and Rawlinson, strengthened by their researches in ancient Nineveh, were once tempted to risk some reputation in a Christian country, and said that "the prophecies of Daniel were undoubtedly written after the events to which they refer had taken place, and that the whole of this book is probably nothing but a political satire!" This, though suppressed by Layard in his work, has been communicated to the London Asiatic Society, by Major Rawlinson, and will probably soon appear in its published transactions.

"In one of the works upon Egyptian Hieroglyphics recently published in Germany, which has come under our notice, is a table of Commandments copied from an inscription of the date of one of the elder Pharaohs. These are more in number than the Jewish Decalogue, but some six or eight of them are the same." But we believe that these renowned travelers have never published the facts under their own names, because, doubtless, they know that their books were printed and published for Christians.

Authors of Biblical Contradictions.

LXXXIX. QUESTION: "Do you not know that an exegetical volume appears in the English catalogues, entitled 'Bible Reconciler Enlarged; wherein above three thousand SEEMING contradictions throughout the Old and New Testament are fully and plainly RECONCILED. Small folio, London, 1662.' In your hostility to the Book of Books, you might have saved yourself some trouble and perhaps learned some things never dreamed of in your philosophy, had you taken the pains to import a copy of the foregoing old book before issuing your pseudo "Contradictions.

ANSWER: We thank our interrogator for his expressions of vital interest in the health and prosperity of the Book, and more especially for his patent medicine adapted to the removal of the discrepancies of the Old and New Testaments. All persons, then, who are so extremely miseducated as to believe that there are 144 unreconcilable Contra

dictions in the Book, may seek to be perfectly cured of their intellectual malady by reading somebody's "Bible Reconciler Enlarged!" Our readers will certainly' thank the interrogator for the information necessary to a correct understanding of how "twice two are seven," and how to comprehend the seeming absurdity that "twice seven are two," or how two exactly opposite accounts of one event may be equally true and infallible.

It seems to us to be quite in keeping with the demands of truth, to say that we are not the author of the "One Hundred and Forty-four Contradictions of the Bible."* Many intelligent and loved persons have charged upon us the fearful responsibility of being the compiler. An explanation is therefore demanded, which we give in justice to the startling pamphlet in question. Be it therefore known that the author or authors of the "Self-Contradictions of the Bible" do not reside within twenty thousand miles of this metropolis; that we do not know who did authorize and cause to be written the Contradictions aforesaid; but it is our best knowledge and belief that they were authorized many centuries ago, and were written out in Hebrew and Greek by the several unknown authors and compilers of the curious combinations of Book of Books called the Bible," all which we beg leave respectfully to submit to the world's candid consideration. Reader, undeceive thyself! Do you allow yourself to suppose that the world is destitute of God's greatest gift to manImmortal Reason? Do you imagine that error, mythology, priesteraft, and superstition, are more lasting than mankind? Which will first decay and disappear-men or books? Make the Bible a record of ancient spiritual

*This is the title of a small pamphlet published for the compiler and for sale at the office of the "HERALD OF PROGRESS."

experiences-having authority only when its statements are corroborated by modern discoveries in Life and Scienceand the "Book" becomes at once one of the best Spiritual volumes in the world. As an authority, per se, it is worthless.

The Age of the Human Race.

XC.-QUESTION: "If convenient, will you please state where and what is the clearest evidence that men existed on this earth previous to those of the Mosaic account?”

ANSWER: If our interrogator had asked: "Where and what is the clearest evidence that the earth, our planet, is more than 6000 years old?" we should have an easy task in accumulating most unanswerable evidences. We could adduce many simple proofs that the globe is a very ancient institution like every other orb in this part of the atmospheric universe. But his laconic question, which refers so explicitly and exclusively to the age of the race of man, gives us not a little labor-more especially because our individual clairvoyant testimony, however truthful in itself, passes as yet for naught among the skeptical in the world of science and creeds. Hence, as Hence, as our interrogator no doubt well comprehends, we must attend to the evidence in a manner quite external. Two things, to begin with, should be borne in mind: first, the exceeding poverty of all external history of man's earliest existence on earth; and, second, the fact that the essential discoveries in Oriental lands have been either modified to meet the Mosaic record, or suppressed altogether by Christian publishers; so that, from an outside standpoint, it is next to impossible for the genuine investigator to get access to the absolute facts. Several important admissions, however, have been squeezed through the crowd of religious prejudices, a few of which we herewith present.

To the question: "What evidence that man existed anterior to the Mosaic date?" we answer:

First, Hierologists, although looking through theological spectacles, have, notwithstanding, interrogated the pyramids and obelisks of Egypt to some purpose. The records and statistics of those insensate monuments have forced certain historians to reject the Mosaic time-table, and to reconstruct the world's chronology. (See Gliddon's volume entitled "Ancient Egypt.") The chronology and historical statements of Manetho are confirmed by the translated hieroglyphical writings of Ancient Egypt. And Manetho's history reports three hundred and seventy-eight kings from the reign of Menes this way. All these kings were of Egyptian origin, and they reigned successively in an unbroken line of government, on the wondrous throne of dim and distant Egypt.

The study and revelations of the symbols of Egypt's monuments, remember, taken in connection with the plainest translations of the hieroglyphics, confirm and establish this most ancient record of Manetho.

And what does that record teach? It teaches that Menes was successor of all the interminable kings above mentioned; and further, that the time when Menes ascended the throne extends to an obscure period-five thousand and seven hundred years before the commencement of the Christian Era! When Menes began to rule in Egypt, the civilization of the people was indicative of a very remote origin.

Thus Egyptian chronology, established by Gliddon and not contradicted by others, carries the history of man 2000 years back of the Mosaic account-or nearly eight thousand years anterior to the present 1862.

Archæologists and hierologists, with any considerable information, do not conflict with the history of Manetho.

(See John Lamb's "Hebrew Characters derived from Hieroglyphics," published in London, 1836. Also, Prichard's "Egyptian Mythology," Gliddon's "Ancient Egypt," &c., &c.)

Geologists and fossil-diggers cannot as yet contribute any very indubitable evidences on this head, but what they have given is incontrovertible, and directly to the point under examination.

Human bones of the North American Indian type have been exhumed from the Delta of the Mississippi--the well named "Father of Waters "--whose tides have flowed, (according to recent discoveries,) more than one hundred thousand years. Away down below the level of the fourth forestial deposit, those human bones were found, giving the unavoidable inference that they must have reposed there fully forty thousand years!

There are several incidental items in the works of Humboldt which bear directly and favorably upon the question of man's extreme antiquity. Indeed, nearly every archæologist and Oriental traveler report the exhumation of relics establishing a very ancient civilization.

Prof. Agassiz, speaking of human remains found in the limestone of Florida, says: "There still remain ten thousand years, during which the mainland was inhabited by man." (See "Types of Mankind," p. 352, et seq.) The researches of Stevens in Central America, and those of Layard and Rawlinson in the Orient not less, furnish data against the chronology of Moses. Learned Chinese declare that they have a catalogue of kings, emperors, teachers, &c., whose combined ages extend backward over forty thousand years. Positive historical evidences are not numerous, but of the inferential sort their name is legion. But there are no facts to support the Mosaic record.