The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1892-05-13

visit Solomon, was preceded by ayetmore
powerful kingdom, that of Main. The
capital of the kingdom was in the ex-
IRENE south of the Abraham peninsula,
but its kings held sway as far north as
the borders of Edom and Egypt, and
even to the city of GAIA. Its people
were highly cultivated and have left be-
hind them Inscriptions carved on the
rocks both in the south and in the north
of Arabia. Here then we have popula-
ton, allied in blood and language tn the
Israelites, and extending so far as that
very desert in which the Israelites wan
dered for so many years, who had prac-
ticed the art of alphabetic writing from
very early period. If the Arabs of
Main could write and read, why could
not the Israelites have done the same?
But archaeological research has afford
ed us the means of proving in certain
instances that the narratives we possess
in the earlier portion of the bible are
historical, and must therefore have been
derived from credible sources. The
account of the campaign of Chedorlao-
mer and his Babylonian allies against
Palestine has been condemned as unhis-
torical by the "higher critics." 1t has
been urged that a campaign against so
distant country as Palestine could not
have been made by an Elamite king at so
early period, and that it would have
been impossible at such time to retain
a distant dependency under tribute for
thirteen years. 1t has been questioned
whether even the existence of Palestine
could have been known to the Babylon
ians at so early a date. And yet inscrip-
tions have now proved that it was the
critic, and not the bibeical writer who
was mistaken, and that not only was
Palestine well known to the BabylOnians
IN the time of Abraham, but that expe-
ditions had been conducted against it by
Babylonian MOnarchs centuries before
his age. Sargon of Accad, whose reign
was assigned to B. c. $500 by the native
annalists, had already marched his army
into Syria and Palestine on four separate
occasions, and on the fourth occasion
had erected images of himself on the
shore of the Mediterranean, and had
spent three years in conquering the coun-
tries of the west and consolidating them
into a single empire.
A later king of Babylonia calls him
self liking" of Syria and Palestine, and
in the time of Abraham we find the
Elamite Kudar-Inabug described by his
son Eriaku as Father" of the same
regions. Eriaku was king of Larsa, and
it is therefore tempting to see in him
the Ariech of El-lasar mentioned in the
book of Genesis, more especially as
Babylonia was at the time under the
sovereignty of Elan, while another king
was reigning in the south of the country,
which was called Sumer in the inscrip-
tons and Shinar in the Old Testament,
the tablets of Tel-el Amarna again indi-
cate how long and penetrating the do
minion and influence of Babylonia must
have been in the west In no other way
can we explain the fact that the language
and writing of Babylonia were spread
throughout western Asia, and that even
the gods of Palestine were assimilated to
those of the Chaldeans. Thus the vassal-
king of Jerusalem in one of his letters to
his Egyptian masters identifies the god
of the city with the Babylonia deity
Uras. In other tablets from Tel-el-
Amarna reference is explicitly made to
the western "conquests" of Babylonia
and Aram-Naharaim
OF course we must not conclude that
the work of the Higher Criticism" has
been altogether barren of results. On
the contrary it has elucidated points
which have previously been neglected
and has caused the text of the Old Test
ament to be infinitely examined in way
which cannot but be helpful to the cause
of truth. Doubtless there is a portion
of its work which will prove to be per-
manent acquisition to science. But it has
been disfgured by spirit of arrogance
and skepticism, and disposition to
prefer the conclusions of the student in
his library to the solid facts of archaG-
logical research. The critic forgot that
as long as the Old Testament and the
history embodied remained isolated and
solitary, the last relic of literature
which seemed elsewhere to have persisted,
it was what the logicians would call a
''single instance" and that from a
''single instance" no congratulations of
any scientific value can be drawn. To
day the case is different; the past has
yielded up its dead, and the contem-
poraries of the writers and heroes of the
Old Testament are speaking to us once
more in living tones. And the witness
they bear is clear and unmistakable to
the antiquity of writing in the ancient
world and the substantial accuracy of
the historical statements of Holy
Scripture. Prof A. II. Sdyce, L. L. D.,
Of oxford University, England.
MY HEAD WAS FAIRLY ROTTEN,
And how much l suffered it is hard to
describe. That lOathsome disease, ca
tarrh, caused the above, and the doctors
said they could not relieve me. | paid