frequently, evil, and did it intentionally. But if the act of an enemy in bringing down a club upon his head demonstrated ill-will, what was to be said when a branch of a tree fell upon his head? He argued at once that the tree, i.e., the spirit of the tree, was angry with him and meant to do him harm; and he sought either to punish the tree or to propitiate it, as his mood inclined him.

A child to-day, if it receives a painful injury, although through its own fault, from a lifeless object, will almostcertainly, if left to itself, set about beating the object which has injured it. But the instinctive action of the modern child is the settled habit of primitive man. Thus a native of Brazil would try to bite the stone over which he stumbled or the arrow by which he was wounded. It is even told how a modern king of Cochin China would put one of his ships, if it sailed badly, in the pillory like a human criminal.

Times have changed, civilisation has advanced, but the same disposition reappeared in the Athenian judicial procedure when a court of justice sat in the Prytaneum upon an axe or a stone which had caused the death of a human being; and again down to quite recent days, in the provision of the English law by which not only an animal which killed anybody, but a cart which ran over a person, or a tree which fell upon his head, became ipso facto devoted or elevated to the service of God's poor.

Primitive man then personifies Nature. He spiritualizes Nature. He invests natural objects not with life only but with will; and his religion, as expressing the relation which he conceives to exist between his own spirit and the spiritual force outside himself, naturally takes the form of an attempt to influence the unseen powers in which he instinctively believes.

This is the beginning of religion. It contains the germs of all the infinitely various creeds and cults which have elevated or desolated humanity.

For as man's intellectual faculties were strengthened by observation and reflection, it was almost inevitable that he should effect the speculative transition from so-called idolatry to polytheism, from the worship of many gods to the worship of

fewer gods, and in the end to monotheism. The spiritual powers resident in all natural objects converge into the one great spiritual power who is called God. And the gradual ennoblement of religion lies in the purging away of all the material imaginations which have gathered around the pure spirituality of God Himself. For when once the existence of spiritual beings, many or few, was apprehended, the belief in the one Supreme spiritual Being was a sure result of time and thought.

In this paper I have treated the origin of religion from the human side alone. I have inquired how man, being such as he is and living in such a world as he inhabits, developed his religious instincts and capacities. But there is a divine side as well to religion. For man is religious, because God has created in him a natural aptitude for religion. He owes his religious interpretation of the natural world to the constitution of his own nature. Also, however much he may reflect upon external nature, however eagerly he may seek to discover in it the counterpart of his own natural character, yet the sublime truths of the Christian religion are such as he cannot learn for himself, but must get to know, if at all, by direct spontaneous revelation of God. For revelation is in fact nothing else than the divine communication of vastly important spiritual truths which man is, and must ever be, impotent to discover apart from the inspiration of God.

RESOLUTION.

Moved by Professor J. W. SPENCER, D.Sc., and seconded by Colonel T. H. HENDLEY, C.I.E., and carried, "That the thanks of the Meeting are hereby accorded to the Right Rev. Bishop Welldon, D.D., for his able and interesting address."

The following Resolutions were also put to the Meeting by the PRESIDENT and carried:

1. Moved by Colonel YATE, C.S.I., and seconded by Mr. W. E. THOMPSON SHARPE, that the Report be received, and the thanks of the Members and Associates be presented to the Council, Officers and Auditors, for their efficient conduct of the business of the Victoria Institute during the year.

Responded to by the SECRETARY.

2. Moved by General HALLIDAY, and seconded by Mr. M. L. ROUSE, B.L., that the thanks of the Meeting be presented to the President for his conduct in the Chair.

Responded to by the PRESIDENT.

3. Moved by the SECRETARY and carried :-That the thanks of the Meeting be accorded to the Council of the Geological Society for permission to hold the Annual Meeting in the rooms of the Society.

The meeting then adjourned.

ORDINARY GENERAL MEETING.*

LIEUT.-GENERAL SIR H. L. GEARY, K.C.B., V.P., IN THE CHAIR.

The Minutes of the General Meeting held on June 13th were read and confirmed.

ELECTIONS.-The following candidates were elected :—

MEMBERS-Professor J. Dyneley Prince, Columbia University, New York; Rev. Chas. T. Townley, M.A., Christ Church Rectory, Wisbech; Leonard Sutton, Esq., F.L.S., Hillside, Reading; J. M. Peebles, Esq., M.D., Michigan.

ASSOCIATES :-Rev. H. C. Thomson, D.D., Albuquerque; Miss Caroline Tindall, Beyrout; Heywood Smith, Esq., M.D., London; John H. Roscoe, Esq., London; R. Tilden Smith, Esq., Clapham; A. C. Furse, Esq., Highgate; Mrs. Theodore Bent, London; George A. Stonier, Esq., London; C. Wallington, Esq., London; Rev. Forster Ashwin, M.A., Bury St. Edmunds; Henry B. Bilbrough, Esq., London; Rev. A. R. Cavalier, London; Colonel W. Sidebottom, Manchester; Rochester Theological Seminary, New York.

The following paper was then read by the author :

OF

"RESEARCHES IN SINAI."

By Professor W. M. FLINDERS PETRIE, D.C.L.

(Review by the Secretary.)

F Professor Petrie's numerous works the last is certainly not the least important. The "Researches in Sinai" is the outcome of a vast amount of laborious observation, resulting in throwing fresh light on the cult and character of the very early Egyptian monarchs and their subjects, especially in connection with the search for minerals in a region not forming a portion of Egypt proper, but adjoining it, and incidentally throwing light on parts of O.T. history. Having myself travelled through the Sinaitic region in 1883-4 when accompanying the expedition sent out by the Palestine Exploration Committee, it affords me special interest to read the narrative recorded, and examine the numerous photo-illustrations with which this fine work is embellished. Almost every page contains a surprise; and the remarkable knowledge of the ancient hieroglyphics which the author has acquired in his researches in Egypt and the Nile valley are here happily applied in deciphering tablets dating back over 5,000 years B.C. and more ancient even than those of Tel el Amarna and of Abydos. Professor Petrie is to

* Monday, December 10th, 1906.

C

be congratulated on the success of his labours, supplemented by those of his wife and trained Staff.

66

It was a happy thought when the author determined to transfer his work to the wilderness of Sinai from the green plains of Egypt." The hope of doing so existed from the time of his first visit to Egypt twenty-six years previously, and while engaged in his excavations in the Nile valley, he often cast a wistful eye towards that mysterious mountain region lying to the east of the Nile and the Gulf of Suez described in more or less detail by previous explorers, of which, the late Sir C. W. Wilson, Professor Palmer, Captain Raymond Neill, and others, including the writer of this paper, had published reports of discoveries. As the land of the Exodus, the region received an additional interest; and it is gratifying to know that the author is able to throw fresh light on the Biblical narrative of that wonderful migration of the early Israelite host, and to clear up some doubtful questions connected with the numbering of the Tribes, which have hitherto given rise to adverse, though not unfair, criticism. To this subject the author devotes an entire chapter (xiv), in which he shows that the large number of the Israelites at the time of the Exodus, as given in the Authorised Version, results from a probably incorrect translation of the Hebrew word Alf, which has two meanings, either a " thousand" or "a group or family"; so if we adopt the latter meaning, that of a "family" or tent, each tent holding on an average 93 persons, the total number is reduced to about 5,550 persons, a number which is quite consistent with the events both before and after the crossing of the Red Sea.*

While on this subject it is gratifying to know that Professor Petrie holds the view that at the time of the Exodus the Red Sea extended northwards from Suez so as to include the Bitter Lakes, a view which I have advocated ever since my visit to this country. There has, therefore, been a slight elevation of the land since this historic period, owing to which the sea has receded to its present limit at Suez. The passage," therefore, was made to the north of this place, in a position now cut

This explanation has been contested by an able writer in the Saturday Review, July 21st, 1906. The statements of that writer are incorrect. The exact meaning of alf in modern Arabic, where we can enquire the meaning, is a group of persons, united, but not numerous, which agrees well to a tent group of family and servants. The same root is in Hebrew and Assyrian.

This view is advanced by Sir W. Dawson (Modern Science in Bible Lands) and by the writer. See "The Passage of the Red Sea," by MajorGen. Tullock, Trans. Vict. Inst., vol. xxviii, p. 277, etc.