fending army entered the battle-field at | greater disadvantage. William had a well-trained army on whom he could thoroughly rely, and who were animated by hopes of plunder; they had landed without opposition, and, moreover, had enjoyed a full fortnight's interval of rest. Harold, although at the head of many tried warriors, had also lost many in his last battle, and their place was ill-supplied by the peasantry, who might flock willingly enough to his banner, but who, armed with the rudest weapons, were no match for the well-armed invaders, while more still, the chief portion of this army was exhausted by a long and toilsome march from the confines of Yorkshire to London, and from thence, with scarcely an interval of rest, to the coast of.Sussex. Even superstition did its part against them. The Norman invaders boasted the sanction of the chief ruler of Christendom, and the consecrated banner of St. Peter floated over their leader's tent. But the Saxons were condemned to fight under the papal ban, while yet more to increase their dismay, overhead was that blazing star, sure prognostic of change of dynasty.

Normans, are also told, but not as though they were the mere assertions of chroniclers anxious to throw discredit on the losing side, but as incontrovertible facts. It is certainly strange enough that we should never be told of William and his followers being seized with so exemplary a fit of devotion, except on the eve of the battle of Hastings.

On the 14th of October, 1066, this decisive battle was fought.* Long and fierce was the strife; from nine in the morning until sunset, Saxon stood against Norman in deadly conflict, and but for the chance shaft that gave him his death wound, victory might have been on the side of Harold. Still his followers rallied round his standard, at the foot of which he was laid, when William dashed through, followed by a desperate band determined to win or die. "Gurth was

at the foot of the standard, without hope, but without fear; he fell by the falchion of William; the English banner was cast down, and the gonfanon planted in its place announced that William of Normandy was the conqueror." But not even then would the Saxons surrender. Still, even after nightfall, the conflict in Still Harold bore himself bravely, nor more remote parts continued, for "whercan we perceive aught of that "obsti- ever they could make a stand they renate, self-willed determination, which sisted, and the Normans confess that the leads the sinner on to his fate," in any great preponderance of their force alone of his arrangements. Ere quitting Lon- enabled them to obtain the victory." A don he paid a visit to Waltham, and hardly-won field was that of Hastings, offered his orisons at the altar, and the honorable to Saxon prowess and to Saxon monks endeavored to cheer the hearts of endurance, even their foemen being withis followers by the assertion that the nesses. Surely we may at length cease crucifix bowed its head; but still the pre-to iterate that parrot phrase, "The dissentiment of evil was too strong to be overcome by that fancied portent. Sir Francis Palgrave, who relies very implicitly, too implicitly here we think, on the Norman chronicles, relates the story of Gurth urging his brother to delay giving battle; he also refers to the negotiations said to have passed between the competitors, remarking that fear prevailed in both camps. The narrative of the different manner in which the night before the battle was passed by the respective armies, the drunken carousals of the Saxons, and the religious exercises of the

Maistre Wace, who gives the details of this battle at great length, also tells us that the night was spent in riot. His words are very curious. They cried "Weissel," he says:

NEW SERIES-VOL. I., No. 1.

graceful battle of Hastings." Surely men who stood so steadfastly during that long day, never yielding, never attempting flight, but like their descendants on many a hard-fought field, like their de

"E laticome e drincheheil,

Drine hind Ewart, e drine com,
Drinc Elf, e drine Thom."

This evidently is intended for the English of that
day. "Let him come," spoken in defiance of Wil-
liam, would easily be turned into "laticome,"
while the next couplet almost translates itself. He
also tells us that their battle cry was "Olicross,"
doubtless in honor of Harold's favorite Abbey of
the Holy Cross, at Waltham. Perhaps, too, there
was some recognition of the fancied miracle of the
crucifix.

We regret we cannot insert Sir Francis Palgrave's graphic account, but it is far too long. In Revolutions in English History, an excellent narrative of this battle will also be found.

8

scendants of yesterday, the devoted "six |
hundred," felt that their sole duty was
"to do and die," should at least receive
a tribute of sympathy from Englishmen.
[CONCLUDED IN NEXT NUMBER.]

Leisure Hour.

THE PYRAMIDS AND THE PENTATEUCH. To what age does the Pentateuch belong? Is it, as a whole, the production of Moses; or was it written, as some say, in much later times? Till comparative ly recent days the uniform answer to this question has been, "The Pentateuch belongs to the age of Moses, not of Samuel or of Ezra; and the book was written as

while the facts of Egyptian life were still fresh in the memory of the people.

The exact nature of the argument may be illustrated by a couple of passages, taken not from the monuments but from Scripture. In Numbers 13: 22 it is said that "Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt;" and in Deuteronomy 11: 10-12 it is said of Canaan: “The land of Egypt, where thou wateredst it land whither thou goest is not as the with thy foot, but a land of hills and valleys, that drinketh water of the rain of heaven: . . . the eyes of the Lord thy God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year." Naturally, it would be concluded that the writer and the first hearers of these words were familiar with

nificant contrast to one who had no re

a whole by Moses, or under his guidance. Egypt, its cities and customs. To one Speaking generally, it may be regarded who knows nothing of Goshen and the as his work." "Speaking generally," I Delta of the Nile, the date of the buildrepeat; for there are passages-Lamech's ing of Zoan would be no guide to the prophecy, for example, and Miriam's age of Hebron. The "foot-watering song which Moses did not originate, of Egypt would have suggested no sigbut only insert; and there are other passages the later names of places, for ex-membrance of the dependence of the ample, the list of some of the dukes of country on this river; nor would the Edom, the account of his own death-fact that the eyes of the Lord were upon which must have been added by another later hand. With such exceptions, the Pentateuch is quoted and referred to by all Jewish tradition, by our Lord and his apostles, by the Old Testament itself, from the book of Joshua down to the book of Malachi, as the book, the law of Moses, "the man of God." "The law [the system of justice and types] was given through Moses: grace and truth [the system of mercy and realities] came to be through Jesus Christ.” *

On the specific question of the authorship of the Pentateuch the monuments of Egypt have of course nothing to say; but on the age of the Pentateuch they have much. Ask them who wrote it, and they are as silent as is now their own Memnon. Ask them when it was

written, and immediately they become vocal, as when of old the rays of the morning sun struck the chords of the

statue.

On that question they seem to affirm distinctly that the book belongs to the Mosaic age, and must have been written by one familiar with Egypt, and

ing.

*John 1: 17. The original is worth examin

the land from the beginning of the year
to the end have meaning for one who
knew not how for months in Egypt the
fields are apparently deserted of God,
and have to be watered at the expense
of exhausting and destructive toil. Add
to this, that between the Exode and the
reign of Solomon-from four hundred
and fifty years (the common chronology).
to six hundred and upwards-there was
no intercourse between Egyptians and
Jews; and the conclusion seems irresis-
tible these words were written by a
man who knew Egypt, and for men who
in the age of the Exode itself.
knew Egypt; that is, they were written

This kind of proof, it will readily be seen, is not peculiar to Egypt, or to Scripture. About sixty years ago the unburying of Herculaneum and Pompeii brought to light remains which illustrate the customs of ancient Rome, and now serve to explain allusions and statements in ancient classic writers. In our own day the researches prosecuted by Layard and others on the plains of Shi

naar have done much to illustrate and confirm old chroniclers of Assyrian life and history. Every museum of antiqui

ties treasures up some relic to which | men appeal for purposes of exposition or of defence; and now, when attacks on the Pentateuch are renewed, and students are naturally looking for fresh evidence, Egypt supplies it. Error is refuted, and truth confirmed, by her teaching.

The examples we have mentioned, though they give an idea of the nature of the argument, give no fair idea of its strength or impressiveness. For, first of all, as the argument is cumulative, and depends largely on the number of coincidences, no specimens can do justice to this quality. Then, further, these examples are taken entirely from the Pentateuch. The fact referred to, and the allusion to Egypt, are both given in one and the same passage. There is therefore wanting the obvious undesignedness which makes circumstantial evidence so conclusive to most minds. The facts in all their fulness include coincidences very numerous, and between documents completely independent. On the On the monuments of Egypt we have the private and public life of the Egyptian people depicted with the utmost minuteness. The scenes are as fresh as if they had been finished only a few years ago. They were not painted, moreover, to supply evidence, or to explain Scripture. The two most ancient records in the world have come unexpectedly into our hands, the one written, the other painted; and if they confirm each other, the evidence, because incidental, is felt to be, on that very ground, the more impressive.

Let us take an example or two. In Palestine, iron was the metal commonly used for implements of war. The Canaanites had chariots of iron. It was iron David prepared in abundance. There are still in Lebanon traces of ironworks of very ancient date, large quantities of refuse being still to be seen at some distance from the mines, but in the neighborhood of oak forests, the wood of which was used in smelting. Yet, on the Exode it is not of workers in iron we read, but of workers in brass, and they are mentioned again and again. Whether the brass were an alloy of copper and zinc-the brass of later timesor of copper and tin-the bronze of later times-the use of such a metal clearly implies considerable skill in metallurgy;

are

and, in fact, it is the very metal of which ancient Egyptian weaponsswords, knives, and even bowsgenerally made. For ages the art of tempering brass, so as to make it elastic, was unknown; nor is it now easy to understand how the process was so perfect as it must have been in Egypt.

The Egyptians were long famous for their skill in archery, and naturally Hagar, the Egyptian maid of Sarah, taught her son the art of her country, and Ishmael became an archer.

Quite incidentally we gather from the history of Joseph's imprisonment that there was wine in Egypt, and from the Psalms that vines were grown there. Herodotus, who lived for some time at On, the residence of Joseph's wife, and who wrote four or five hundred years before Christ, states that vines were not grown in Egypt. The monuments, on the other hand, have several paintings of vine-culture and of wine-making. Drunken men, and even women, are seen carried home by head and heels on the shoulders of their servants; and yet the culture of the vine was evidently diffi cult. More laborers seem required to water the plants and dress the trees than were required for any other kind.of growth, and the bunches are generally small. Hence, when the spies returned with "grapes of Eshcol," the size naturally filled with amazement a people who had been accustomed only to the grapes of the land of Ham. Hence, also, the narrative must have been written, not in the age of Herodotus, but in the age of the monuments.

In the same history the baker is represented as carrying his basket upon his head. The usual way of carrying bundles in Syria was on the side, or on the back, or on the shoulders. On the mon uments men are represented as carrying them in the way which the Pentateuch describes.

Glancing through the monuments, there are several facts that strike an observer as significant. The variety of employments is remarkable. Here are agriculturists, shepherds - a degraded class, apparently-fishermen, hunters, men of all trades, all working apart and as distinct castes; and yet agriculture is evidently the favorite pursuit. Here is corn in abundance. In seasons of defi

Here, again, is the gold chain of of fice; here the signet ring, which was Occasionally we see animals which, presented to the man who was made vizfrom the statements of profane histori-ier; here the white fine linen, with ans, we had hardly expected. Here are which foreigners were clothed when asses, which Herodotus tells us were an they were naturalized, and became memabomination to the Egyptians; and very bers of the Egyptian aristocracy. noble animals they seem. Camels are rare. It was long thought, indeed, that there were none; but there are some. To an agricultural people in the valley of the Nile they must have been of less use than to the wandering tribes of Palestine and Edom.