Vatican, been found to agree with them in the main, or are there any important variations?

Mr. E. R. P. MOON: What were the proportions of literary or non-literary output written, at the period under review, upon vellum and parchment on the one hand, and on papyrus on the other, in Egypt?"

Mr. MARTIN ROUSE asked if the Lecturer thought St. Paul's large letters were due to his weakness of sight or tendency to blindness.

In proposing a vote of thanks, Colonel MACKINLAY said: It is my pleasing duty to propose a hearty vote of thanks to our learned lecturer. The Council of the Victoria Institute frequently find a difficulty in obtaining subjects for papers, which are fully in accord with its chief objects and aims, which are to make use of all the available results of science and investigation in the elucidation of the Holy Scriptures.

But the subject this afternoon is most suitable, the handling of it has been extremely interesting and instructive, and we owe a debt of gratitude to Professor Milligan for the great help he has given us. I have much pleasure in moving that we offer him our sincere thanks.

Dr. THIRTLE said: It affords me great pleasure to second the resolution. If in regard to such researches as have been explained this afternoon our obligation to the German scholar, Dr. Deissmann, is great, none the less is it true-and beyond question true-that, as English scholars or students, we owe a heavy debt to Professor Milligan. Possibly some who have heard to-day's lecture may not be aware of the devotion with which Dr. Milligan has pursued this subject for many years past. To such, and indeed to all, I earnestly commend his volume, recently issued, Selections from the Greek Papyri (Cambridge University Press), a work which should be in the hands of any who require a manual introductory to the important subject now before us. I may also remark that, in collaboration with Dr. J. Hope Moulton, of Manchester University, the Professor has, for several years past, been contributing to The Expositor a series of "Lexical Notes from the Papyri"; and thus he has done much to place within reach of students a profoundly interesting body of material, supplemental in a rich degree to that supplied by the best modern Lexicons of the Greek New Testament.

As one who has followed these matters with some diligence, I must confess to a feeling that, in regard to this phase of New Testament study, the present are really good days in which to live! From the most unexpected quarter there has come to us light which invests the study of the New Testament with a new and lively interest-in fact, in some respects, a quite surprising interest. We are now able to lay aside certain lexical helps of a generation ago, which, though ingenious, were largely speculative and far from satisfying, and we have the comfort of placing our feet on the rock-bottom of linguistic assurance. Now, as never before, we are able to study the words of Christ and His Apostles in the light of the every-day life and feelings of the common people to whom their ministry meant so much. And, moreover, we are ever expecting an increase of knowledge from the same quarter-a zest-giving experience to which our fathers and grandfathers were utter strangers.

May I hazard a brief reflection? Surely one message of the Papyri is that the New Testament is a living book-a book of divine instruction, given in human words and phrases. Though there is nothing commonplace about the Gospel, yet it was assuredly promulgated in commonplace conditions. Hence the constituent books of the New Testament were not written by professional scribes and given to the world on material of great commercial value; but rather they were written by men of practical feeling and religious purpose, who sent their thoughts abroad in the simple speech of the people, written on material such as served the work-a-day purposes of nonliterary communications. In a word, the New Testament shows itself to be essentially a book for the people-not so much a volume for the library shelf, as a budget of reading for the hands of men and women, to be copied and circulated, to be translated and diffused, even as these operations continually engage the energies of our modern Bible Societies.

Dr. MILLIGAN, in reply, said: I feel that it is I who owe you thanks for listening to me for such a long time. With reference to the questions that have been asked, I may say that Hellenistic Greek is a somewhat vague term, but, generally speaking, it refers to the later Greek that was in use throughout the Græco-Roman Empire at the beginning of the Christian Era. And the important point for our present purpose to notice is, that recent discoveries

have conclusively proved that it was this Greek, not in its literary, but in its more colloquial or popular form, that, as a rule, was used by our New Testament writers. As regards Archdeacon Potter's question, it is the case that our new fragments, so far as they go, in the main confirm the text which we find in the Vatican and

Sinaitic Codices. Again, to pass to Mr. Moon's question, I must content myself with saying that, during the period under review, papyrus was undoubtedly the principal writing material in use in Egypt for literary and non-literary purposes. Parchment, though already long in use in a rough form for scribbling and other purposes, does not appear to have been generally employed for literary works till about the fourth century. As to what we are to understand by the "large letters" of Gal. vi, 11, it seems to me that they may be very readily explained as the ruder, less practised writing of the man who wrote but little, as compared with the more cultured hand of the scribe who wrote the body of the Epistle. We have no evidence that St. Paul suffered permanently from defective eyesight. Acts ix, 18, seems to point to a complete cure of the blindness caused by the Damascus vision, and the thorn in the flesh from which he afterwards suffered need not, notwithstanding Gal. iv, 15, have had anything to do with the actual state of the Apostle's own eyesight.

LETTER FROM A PRODIGAL SON TO HIS MOTHER, OF THE SECOND CENTURY A.D. See p. 71.

For the photograph from which this is produced we are indebted to the Director of the Royal Museums, Berlin, to whom our thanks are cordially extended.-ED.

525TH ORDINARY GENERAL MEETING.

HELD IN THE ROOMS OF THE INSTITUTE ON MONDAY, JANUARY 22ND, 1912, AT 4.30 P.M.

MR. E. J. SEWELL, MEMBER OF COUNCIL, PRESIDED.

The Minutes of the last Meeting were read and signed, and the SECRETARY announced the following elections :

MEMBER: Rev. Evan H. Hopkins.

ASSOCIATES: Herman R. Wyatt, Esq., Vernon Roberts, Esq., Miss
Sophia M. Nugent, Mrs. C. S. Hogg, Miss Grace D. Gardiner.

The CHAIRMAN in calling upon Mr. MAUNDER to read his paper said: It would be ridiculous for me to propose to introduce Mr. Maunder to any meeting at the Victoria Institute. He is so well known to us all as an active member of the Council and as an untiring and interesting lecturer for the Institute that any introduction is quite superfluous.

The subject on which he is to read a paper is in itself very interesting. But we are accustomed to seeing it dealt with in newspapers and magazines by writers who only half-know what they are talking about and who, consequently, very often much misunderstand the information which they pass on in their articles. It is, therefore, an intellectual treat to have the subject dealt with by a writer who not only thoroughly knows his subject but, as many audiences can testify, has the art of making what he says thoroughly intelligible to people who are unacquainted, or only moderately acquainted, with the technicalities of astronomy and astro-physics.