One of the objections urged against the reception of the Grand Gallery, as a symbol of the Christian dispensation, or the progress of mankind during the last eighteen centuries, is this-that if such were the intention, then some coincidence should have been apparent between the Ramp-holes, and important historical events, at the rate of an inch to a year. And the failure in detecting any such correspondence has been held to be fatal to that view of the subject.

Admitted the theory already set forth as to the Messianic character of the Passages and Grand Gallery, it seems to me that we have only to proceed in the same direction in order to obtain a suggestion as to the meaning of these hitherto uninterpreted features of the Great Pyramid.

If Messianic, then clearly it must relate principally to the dealings of the Almighty with His chosen people in reference to their promised restoration to His favour, and the fulfilment of the prophecies respecting that event, rather than to the world in general, which apparently, in the purposes of God's providence would seem to be divided only into three parts-the Hebrew race, the kingdoms represented by Nebuchadnezzar's image, and the rest of the nations of the world.

We have in Nebuchadnezzar's image the history prefigured of certain kingdoms of the world, from that time to the "time of the end," and repeated under different types in the seventh and subsequent chapters of Daniel; and I believe that none who have considered the subject have hesitated to accept the belief, that the present state of the kingdoms so symbolized are represented under the figure of the feet and toes of the image. And that the description given in the 2nd chapter of Daniel, ver. 3, "And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men, but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay," is a true description of the existing state of things among the nations, the representatives of the Roman Empire at the present day. It consisted with the dealings of the Almighty with His people Israel, to declare to them by His prophets the "woes" which should come upon certain nations which surrounded them, and which in His good providence had been the rods in His hands for chastising them for their obstinate rebellions, and forsaking Him. But beyond these special national prophecies there do not appear to be any others, from which we can even infer any special foreshadowings in relation to general historical events, even to those which might appear to us to be of peculiar importance. Jesus Christ Himself declared that the things which were highly esteemed among men were abomination in the sight of God, Luke xvi. 15, and there can be little doubt but the converse of this must be equally true, or that the things which in the estimation of the Almighty are of the greatest account are held in little consideration by the generality of mankind.

Now although it appears not to have been in accordance with the Divine will to declare beforehand anything relating to certain kingdoms of this world, beyond those things which were revealed to Daniel, yet He has been pleased to foreshow a number of events which were to happen during the present dispensation-events which have been proceeding, pari passu, with and have been worked out in the history of mankind since the birth of Jesus Christ, and which would seem to have been preparing the way for the re-establishment of the Hebrew people, "The Great Event" coincidently with the reign of Jesus Christ Himself to which the bulk of prophecy relates. In the sixth chapter of the Book of Revelations, Ist verse, St. John declares, that he heard the voice as of a trumpet talking with him, which said, "Come up hither, and I will show thee things which must be hereafter."

The events which he records related to God's dealings with man, still apparently confined to those nations represented by Nebuchadnezzar's image, and are typified under the four symbols of Seals, Trumpets, Thunders, and Vials. And under each symbol were arranged seven events. I cannot but think that in the Grand Gallery and its Ramp-holes we have all this symbolized. There are first, the Four walls, each with its seven overlappings, with the exception of the north wall, which has only six, possibly because coincidently with that north wall, "He came forth conquering, and to conquer," in fulfilment of His own Word spoken by His prophets. Then, secondly, there are Ramps or benches, raised considerably above the level of the floor, but running the length of the gallery on each side of it, up to the "Great Step,' where they cease; and thirdly, upon each of these ramps, are arranged twenty-seven holes, symbolically lifted up out of sight of mankind, who are moving along the floor, and only to be seen if searched for.

These holes must have reference to events passing on either hand among mankind,—

but disregarded by them-as matters specially arranged in the providence of God-until, in process of time, the great step is reached. Twenty-seven of these events thus symbolized have by this time passed over the world. The onward and upward struggle is so far arrested, that the great step being surmounted; men begin to look around them and backward and trace God's dealings with His people.

The ramps have ceased; but upon the open, level platform now reached, and pushed back into its furthest corner, on each side, against the south wall of the Grand Gallery, itself impending or leaning forward, is now clearly visible one more hole, the last of the series, and completing the full number of four times seven, or twenty-eight. But has the great step no other signification? I think it has. The bulk of the prophecies of Isaiah, Ezekiel, and most of the minor prophets relate to God's own chosen people Israel and Judah, whom He has declared that "He has not cast off," although over the Jews eighteen hundred years, and over the Israelites nearly two thousand five hundred years have rolled; during which time the one has been suffering the punishments so vividly portrayed by Moses in Deut. xxviii. xxix., and the other has so far disappeared from history and human sight as to have been for ages designated as the "lost tribes," and supposed to have become entirely absorbed among the nations.

If therefore the commencement of the ascending passage may be taken as coinciding with the Exodus, and the next 1542 inches of its length, terminating at the north wall of the Grand Gallery, be typical of the Hebrew race, until the advent of Jesus Christ, then the 1808 inches of the Grand Gallery to the foot of the Great Step must be typical of that people also in part or in whole. . . . And as a matter of historical fact, in 1808 the first "" great step" in the amelioration of the condition of the Jews took place when the Emperor Napoleon convened a Jewish Sanhedrim, and when the Protestant nations of England and Germany began to promote Christianity among the Jews, when both socially and politically they began to resume a place of consideration among nations; which has yearly been taking a wider range, until the time has arrived when the term "Jew" has ceased to be one of reproach, and not only in Great Britain has the chief political power been placed in the hands of one of the Hebrew race, but in Germany also one of this hitherto despised people may, humanly speaking, be said absolutely to hold in his hand the "balance," on the inscrutably equipoised scales of which, the eyes of the world are at this moment fixed with such intense interest and apprehension. If, therefore, the sixth vial of God's wrath has long since been poured out, "that the way of the kings of the East might be prepared," and if "the three unclean spirits like frogs" have already long since been engaged in their vile work of promoting scepticism, formalism, and covetousness; can it be doubted that the seventh vial is probably at this moment "being poured out into the air," when in point of time we are almost touching the symbolical south wall of the Grand Gallery that is to terminate the present dispensation? when we are standing on the broad level road leading directly into that narrow passage, symbolical it may well be, of the terrible distress announced by our blessed Saviour, when men's minds are failing them for fear, and for looking for those things which are coming upon the earth, now that the powers of the heavens are shaking, when the great earthquake is daily looked for, when the division of the great city into three parts is almost completed, and when the cities of the nations seem just ready to fall, Rev. xvi. 18, 19. Is this fearful description of coming events which thoughtful minds have in daily contemplation purely "imaginative"? Are the predictions relating to these last times to have no more weight with the mass of men than the warnings given to the old world by Noah ?

Surely the indifference which is shown to the signs of the times by mankind in general has been put on record by our blessed Saviour Himself :

"As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage; until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot. They did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; but the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed."

London, March 3, 1877.

SYDNEY HALL.

LITERARY NOTICES.

AN ARCHAIC DICTIONARY: BIOGRAPHICAL, HISTORICAL, AND MYTHOLOGICAL; FROM THE EGYPTIAN, ASSYRIAN, AND ETRUSCAN MONUMENTS AND PAPYRI. By W. R. Cooper, F.R.A.S., M.R.A.S. London: Samuel Bagster and Sons.

THIS learned work-with its modest address "To the Reader," its erudite Introduction, and its eighteen appendices-will prove a valuable addition to the literature on archaic history and philology, which is so rapidly increasing now-a-day. All classes of the reading public should gratefully hail the appearance of this volume. The students of the "dead" languages will of course con over its pages with a peculiar interest. To the devout student of the Bible it will prove a confirmation, if they required such evidence, that as there is no god like unto the God of Jeshurun, so is there no history comparable to the annals contained in that volume which was penned by holy men of God, who wrote as they were moved by divine inspiration. To the diligent students of the origin of language this work will afford evidence as to "The Uncertainties of modern Philological Science." In fact we have treated the late discoveries in archaic fields for that purpose long before Mr. Cooper published his interesting book. We have reason to know that amongst our readers are to be found all the above classes, and we therefore commend the book for their attentive study.

In illustration of the utility of the work in the way we have indicated above, we give the following, rather long, extract from the Introduction:

"The ancient inscriptions, which are only authorities for the history of their own times, are provokingly imperfect and unintelligible for the purposes for which they are now required. They recount the names and titles of the kings and officers with a monotonous verbosity, while the names of places conquered, and of monarchs rendered tributary, are written either in obscure ideographs, or imperfectly phoneticised syllables. From the want of a fixed era, and the general use of a moveable calendar, there is little accuracy in the dates of events described, even when, which is a rare occurrence, any years are mentioned. In many inscriptions the single object has been to cover so many square yards of mural space with eulogy of the reigning sovereign. When the events in his own life were insufficient for this purpose, a few years' actions from the annals of his predecessor were recklessly appropriated to his own; when on the other hand the symmetry of the design required it, or the space was limited, the succession of years was utterly disregarded, and the paragraphs were arranged to suit the ideas of the architect, and not to minister to the necessities of the historian; to magnify the glory of the king, whose successor would frequently erase his inscriptions, although that proceeding was denounced by the most awful curses. The portrait of the sovereign, and the great events of his reign were made to recur with tedious frequency, and sometimes the history of his actions is written across the dress which he wears, and at other times it is scattered over the background of the figure, regardless of picturesque effect. . . . . Not unfrequently also the alteration or enlargement of a royal residence necessitated the destruction of a part of the inscribed slabs, and when that was the case, no care was taken to render the series complete by the reinscription of another slab in the place of that which was destroyed.

"In the smaller official documents, those which were inscribed upon the foundation Cylinders, or Timins of baked clay, a similar disregard of accuracy existed; the tablets were written by various scribes, who although copying from the same materials, differed widely from each other as to the manner in which they used them, and often omitted sentences which there was not room to crowd into the last lines of a column, or repeated an unimportant phrase to avoid a blank space on the monument. On the literary tablets, more especially those which were religious or mystical, two languages were generally employed, the Accadian original, and the later Assyrian translation; but even in that case the bilingual nature of the record does not render it easier of translation, for the Assyrian terms are often adaptations of the older Accadian words, and occasionally even substitutions of other ideas; and in almost every instance the two versions while substantially agreeing as to their purport, yet present so many differences of detail as to leave just those points unsettled which to the modern critic

1 See our last Number, pp. 63, 64.

or historian are of the highest value, and the uncertainty regarding which undermines all his premises, and vitiates all his conclusions.

"Another source of error and annoyance is to be found in the fact that many of the recorded inscriptions bear in themselves the evidence of a credulous untrustworthiness, an orientalism of expression which renders it impossible that all their statements should be received as the witnesses of historical truth. When it is gravely stated that a monarch like Assurnazirpal makes an inroad into a country, and captures its capital city, together with its 1200 surrounding towns; then after a few days' march besieges and destroys another great walled city, and ruinates another 1000 or 800 towns, and this statement is repeated with little variation in describing the conquest of a country only a few hundred miles in extent; it immediately becomes obvious that there has been a reckless perversion of facts, and that even if the thousands of towns were the veriest hamlets of a crowded metropolis, there would still have been employed a considerable degree of bombastic exaggeration. Hence the names of persons and places, and the details of political events, have to be simply stated as they are found recorded they can neither be reconciled with reason or with themselves, and dangerous and ridiculous above all would it be for an historian, writing after a lapse of thirty centuries, to endeavour to sychronize or adapt them. They must wait till time, which has preserved and revealed these writings, shall have subjected them to the analysis of comparison.

"Although these remarks are intended to apply chiefly to the cuneiform inscriptions, they are equally true of hieroglyphic literature also; for the Egyptian Papyri, many of which were buried in the tombs of their possessors, and were never intended to be read, are often most perfunctorily written, and copied with the most heedless inaccuracy the one from the other. Phrases which were never entirely intelligible even to the most careful reader become on these papyri a mere chaos of fragmentary sentences and heterogeneous signs, among which the name and titles of the deceased, and those of the local deity which he worshipped, are often alone distinguishable; even the more exactly written MSS. are full of contradictions and notes, which the course of ages has rendered undiscoverable. The degrees of filiation in the family lists are often hopelessly confused, owing to the habit of the scribes of comparing the affinities of all the deceased to the various mystical relationships which prevailed among the Egyptian divinities. Almost every priest is a royal father,' and every wife is a 'royal daughter,' or 'divine sister,' while her deceased husband is equally an Osirian or one of the race of gods," &c., &c.

So much for the credibility of pagan archaic history, whether monumental or scriptory. Yet we have met with students of this branch of literature, as industrious and as discriminating as Mr. Cooper himself, who astonished us-when a question respecting an episode from sacred history was on the tapis-by superciliously asking whether there was archaic monumental evidence to corroborate the event under consideration! But ardent students of problematic sciences, which are beset with uncertainties at every turn, are apt to be fervid in their enthusiasm, even when their consistency is at stake. We could not help smiling when we read, a couple of pages further on in our author's Introduction, the following confident expectation :— “ A very short time will now suffice to place in our hands a wealth of literature, of which Berosus only knew one isolated section, Pliny and Trogus Pompeius had only heard the name. The invaluable aid of comparative philology and mythology, sciences of which Plato scarcely dreamt, and Livy disregarded, will enable us to reconstruct on an imperishable basis the history of the archaic world; to add to the list of the illustrious multitudes of heroic men, great kings, merciful legislators, learned men, and noble women also, who gloriously filled their stations in the ages past, and whose memories shall have their palingenesis in the days to come. When no longer to examples drawn from Greek and Roman history shall we point the aspirations of our young in the normal schools of the future, but shall be able to exhort them to deeds of personal courage by the heroism of a Rameses and an Anebni; to bravely contend against contending fate, like Merodach-Baladan of Babylonia, and Muthon of Tyre; shall exhort them to serve their country with the fidelity of the Egyptian chancellor Bai, and to resign themselves to the apathy of the grave, old in wisdom and years like Pentahor, proudly lamented like Menepthah the Egyptian, or Assurbanipal the glorious king of Assyria." ! ! ! We will not anticipate the inevitable expressions of surprise which the above must elicit from our readers.

We regret to find that Mr. Cooper should have been betrayed to adopt certain

untenable conjectures respecting the meaning of some Hebrew names. In explaining the causes of the many cross references which are to be met with in his Archaic Dictionary he gives one of his reasons "the fact that the Egyptian and Assyrian names were frequently translated, and not transliterated, or else were written down phonetically by the different historians, and thus it has been often extremely difficult to identify the individuals meant in the inscriptions; and this was more particularly the case when the Assyrian or the Egyptian contained the titles of their own deities. In that case the Hebrew writers from conscientious scruples almost invariably parodied or changed them; as, for example, Mephibosheth, which means 'Mouth of reproach,' for Mephibaal, Mouth of Baal;' Ishbosheth, Man of shame,' for Ithbaal, 'Man of Baal;' Coniah, Strength of the Lord,' or 'God appointed,' for Jeconiah; and Babel, 'Confusion,' for Babilu, Gate of God.'

Could Mr. Cooper, or his authority, expect any sober-minded student to entertain for a moment the idea that Saul and Jonathan named their respective sons after Baal ! The Talmudic explanation is a more ingenious and rational one than the one given in the above extract. "Why was his name called Mephibosheth?" asked one of the Rabbis. Answer, "Because with his mouth he put David to the blush in the HALACHAH." 2 With all due deference to the Talmud and Mr. Cooper, we venture to suggest two different meanings to the names ISHBOSHETH and MEPHIBOSHETH. The former we translate either "Modest man," or "Tardy man ;" and the latter either "Modest-mouthed," or "Tardy-mouthed." Both these significations are maintainable etymologically. As regards the etymology of BABEL, will Mr. Cooper pardon us if we express a preference for the etymology furnished on that word by the most reliable archæologist, according to our thinking, in the world."

Notwithstanding the difference of opinion on minor matters between the author of the work under notice and ourselves, we recommend his latest volume as deserving the attention of students, scholars, historians, and theologians.

PALESTINE RE-PEOPLED; OR, SCATTERED ISRAEL'S GATHERING.

A SIGN OF

THE TIMES. By the Rev. James Neil, B.A., formerly Incumbent of Christ Church, Jerusalem. Third Edition, Revised. London: James Nisbet and Co. THERE never was a time when the elucidation of the history of the chosen people demanded such a work as the one before us as the present one. We therefore

A.

welcome Mr. Neil's little work in an especial manner. Before we enter into any particulars on some of the questions propounded in the small volume under the above title, we furnish the headings of the chapters of the volume according to our author's own naming:- -1. The Gathering of the Flock. 2. The Way prepared. 3. The Shepherd's purpose in the Gathering. 4. The Fold complete. APPENDICES. Signs of the Time of the End. B. Farming in Palestine. C. The Scenery of Palestine. D. The Seven Hilled City. E. War against the Witnesses. F. The Greek Little Horn. G. A Papal Railway in Palestine. H. The State of Europe. I. The Russian Scourge.

Each successive chapter contains something valid and important to the PROPHETIC INVESTIGATOR and to the observer of the Signs of the Times. Mr. Neil handles his various subjects with ability, and treats them with devout earnestness. He writes forensically because he evidently feels strongly. The pious author will kindly bear with us when we frankly admit our inability to follow him in all his implied interpretation of prophecy, not because we “despise prophecies," on the contrary, we venerate them, we investigate them, we ponder and wonder over them with the gratitude of heart and soul. We feel in our heart of hearts the truth of the Evangelists' inspired dictum that "THE TESTIMONY OF JESUS IS THE SPIRIT OF PPOPHECY." But we think independently, just as we read the original texts independently, of the expositions and glosses of those who have gone before us. Our library contains almost every work that has been written and published on prophetic interpretation. We may conscientiously say that we have read, marked, learned, and inwardly digested the prophetic interpretations propounded in those works-and yet we found after all that we must examine and investigate PROPHECIES independently of already published interpretations and expositions. We do not presume to say that either Mr. Neil or his referees is, or are, wrong; all we ask for is to be borne with if, for instance, we are unable, as yet, to adopt the views propounded in Appendix A. This inability does

2 Treatise BERACHOTH, fol. iv. col. I.

3 Gen. xi. 9.