would
be more dense than the population of the agricultural region of England,
where there is no danger of wild beasts multiplying.

But the objection is again based on a blunder, and a garbling of the
text of Scripture. Had the bishop done himself and his readers the
justice to complete the passage which he has half cited, by inserting
the next two verses, he could have read verse thirty-one: "And I will
set thy bounds from the Red Sea even to the Sea of the Philistines, and
from the desert unto the river," _i. e._, the Euphrates, as other
passages show, Genesis xv. 18. That is to say, a territory five hundred
miles long by one hundred miles broad, or fifty thousand square miles,
was to be occupied by two millions of people. That is about the present
population, and all travelers testify that three-fourths of it lies
desolate. Prof. Porter saw seventy deserted towns and villages in Bashan
alone. But for the rifle and gunpowder the wild beasts would now
overpower the inhabitants.

By a wonderful providence, contemporaneously with these attacks, the
Lord has raised up an army of scholars, travelers, and archaeologists,
whose explorations illustrate the Bible in a remarkable manner, throwing
new light upon its history, poetry, and prophecy. It is refreshing to
turn from the cavils of ignorant criticism to the clear light of
discovered facts and imperishable monuments.

The Bible history has recently received a wonderful amount of
illustration and confirmation from the researches of scholars and
discoverers amid the ruins of Egypt, Persia, and Assyria; completely
exploding the theory that this history was a comparatively recent
composition, written long after the events which it records, and
betraying its want of genuineness by the anachronisms and errors of
description of historical and natural events with which it abounds.
Wherever it differed from the statements of any Greek, or other heathen
historian, it was forthwith alleged that Moses was wrong, and the
profane author was right; and for a long time nobody could bring any
evidence on the other side, because there were no contemporary records;
the oldest heathen historian being a thousand years later than Moses.
But by some strange inspiration, the Lord set a multitude of explorers
to work upon the monuments of Egypt, deciphering the hieroglyphics which
had so long puzzled the world, digging into the mounds which had for
centuries covered the ruined palaces and cit