The London correspondent of the Christian-Evangelist has been doing some vigorous work lately in exposure of the conceits of the destructive critics. His letters on these topics present quite a new feature in that paper. His last, in the issue of December 23, gives account of a great discourse delivered recently by Archdeacon [258] Sinclair, in defense of the Book of Daniel against the injurious representation made in Farrar's commentary on the same. The sermon was delivered in St. Paul's Cathedral and was heard by "an immense congregation." Bro. Durban reports briefly the preacher's answers to two of Farrar's criticisms, the one based on the Chaldee portions of the book, which is really trivial, and the one based upon the use of Greek words. I quote what he says of the latter:

      The second great objection is that which is raised to the use of Greek names for certain musical instruments, and the Greek word for a herald. This is supposed to settle the theory that the book must have been written long after the period usually assigned. "But," says Dr. Sinclair, "Nebuchadnezzar early in his career fought in Lydia, and at that time there were Greek rhapsodists at the courts of Midas, king of Phrygia, and Gyges, king of Lydia. The names of musical instruments belonging to so musical a people as the Greeks would be widely known. Very few of our English musical instruments have English names. And, later, Nebuchadnezzar was invading Egypt, at a time when Greek mercenaries had long been scrawling inscriptions on Egyptian buildings. The difficulty is purely imaginary and arises from insufficient inquiry into the interpenetrating intercourse and admixture of those ancient civilizations."

      I suppose that the speaker went much more into details than we might judge from the brief report. It is the common history of musical instruments that, in traveling from country to country, they carry with them their original names. Here is the violin, with its Italian name, declaring its Italian origin in every country to which it has been carried. We sometimes call it a fiddle, but that is a vulgarism. Here, also, is the pianoforte, of which the same is true. It is translatable into English, but how would the translation, the soft-loud, suit as the name of the instrument? The name "guitar" is untranslatable into English, and we are compelled to call [259] it by its Spanish name. So, if our only American invention in music, the banjo, were carried, as it will be, into all the countries of the globe, it would everywhere be called the banjo, because the word can not be translated into any language under the sun. If, then, two or three Greek instruments of music were carried to Babylon in or before the days of Nebuchadnezzar, we may be certain that they carried with them their Greek names. But how could they have been carried there? The Greeks had constant intercourse with Asia Minor and with Egypt before the invasions of those countries mentioned by Dr. Sinclair. Their musical instruments would naturally be one of the first articles which they would carry to those countries with them! When the first one was seen and heard in Lydia or in Egypt, a native would demand of the performer, "What do you call that instrument?" and the answer would introduce the name in Egypt and in Lydia. Tyrian sailors had long since been visiting the coast of Greece, and when one of them with a musical turn first saw in the hands of a Greek an instrument he had never seen before, he would be certain to buy it if he could, and he would buy it under its Greek name and carry it to Tyre with that name. There, sooner or later, it would fall into the hands of some Babylonian musician, who would carry it to Babylon with the same name. In most instances it would be impossible to give it another name, because there would be no corresponding word in the new language by which to call it. These considerations make it very strange that a man like Dean Farrar, and many others equally learned and acute, should have found in the name of three of the instruments in Nebuchadnezzar's hand a ground for assigning a late date to the Book of Daniel.

      The points of argument mentioned by Bro. Durban [260] are not the strongest urged against the authenticity of Daniel; but the answers to these can be safely taken as types of the answers that will be eventually given to all the rest. The book which is to fully vindicate the Book of Daniel has yet to be written. It may be now in the hands of its author.

[SEBC 258-261]