Assyrian Discoveries.

the exhumed Assyrian annals to the tune of Abraham . What , then , is the definite result as to Scri pture history ? Certainly there is not an incident touched on from primaeval chaos to the call of Abraham Avhich is not illustrated and confirmed by tlie utterances of a' language which speaks again after a silence of four thousand years , though we have only just begun to gather a fe \ v fragments from its storehouses . The ingenuity of a destructive criticism can avail nothing against this . Subtle intellects

have endeavoured to evolve from their inner consciousness the theory of differing Jehovistic and Elohistic ori ginals put together in later ages to form the early chapters of Genesis , ancl shallow copyists have assumed this as an accepted axiom of scholarship . But historical facts dissipate philological hypotheses . The cylinders of Assyria expand in the same series the so-called Jehovistic and Elohistic portions alike . We have been told that the Pentateuchin its present shapewas compiled bSamuelbthe later

, , y , y Seers , or by Ezra . But now it is no longer possible to suggest any origin later than the date of the Exodus for the history of Genesis , for to the Jews of the later period of Samuel the records of Assyria were inaccessible , ancl the structure of the language of Genesis is too archaic to be postponed to the period of the Captivity . We have been told that Genesis i-ii ., 3 , is a fragment of an old Elohistic document , but Genesis ii . i—hi ., a -Jehovistic later document . The story of the Elood is Elohistic , that of the

dispersion of Babel is Jehovistic . Can the champions of this subjective criticism explain on their hypothesis of the double authorship how Ave find the Elohistic and Jehovistic portions alike successively embodied in the series of Assyrian records ? This simple fact brushes away a whole cloud of flimsy cobwebs laboriously woven to raise man ' s uncertainties above God ' s certainty . Amid the controA'ersies on the ori gin ancl meaning of the Sabbathwe now know that it was no Mosaic inventionno exclusivelSemitic

, , y observance , not even an ordinance delivered to Abraham to separate his family from surrounding idolatry , but a primasval tradition , recognized , be it noted , by the Hamite contemporaries of Nimrod , as instituted from the Creation . "We have thus another definite result that evidence is afforded that the Sabbath was

recognised as a Divine institution before the separation of the Hamite ancl Semitic families of man , ancl that the obligation of its observance AA'as acknoAvledged by both families . The Assyrian records prove to us that the pre-Abrahamic history Avas not a Adsion , revealing to Moses facts of Avhich he was heretofore ignorant , but a simple monotheistic relation of a continuous story of the earth ancl of man ' s origin , which in a corrupted form had actually at that time long existed in AA'riting . Again , these are not

Semitic traditions . They did not belong to the family of Abraham exclusively , but are shown to be in then * oldest hitherto discovered form , Accadian—i . e ., Oushite , or Hamite , a further evidence that the priinan'al knoAA'ledge was not limited to the Semitic progenitors of Israel . Nor coidd the legends have percolated from Assyria to Palestine before the later clays of the monarchy . BetAA'een Chaldasa and Palestine was a AA'ide extent of country inhabited by very distinct and antagonistic nations , the Aramaian ancl

the Hittite , races Avliich have passed aAvay . Abraham must haA'e brought the . basis of the early history of Genesis from that cradle of literature—Ur of the Ohaldees , the City of Arioch . Ancl I take it- that the reasonable view of inspiration is not fbat God dictated each word to Moses , but that the writer Avas supernatiirally guided to indite that alone Avhich was historic truth . But did a monotheistic Avriter simply take the legend ancl eliminate the polytheistic portions ? No ; for the variations between the accounts shoAV that though

they may be derived from a common origin , they are certainly not derived the one from the other . What then Avas the common origin of the Hamite or Accadian cylinders , and of the Mosaic history ? There surely can be none later than the accounts imparted by the common father of Shem , Ham , ancl Japhefc before the dispersion of mankind , these accounts may have been oral , they may even Lave been written , for the perfection to Avhich the art of inscribing had arrrred after Nimrod well lead to believe

so soon may ns that it AVUS an art transmitted from across tlie Avaters of the deluge . Are the great events alike recorded in both histories to be accepted as historical facts , or are Ave , at no bidding of those who would reject all , because of the marvellous element interwoven , 0 helieA'e that tho compilers intended , by the early story of mankind , to give us figurative