A Defence Of Archaeology.

You will thus be brought into sympathy with great men , and into synchronism with great events , and will drink in a refreshing draught of that generous spirit which the study of archaeology freely ministers , and which , if we are not wanting to ourselves , will make us wiser and better men . We might , if time alloAved , dwell on that consolatory influence which this study exercises in times of sorrow . It was said by the greatest critic or

antiquity that tragedy has a purifying power , becanse it displays noble examples of suffering . There is also a tragedy of events and places connected with great events , and this has a purifying , elevating , and soothing influence . When we contemplate the desolation ancl ruins of ancient buildings ancl cities , of palaces , churches , abbeys , and castles , we forget our private griefs in a feeling of sympathy with public sorroAVS . I have referred to an antiquarian

picture drawn b y the hand of Cicero ; may I refer to an antiquarian sketch , by means of which one of his friends , Sulpitius , consoled him in the bitterness of his private affliction , the death of his onl y and dearly beloved daughter . " On my return from Asia , " he writes , " I Avas sailing from iEgina to Megara , and I then saw the ruins of cities formerl y famous , but IIOAV desolate . Behind me was JEginain front Megaraon my riht Peiraeusthe harbour of Athenson

, , g , , the left Corinth , all once prosperous , but now dead and buried . Why ( he adds ) should we grieve so much for our own private losses , when cities themselves are tombs ? " To a Christian this question comes with greater force , for there is a promise of a glorious and eternal future for our children aud friends , but there is no such resurrection for cities .

_ And here , before I conclude , may I be allowed to say a few words on the spiritual uses of archaeology ? One of the most instructive revelations which this study presents to us is that of the deep feeling of religion which animated the greatest nations of antiquity in their most heroic days , ancl which showed itself not only in their cities at home , but ivherever they planted colonies abroad . Let anyone stand in the solitary 2 nain at Paestum , or on the hilly rid

ge of the Sicilian Girgenti—the ancient Agrigentum—and contemplate the group of magnificent temples on both those sites , or in the sequestered vale of Segesta , and look on that noble reli gious fabric standing there in its lonely grandeur , or on the huge columns of Selinus thrown prostrate by an earthquake ; or let him stand on the Areopagus at Athens ancl look at the Erechtheum and Parthenon towering above him—and let him remember that all these

grand buildings ivere works of religion , not , indeed , rightly directed , but grounded on a belief in unseen heavenly powers controlling human affairs , and in a future state of rewards and punishments ; and let him consider also that those Avho erected those noble public religious buildings cared little for their o-wn private houses , which were comparatively mean and insignificant , and he will feel himself constrained to ask whether Ave not learn some lessons of

may reli gious zeal and self-sacrifice , especially in this sceptical age , from heathens themselves . The first thing that some of them did in planting a colony was to build a magnificent temple . Where are our own cathedrals erected b y England in her colonies ?

One topic more . We may claim also for archaeology the honour of illustrating the inspired text of Holy Scripture and confirming the truth of Revelation . The researches of Rosellini and Sir Gardiner Wilkinson in Egypt have refuted the allegations of certain sceptics , ancl have corroborated the Mosaic narrative . The cuneiform inscriptions of Nineveh have proved that Samaria ivas not taken by Shalmanezer—as some had supposed , but as the Bible nowhere

asserts—but by Sargon , once mentioned by Isaiah , whose history they have revealed . And they have shed a flood of li ght on Hebrew prophecy . Archoeolegical researches at Bab ylon have brought to lig ht Nebuchadnezzar ' s own account of his magnificent works in which he gloried , and have explained to us ivh y Belshazzar is represented by Daniel as chief in power at Babylon when taken b y Cyrus . Similar contributions have been