to that conclusion, rather than from any definite historical record. Rome again had no tradition of Umbrian pile-dwellers descending from neolithic Switzerland, expelling Iberians, and being themselves expelled by Etruscans. It is singular, considering the almost total absence of genuine historical traditions, how certain myths and usages have been universally diffused, and come down to the present day from a very remote antiquity. The identity of the days of the week, based on a highly artificial and complicated calculation of Chaldæan astrology, has been already referred to as a striking instance of the wide diffusion of astronomical myths in very early times. Many of the most popular nursery tales also, such as Jack the Giant-killer, Jack and the Beanstalk, and Cinderella, are found almost in the same form in the most remote regions and among the most various races, both civilized and uncivilized, and many of them are obviously derived from the oldest and simplest forms of solar myths. I come now to the tradition of a Deluge, which is most important both on account of its prevalence among a number of different races and nations, often remote from one another, and because it affords the most immediate and crucial test of the claim of the Bible to be taken as a literally true and inspired account, not only of matters of moral and religious import, but of all the historical and scientific facts recorded in its pages. The Confession of Faith of an able and excellent man, the late Mr. Spurgeon, and adopted by fifteen or twenty other Nonconformist ministers, says-- "We avow our firmest belief in the verbal inspiration of all Holy Scripture as originally given. To us the Bible does not merely _contain_ the Word of God, but _is_ the Word of God." Following this example, thirty-eight clergymen of the Church of England have put forward a similar Declaration. They say-- "We solemnly profess and declare our unfeigned belief in all the Canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, as handed down to us by the undivided Church in the original languages. We believe that they are inspired by the Holy Ghost; that they are what they profess to be; that they mean what they say; and that they declare incontrovertibly the actual historical truth in all records, both of past events, and of the delivery of predictions to be thereafter fulfilled."