We may now turn to departments of research specially connected with the Old Testament. We may begin with Egyptology and Assyriology, it being understood that the latter is even more concerned with the literature, history, and religion of Babylon than with that of Assyria. During the middle of the nineteenth century the excavations in the East have restored its buried empires to the light of history; they have enabled us to study the Sacred story in connection with the great international system of Egypt and Western Asia; and they have shown us how closely Israel was connected with the peoples of the Nile and the Euphrates in commerce, politics, and religion. But the study of the faith and worship of Israel side by side with those of Egypt and Babylon is only part of the science of comparative religion. Recent research has taught us many things concerning the faiths of the world; and the unique character of the Old Testament Revelation can only be understood when it is compared with the religious practices and ideas of other peoples. Moreover, the discoveries in Egypt and Assyria, and the study of Eastern life, furnish many new illustrations of the manners and customs of Israel; and the new knowledge of Semitic languages enables us to correct many defects in the Authorized Version of the Old Testament. Indeed the publication of the Revised Version clearly demanded a revised exposition. Again, the new exegesis had to consider results in other departments of study, _e. g._, the Lower and the Higher Criticism. Something had been done in the Lower Criticism, or the discussion in detail of the text of the Sacred Books; but here the changes were comparatively unimportant; and even now our knowledge of this subject is very inadequate from the point of view of scholarship, though the text is determined with an accuracy sufficient for practical purposes. It was very different, however, in what is known as the Higher Criticism, _i. e._, the discussion of the date, authorship, and composition of the books of the Old Testament. Higher critics of one school, following those of former generations, were inclined, for the most part, to assign the books as they stood to the authors whose names were given as their titles. For instance the whole of the Pentateuch, with the exception of Deuteronomy, xxxiv, 5-8, was ascribed to Moses; the whole of _Isaiah_ to the prophet of the time of Hezekiah; and all the Davidic Psalms to David. But for about a century this subject had been studied from another point of view, by a school of critics who were inclined to neglect tradition, and to take for their motto "Prove all things." The principles of this school are clearly and eloquently set forth in the following quotation from Prof. Sayce;[2] the passage refers to the sacred books of Babylonia, but the principles are of universal application. [2] The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia, p. 258.