“This skirts very closely upon sorcery,” he said smilingly. “Do you know, there is perhaps not another man in the country who knows Assyriology so thoroughly as our friend here, Dr. Ledsmar.” “That's putting it too strong,” remarked the Doctor. “I only follow at a distance--a year or two behind. But I daresay I can help you. You are quite welcome to anything I have: my books cover the ground pretty well up to last year. Delitzsch is very interesting; but Baudissin's 'Studien zur Semitischen Religionsgeschichte' would come closer to what you need. There are several other important Germans--Schrader, Bunsen, Duncker, Hommel, and so on.” “Unluckily I--I don't read German readily,” Theron explained with diffidence. “That's a pity,” said the doctor, “because they do the best work--not only in this field, but in most others. And they do so much that the mass defies translation. Well, the best thing outside of German of course is Sayce. I daresay you know him, though.” The Rev. Mr. Ware shook his head mournfully. “I don't seem to know any one,” he murmured. The others exchanged glances. “But if I may ask, Mr. Ware,” pursued the doctor, regarding their guest with interest through his spectacles, “why do you specially hit upon Abraham? He is full of difficulties--enough, just now, at any rate, to warn off the bravest scholar. Why not take something easier?” Theron had recovered something of his confidence. “Oh, no,” he said, “that is just what attracts me to Abraham. I like the complexities and contradictions in his character. Take for instance all that strange and picturesque episode of Hagar: see the splendid contrast between the craft and commercial guile of his dealings in Egypt and with Abimelech, and the simple, straightforward godliness of his later years. No, all those difficulties only attract me. Do you happen to know--of course you would know--do those German books, or the others, give anywhere any additional details of the man himself and his sayings and doings--little things which help, you know, to round out one's conception of the individual?” Again the priest and the doctor stole a furtive glance across the young minister's head. It was Father Forbes who replied. “I fear that you are taking our friend Abraham too literally, Mr. Ware,” he said, in that gentle semblance of paternal tones which seemed to go so well with his gown. “Modern research, you know, quite wipes him out of existence as an individual. The word 'Abram' is merely an eponym--it means 'exalted father.' Practically all the names in the Genesis chronologies are what we call eponymous. Abram is not a person at all: he is a tribe, a sept, a clan. In the same way, Shem is not intended for a man; it is the name of a great division of the human race. Heber is simply the throwing back into allegorical substance, so to speak, of the Hebrews; Heth of the Hittites; Asshur of Assyria.” “But this is something very new, this theory, isn't it?” queried Theron.