365 
41 . Thus, I venture to assert, it has been shown, upon 
abundant and impregnable evidence, that the facts that the 
children of Israel amounted to hundreds of thousands at the 
time of the Exodus ; that these were the increase of Jacobis 
household ; and that the increase mainly occurred while they 
were in Egypt; are no excrescences casually affixed to the 
Sacred History, but integral and inseparable parts thereof, 
and must of necessity stand or fall with it. If the number is 
false, it is wilfully, consciously, false ; and the whole narrative 
is false, — “ unhistoric," to use Dr. Colenso's euphemism; 
because in every page it either asserts or assumes this 
numerical condition. 
42. If, then, the increase which the historian uniformly 
presents was in the highest degree probable, on the data 
which he also furnishes, viz. the covenant engagement of One 
who could not lie and could not fail, — the whole ground is cut 
from beneath our opponents' feet ; and it seems almost an 
idle work of supererogation to show that the actual increase 
of the race within the given period was, after all, nothing so 
far exceeding ordinary providential supervision as to call for 
incredulousness, or even for wonder. The true wonder is that 
the Blessed God should condescend to take such interest in 
man. 
43. Professor Bawlinson (“ Aids to Faith," 280) cites the 
recorded fact that Jacob brought into Egypt fifty-one grand- 
sons;; and observes that “ if, under the special blessing of God 
so repeatedly promised to Abraham, his male descendants had 
continued to increase at the same rate, they would long 
within the specified period have reached the required number." 
In a note, he adds : — “ The average increase of the males in 
the two generations had been more than sevenfold each gene- 
ration. A sevenfold increase would have given 857,157 males 
in the fifth generation, and 6,000,099 in the sixth." 
44. It will, perhaps, be said that these computations are so 
old and stale that they ought not to be reproduced at this 
stage of the controversy. The true question is not, are they 
old, but, have they been answered? I have met with no 
answer to them. Dr. Thornton, indeed (§ 12), by a compu- 
tation somewhat similar — viz,, seventy men to begin, rearing 
e f, ll 1n man m thirty-five years five sons ; and then at the end 
of Ll 0 years by uniting together the half of each of the last two 
men capable of arms— brings out a result 
ot 000,250. I his he allows will meet the requirements of the 
text ; but he refuses it as improbable. 
45. The grounds lie adduces for this conclusion are the 
iollowing : 1 . So large a number could not have dwelt in all 
