and rabbinic literature, and now found in the mouths of 
the fellahin, in numberless instances chime with the Bible 
story. 
If we have caught this evening startling glimpses of high 
places and chambers of imagery,^^ it is only what a 
thoughtful student of Scripture might expect ; and readers of 
Pleyte, Tiele, and similar writers, have seen the dark shadows 
cast in gigantic proportions. Out of how rough and deep a 
hole of a pit has our Eedeemer in all ages drawn the fair 
stones of His new Jerusalem ! How does the perverse mind 
of man forsake the living fountain, and hew out for itself 
broken cisterns. 
We would ^‘‘justify the ways of God to man.^^ We cannot 
justify the ways of man to God. 
APPENDIX. 
My best thanks are due for several kind contributions of notes and 
suggestions received since the above paper was printed. 
The Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells writes : — 
Very many thanks for your valuable, interesting, and suggestive paper. 
The animal names strike me as very interesting, and the argument from 
the agreement linguistic, moral, and religious, between the names and the 
surrounding circumstances of those who bore the names, is very cogent as 
unmistakable evidence of historical truth. As regards Caleb, to whom I 
see you refer at p. 15, I believe the discovery of his Edomitish ancestry 
L 2 ‘ 16 
