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who believes those things ; but, on the other hand, who do not believe the 
exact contrary. 
And now let me state why we have these strong convictions. I desire to 
start from some facts and some data familiar to us both, both to you and to 
me. I have addressed various and varied audiences in my time, but never 
before a body of clergy like that before me. I will therefore deal with the 
subject in your own familiar method. I will take a text, and give you a 
scientific exegesis drawn from the text. 
I will select a passage from the 41st chapter of Genesis, connected with 
the touching story familiar to us all — the history of Joseph and his brethren. 
We read in it “that Pharaoh took off his ring and put.it upon Joseph’s 
hand, and put on him a gold chain, and made him to ride in the second 
chariot that he had.”— Now, I ask you to depict to yourselves that 
marvellous valley of the Nile where these events took place 1800 b.c. No 
doubt the passage is historical, that is to say, that the Pharaoh therein 
spoken of, who had at his disposition so great wealth, and who was master of 
the civilization of the world at that time, thought fit to elevate one of his 
slaves, invest him with symbols of authority, and made him to ride in the 
second chariot of the land— placed him in position, power, and authority 
next to himself. These things indicate great advances in civilization, and 
refinement, and luxury. Certain monuments of that era show horse-chariots 
sculptured upon them, as in Joseph’s time, when there must have been a 
great civilization. Before that, there existed a people highly civilized, but 
with whom are no traces of chariots or domestic horses. Thus we suppose a 
great interval elapsed. Now, when we examine the records of the past era, 
more than two thousand years before the Christian epoch, we^ find at 
Memphis, in the oldest pyramids, records indicating the high cultivation 
which existed then, as now, by the overflow of the Nile, and the fertility and 
produce consequent upon that. These monuments, built on the site of the 
great valley of the Nile, fertilized then, as now, by the deposits left by that 
overflow of the mud which became the source and cause of the land’s fertility 
and produce — these monuments evidently existed after this great deposit of 
mud upon which they stand ; and what is this Egyptian mud ? Herodotus 
asked this question five centuries before the Christian era. He said, this 
Nile valley, lying between great ridges of rocks, and becoming a huge 
receptacle for never-ceasing deposits of fertilizing mud, — this Nile valley, 
says Herodotus, was once a great arm of the sea, filled up in the process of 
time by mud brought down by the Nile. This great Nile valley, 1,200 miles 
long, filled up by mud forced down the Nile. And unless you are prepared 
to deny this condition of things, that in the time of J oseph and long before 
this Nile valley must have been essentially what it is now, ask yourselves 
what period of time this process of filling up this huge arm of the sea must 
have taken. 
Various estimates have been made as to the quantity of mud which is 
brought down year by year. I will rather understate than overstate the 
results. The general estimate of the process of filling gives five inches in a 
century. This, no doubt, is a correct estimate, but let us take the quantity 
to be twelve inches, or one foot every century, so that there may be no room 
for cavil. Borings were made in the Nile valley for this purpose, and it was 
found that in the valley of the Nile we could bore to seventy feet through 
Nile mud. Seventy feet, at one foot for every one hundred years, gives at 
once seven thousand years, a longer period than has elapsed, according to 
the received opinion, since the creation of the world. 
I come to the next point. The valley of the Nile, as stated by Herodotus, 
is enclosed by high rocky mountains, a long narrow valley, with great cliffs 
on each side. Now, in these rocks or cliffs Herodotus and Strabo both 
noted organic bodies, called by them, from their resemblance to a piece of 
