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SEELEY, JACKSON, AND HALLIDAY, FLEET STREET:
AND B. SEELEY, HANOVER STREET,

LONDON. MDCCCLVI.

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PREFACE.

THE present work has a definite end in view. The discovery by Champollion of the mode of reading the inscriptions that cover the remains of Ancient Egypt, was first brought under the Author's notice more than thirty years ago. It at once struck him, that if this discovery be real, and if the Bible be a statement of facts, the one must of necessity illustrate the other. Under this conviction he has since devoted his life to the pursuit of it,-wisely or not, is no part of the question now in discussion.

There is yet another conviction which has aided him in making this somewhat costly sacrifice:- he writes thus, because such is the fact. He has always held it for certain, that the history narrated in the Bible must be true, strictly true, a record of things as they were, and of facts as they did occur, if its doctrines are from God, and therefore worthy to be received as religious teaching. If it be not true in this exact sense,—if the men, for example, named therein be nations, not individuals, if its positive dates be vague numbers, if its miracles be mere metaphors, then is the Bible a lie! "and every lie, O that

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