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THE KORAN.

129

The Bible contains the earliest^[1] and best

↑ The treasures of oriental learning, which Mr. Maurice has collected with so much industry, and explained with so much judgment, in his history and antiquities of India, supply abundance of incontrovertible evidence for the existence of opinions in the early ages of the world, which perfectly agree with the leading articles of our faith, as well as with the principal events related in the Pentateuch. I must confine myself to a single extract from this interesting author: "Whether the reader will allow or not the inspiration of the sacred writer, his mind on the perusal must be struck with the force of one very remarkable fact, viz. that the names which are assigned by Moses to Eastern countries and cities, derived to them immediately from the Patriarchs, their original founders, are, for the most part, the very names by which they were anciently known over all the East; many of them were afterwards translated with little variation by the Greeks, in their systems of geography. Moses has traced in one short chapter (Gen. chap. x.) all the inhabitants of the earth, from the Caspian and Persian seas to the extreme Gades, to their original; and recorded at once the period and occasion of their dispersion. This fact, and the conclusions from it, which are thus incontrovertibly established, by the newly acquired knowledge of the Sanscreet language, were contended for and strongly enforced by Bochart and Stillingfleet, who could only refer to oriental opinions and traditions as they came to them through the medium of Grecian interpretation. To the late excellent and learned president of the Asiatic Society, we are chiefly indebted for the light recently thrown from the East upon this important subject."—See Bishop of Winchester's Elements of Christian Theology.

[1] The treasures of oriental learning, which Mr. Maurice has collected with so much industry, and explained with so much judgment, in his history and antiquities of India, supply abundance of incontrovertible evidence for the existence of opinions in the early ages of the world, which perfectly agree with the leading articles of our faith, as well as with the principal events related in the Pentateuch. I must confine myself to a single extract from this interesting author: "Whether the reader will allow or not the inspiration of the sacred writer, his mind on the perusal must be struck with the force of one very remarkable fact, viz. that the names which are assigned by Moses to Eastern countries and cities, derived to them immediately from the Patriarchs, their original founders, are, for the most part, the very names by which they were anciently known over all the East; many of them were afterwards translated with little variation by the Greeks, in their systems of geography. Moses has traced in one short chapter (Gen. chap. x.) all the inhabitants of the earth, from the Caspian and Persian seas to the extreme Gades, to their original; and recorded at once the period and occasion of their dispersion. This fact, and the conclusions from it, which are thus incontrovertibly established, by the newly acquired knowledge of the Sanscreet language, were contended for and strongly enforced by Bochart and Stillingfleet, who could only refer to oriental opinions and traditions as they came to them through the medium of Grecian interpretation. To the late excellent and learned president of the Asiatic Society, we are chiefly indebted for the light recently thrown from the East upon this important subject."—See Bishop of Winchester's Elements of Christian Theology.

[1]