Page:An Essay on the Age and Antiquity of the Book of Nabathaean Agriculture.djvu/121

Rh chair was offered him, that he was to be careful of entering on the arena of religious discussion. It would seem that in the broad generalizations which he has made on the distinctive characters of the Indo-Germanic and Shemitic races, he has handled a very delicate topic with great freedom. The delivery of the lecture gained for him a most gratifying and unexpected exhibition of feeling on the part of the Paris students, so prompt and decided, and sometimes so despotic in their verdicts on public characters, whose manifestations, however, are delightful even to professors, and whose opinions have to be considered, no less by journalists, as a power in the country.

“M. Renan’s friends were not without some apprehensions about his reception, as the student-population of the present time is passionately sensitive on all topics of a religious nature, owing to the interest which is felt on the Italo-Roman question. The lecturer, however, though he came out triumphantly from this ordeal, met with less favour from the authorities of the Collége de France and the Government, for his lectures have been suspended.”

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