sufficient to point out a resemblance between the Christian and any other religion in order to prove that Christianity must of necessity have borrowed it from that other religion. To assert, with a critic of this stamp, is to prove; to maintain the Divine origin of the Christian scheme is to show yourself incapable of reasoning and unworthy of attention. And he further assumes, and if experience is to go for anything, is quite wrong in assuming, that his belief is the final verdict of inquirers on the points with which he deals. I thought the last reader of a paper before the Institute seemed a little daunted by this attitude on the part of many critics. I am glad that Dr. Tisdall is not afraid to say-and to prove the truth of what he thinks.

Before I sit down I should like to dissociate myself from the remarks of my predecessor in the chair on Dr. Tisdall's reference to Harnack on p. 240. But I will venture to go further than he does. I really don't care what the opinion of Harnack, or any other writer who may happen to be popular just now, may be on the question of the authority of the Gospels. I have lived long enough to have seen a whole array of theories as positively put forth as those which are supposed now to hold the field, pass away like a morning cloud. Strauss, Baur, Oldshausen, Tholuck, Meyer, De Wette, Lange, Pfleiderer, and a host of other authorities supposed in their time to be infallible, have had "their day, and ceased to be." I have read a good deal on both sides of the question whether the historical portions of St. Matthew or St. Mark are to be regarded as the earlier, and I venture to predict that a good deal more will have to be said before that difficult question can be regarded as settled. And as to the idea that the facts of Christ's life and teaching have been coloured by the prepossessions of those who handed them down to us, I would remind you that St. Mark was to St. Peter what Timothy was to St. Paul, was the cousin of St. Barnabas, and despite an unfortunate misunderstanding the friend and companion of St. Paul. His mother was, to use a Pauline expression, the hostess of St. Peter and of the whole Church in Jerusalem. Such a man got his information at first hand, and knew thoroughly well what he was saying. And as a previous speaker has said, the first disseminators of the Christian faith, strong in their personal knowledge of Christ and His truth, assumed a decided attitude of detachment from the prevalent opinions of their day. They were definitely

hostile to those opinions, and in no sense guided by them. And if, as nineteen centuries of Christianity have abundantly taught us, Christ was "the Way, the Truth, and the Life," sent forth from God to reveal His Mind and Purpose to the world, it were strange indeed if He did not make full provision for the faithful transmission of the Message He had sent.

I am quite sure I have your consent to thank Dr. Tisdall most cordially for his able and convincing paper.

Dr. TISDALL: Archdeacon Beresford Potter has apparently omitted to notice that the authority I quoted concerning the date of the composition of the Gospels was Professor Harnack's very latest work on the subject, as mentioned in my note, p. 240. A careful study of Petrie's Growth of the Gospels will, I think, show that it also supports my contention in the text, to which the Archdeacon takes exception. He forgets the immense number of ancient quotations from the Gospels, beginning with the "Apostolic Fathers," the many ancient versions of the New Testament, and a mass of other evidence, which permits of the issue of such an edition of the Greek text as that just published by Professor Alexander Souter at the Clarendon Press, Oxford. If two MSS. date from early in the fourth century and show a variety of readings, it is plain that the original work existed at least considerably earlier. If a writer of the second century quotes passages from a book in such a way as to show that he knows that his readers know and honour it, it is safe to conclude that the work had come into existence very considerably before his time. This has been exhaustively dealt with by a host of able writers. Consider one specimen fact out of many. Origen, who died A.D. 248, mentions our four Gospels by name as well known and generally accepted by Christians. His commentary on St. John's Gospel in thirty-two books is still extant and easily obtainable (Cambridge University Press, 2 vols., 1896). How long must that Gospel have been known and honoured in its present form before such a work on it was needed!

Some considerable study of Comparative Religion (vide my little book under that title published by Longmans) and a certain degree of knowledge of the Egyptian Book of the Dead and the Babylonian creation and deluge tablets, etc., in their original languages have led me to a conclusion absolutely contrary to that of the Archdeacon regarding what he calls the "remarkable correspondence between

T

early Egyptian conceptions and Christian doctrines, and also between early Babylonian beliefs and Jewish ones." With this I have dealt in some measure in Mythic Christs and the True (Hunter and Longhurst) and in articles entitled "The Relation between the Hebrew and the Babylonian Cosmologies" (Nineteenth Century, August, 1905), and "Hasisatra and Noah " (Churchman, November, 1906). But of course my paper on Mithraism was not the place for dealing with these subjects.

Turning now to the kindly criticisms of the main subject of the paper, I may be allowed to say that I had to omit many important points because my time was so short. As it is, I fear I have unduly trespassed on the endurance of my hearers.

Professor Cumont gives only a tentative explanation of the carvings encircling the figure of Mithra and the bull in the bas-reliefs. We have no Mithraic scriptures to cast light on their real meaning. I have done my best to explain "what Mithraism became in its highest development," but I differ from certain writers on the subject in limiting my statements to facts proved by reasonably reliable evidence, instead of giving free reins to imagination. My reason for tracing Mithraism as far back in Persia and India as possible was to show that Mithra was nowhere regarded as having once lived on earth as a man. I think I have shown that he was not regarded as the incarnation of a deity. As we have no proof that he was believed to have been a man, to have died or to have been put to death, it is absurd to assert (as has been done) that his worshippers believed in his Höllenfahrt and in his "resurrection." It has been said that Mithraists believed in the final destruction of the world by fire. Of that I am unable to find any proof. The Stoics held that tenet, and it is taught in certain Indian Purâņas, but no inscription or ancient author, as far as I know, attribute the same view to the Mithraists.

With regard to Mithra and the bull the question arises whether the killing of the animal was in sacrifice or not. Animal sacrifices are found, early or late, in almost all religions, but I am not aware of any passage in which Mithra is represented as offering a sacrifice or as worshipping any being superior to himself. It is therefore somewhat rash to conclude that the fact of his driving a dagger into the bull's neck proves that he offered a sacrifice to Ôrmazd.

THE ANNUAL SUMMER MEETING.

BEING ALSO

THE 521ST ORDINARY GENERAL MEETING

WAS HELD IN

THE LECTURE HALL OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF ARTS (BY KIND PERMISSION), ON MONDAY, 26TH JUNE, 1911, AT 4.30 P.M.

LIEUTENANT-GENERAL SIR HENRY L. GEARY, K.C.B., VICEPRESIDENT, TOOK THE CHAIR.

The Minutes of the last Meeting were read and confirmed. An address to the King (see p. 316) was unanimously adopted. The Chairman then introduced Sir Charles Bruce, G.C.M.G., who read the Annual Address.

THE TRUE TEMPER OF EMPIRE.

By Sir CHARLES BRUCE, G.C.M.G.

BACON in his Essay of Empire wrote: «To speak now of the

true temper of Empire: It is a thing rare and hard to keep "; and, in a speech in the House of Commons, he illustrated the meaning he assigned to the phrase by reference to Vespasian's eulogy of Nerva: Divus Nerva res olim dissociabiles miscuit, Imperium et libertatem, Nerva did temper things that before were thought incompatible or insociable, Sovereignty and Liberty." Proceeding to compare the Government of Nerva, who "tempered and mingled the sovereignty with the liberty of the subject wisely," with that of Nero, who "interchanged it and varied it unequally and absurdly," he led up to the conclusion that "the true temper of Empire" is exhibited in the state of things which exists when the two contraries, sovereignty and liberty, are mingled in fit proportions. While I have adopted Bacon's phrase as the text of my address, I do not limit myself to the interpretation of the idea of Empire implied in his essay. He understood by the term "Empire," the sovereignty of an individual over the liberties of the constituent elements of a single administrative unit. "Kings," he observed, "deal with their neighbours, their wives, their children, their prelates or clergy, their nobles, their second-nobles or gentlemen, their merchants, their commons, and their men-of-war; and from all these arise dangers, if care and circumspection be not

used." These dangers he illustrated in detail, indicating the true temper in which they should be guarded against. For my purpose to-day I define Empire as an aggregate of administrative units, of diverse constituent elements, professing allegiance to a central sovereign authority, and I define the true temper of Empire as a temper which "mingles wisely and in fit proportion" the sovereignty of the central authority with the liberties of the constituent areas.

Geographically, the British Empire is an aggregation of scattered territories separated by oceans and continents, subject to every variety of climate, comprising societies fundamentally dissimilar and in every stage of physical, intellectual and economic maturity. Collectively, they include one-fifth of the territorial surface of the globe, and more than one-fifth of its mhabitants, while the natural factors of distinction between the temperate zones and the tropics have determined a political classification into four main groups, approximately exhibited in this table.

I submit as a self-evident proposition that the existence of the British Empire depends on a recognition of the United Kingdom as the seat of a sovereign authority, and on the methods of exercise of this authority in relation to the Dominions, the Crown Colonies and India. I propose to discuss the true temper of Empire in the exercise of this authority in politics, economics and defence. In the term "politics," I include all that relates to executive, legislative and social functions; in the term "economics," all that relates to the development and distribution of natural resources; in the term "defence" all that relates to the maintenance of internal order and protection against foreign aggression. The temper of the sovereign authority in the United Kingdom in relation to the Dominions has been exhibited in a policy based on a mutual desire that they should remain in the empire, each building up a nationality in its own way, and gradually increasing its autonomy, until a