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invite us to hear a statement with which we are all familiar ? If, on 
the other hand, Mr. Howard had human testimony to rely upon, apart from 
the Scripture, why was it not given ? I honour Mr. Howard for his great 
abilities and for the noble use he makes of them to defend revealed religion, 
but I am bound to protest against what I consider irrelevant conclusions, 
for their effect upon me is something like the waving of a red flag before 
the eyes of the traditional bull. 
Mr. F. A. Allen. — I have been very much interested in Mr. Howard’s 
paper, but should like to make a few remarks upon it. In his 20th para- 
graph, Mr. Howard refers the existence of Palaeolithic man (whom he calls 
cannibals !) to antediluvian times. Does he believe that such a cataclysm 
as the Flood would have left the kitchen-middens and bone-caverns undis- 
turbed ? Was not the antediluvian world the source, not of barbarism, 
but of all the civilization and culture of Assyria, Egypt, Greece, and Rome ? 
Mr. Howard also suggests that iron was called “ heavenly iron,” because 
it reflected the celestial vault. 
Mr. Howard. — That is a quotation from M. Chabas. 
Mr. Allen. — It is much more likely to have been so named from the 
first iron having been discovered in meteorolites or aerolites which may have 
been seen .to fall from the sky. 
Rev. Canon Titcomb. — I was afraid, when I read the proof copy of the 
paper, that the discursive character of its illustrations would necessarily 
lead us into a variety of topics which would, more or less, detract from 
the unity of this great subject ; to my mind it is really a most interesting 
and important one. There are but two ways in which we can discuss it. 
The first is that of the worldly scientist, who disregards the Scriptures 
altogether, and, as a mere philosopher, is not to be blamed for viewing 
things as they are. He starts with the first dawn of history, looks into 
pre-historic times through archaeology and palaeontology, and then adduces 
such results as have been brought before him by discovery ; he tells us 
that aboriginal man was a wild savage, a cannibal ; not civilized by his 
Maker, but evolved from a lower animal ; having passed upwards, through 
successive stages of material and moral civilization, until he became 
at last a reasonable being. The other line is that which Mr. Howard 
and many others hold ; who start with the conviction that the Bible records 
the truth, and then go on through the evidences which it presents, until 
they come to external history. The question is whether these two modes of 
treatment are so far apart that we may not justify Scripture, and yet at the 
same time acknowledge some of the inferences of our other friends to bo 
correct. The observations of men who explore the early races of mankind 
through archieology and palaeontology, necessarily lead them to the 
earliest visible remains ; but that is in no way a proof that there was not a 
pre-existing race in some period of the earth of which no remains can be 
found, — I mean— the very race of which the Bible speaks in its earliest 
