263 
Sea. But the more this subject is pursued the more the evidence accumu- 
lates, and the more we shall find that the foundations of Divine truth are 
stable and indestructible. (Cheers.) 
Eev. H. Moule. — I beg to express my grateful acknowledgments to Mr. 
Titcomb for the valuable testimony brought together in his paper in con- 
firmation of the truth of the Pentateuch. At the very commencement of 
our proceedings, I stated more than once to our late lamented Honorary 
Secretary my conviction that something of this kind would be found needful. 
We must show, as in countless instances we can, not only that the facts 
of science and of history are not opposed to the facts and truths recorded in 
Scripture, but that they tend, when both are rightly understood, greatly to 
confirm them. At the same time, while long accustomed to investigate such 
subjects with thorough independence of mind, I have increasingly felt the need 
of caution, especially when one’s information is to be derived either from the 
hieroglyphic language of Ancient Egypt, or from the complicated and dif- 
ficult language of China. Under this feeling and for two reasons which I 
will adduce, I hesitate to accept the correctness of so apparently precise a 
statement from the book Liki, that u all these evils ” (of a deluge) “ arose 
from man’s despising the Supreme Monarch of the Universe.” First, in the 
writings of Confucius, scarcely any trace can be found of the idea of a per- 
sonal God, “ a Supreme Monarch of the Universe.” Secondly, there is a 
remarkable inscription on the monastic buildings of the Roman Catholics, in 
the city of Hangchow, and set up by an Emperor, who for a time forcibly 
took possession of those buildings and dedicated them as a Palace of the 
Queen of Heaven ; in which inscription, when setting the Chinese reli- 
gion in contrast to the Roman Catholic faith, he distinctly asserts that in 
that religion there is no idea of a personal God.* In referring to the monu- 
* Since the discussion, I have referred to that which I consider the 
best existing authority on such a subject, the translation of the Chinese 
Classics with notes and prolegomena, by James Legge, D.D., of the London 
Missionary Society ; and there I find not only support of the view which 
I have taken, but such strong confirmation of Mr. Titcomb’s general 
statement of the testimony from China that I must ask leave here to 
reproduce it. He first gives Dr. Morrison’s general statement that in the 
Shoo-king, “ after a fanciful account of the creation, there follows a period of 
Chinese civilization when Fuh-se’s successors introduced marriage, govern- 
ment, working in metals, the use of musical instruments, and characters for 
the division of time. The profligacy and misrule of Te-chih is noticed, and 
then follow’s Yaon’s deluge.” ... He then gives some remarks of Dr. Med- 
hurst’s, on that which the latter styles the traditionary period of Chinese 
history. — “ While we might be unwilling to give full credit to what Chinese 
writers say of the events of this period, it is not improbable that much of it 
is drawn from the correct account of the antediluvian period handed down 
by Noah to his posterity. The coincidence of the generations having passed 
away, the institution of marriage, the invention of music, the rebellion of a 
portion of the race, and the confused mixture of the divine and human 
families closed by the occurrence of the flood in the time of Yaon might lead 
