The monuments have preserved some record of the actions of every individual of this long succession of monarchs; so that they have added to human knowledge an important chapter in the world's history which had been entirely lost.

Amosis was the head of this great dynasty, who covered the entire face of their native country with wonders. Superb temples are said to have been erected to the local divinities in every city of Egypt by one or other of them; and their ruins, still existing, bear testimony to the truth of this account. They also crowded the plains of Thebes and Memphis with temples and palaces, the mutilated remains of which in the former city still set at defiance the powers of language to describe the sensations which the sight of them excites in the mind of the spectator, and force even from the most incredulous the confession that no imagination can conceive the combination of splendour and magnificence which must have overwhelmed the senses of him who, 3000 years ago, was privileged to enter the then hallowed precincts of Thebes in its glory.

The inspired narrative of the wealth of Egypt through. Joseph's administration, solves the difficulty we otherwise find in accounting for the style of profuse magnificence of the public monuments of every description of the monarchs who reigned in the immediately succeeding period. Those who preceded and followed them (for the period is limited to the 346 years of the duration of this dynasty) fall greatly below them in these particulars. We have already considered those of their predecessors, of which, except the pyramids, the remains are small indeed. While their successors on the throne of Egypt for 1000 years afterwards found more than enough for the exercise of their energies in the vain attempt to finish the vast piles of building which their predecessors of the eighteenth dynasty had begun; so that some of them were destroyed by Cambyses the Persian, before they were finished, and others which escaped his

fury, were completed long afterwards by the Ptolemies, and even by the Roman emperors. Some peculiar circumstances in the history of Egypt were certainly required to account for these singular facts; and once more the Scripture narrative supplies us with those circumstances.

The monuments show that a period of profound tranquillity followed the expulsion of the shepherds from Egypt, which was employed by the monarchs who successively occupied the throne during the more than 100 years it lasted, in adorning the whole extent of Egypt and Nubia with temples and palaces, and in the execution of vast works of public utility, for the purpose of developing more fully the resources of this most fertile country.

The arts of design flourished greatly under these Pharaohs, and the style of execution of their earlier monuments approaches (perhaps scarcely equals) that of the more ancient period which has already been considered, and much surpasses in delicacy and beauty that of the later monarchs of this illustrious line. The obelisks at Karnac in Thebes, which were erected by queen Amense, are said to surpass in these respects all other great monuments of Egyptian art now in existence.

A short history of the reign of the son and successor of Amense, who was named Moris, will give some idea of the extent to which these illustrious kings adorned and benefited their country.

At Thebes, Moeris carried forward the great designs of his mother and his remoter ancestors in the temple at El Assasif, of which a few scattered blocks are the only present remains. He was the builder of a great part of the immense constructions of Karnac. He also added several of its most

superb halls to the stately palace of Medinet Abou, the foundation of which had been laid by his ancestor and predecessor Amenophis I., who stands at the head of the dynasty. In addition to these great works with which he adorned the capital, temples were erected to the tutelary deities by the munificence of Pharaoh Moeris, during the thirteen years of his short reign, in a large proportion of the provincial cities of Upper Egypt and Nubia. At Elytha, at Esne, at Edfou, and at Ombos, in Upper Egypt, remains more or less extensive, and all of beautiful execution, still bear inscribed upon them the name of this great king. This is also the case at Wady Halfa, at Ibrim, and at Amada, in Nubia. Ruins of considerable extent in these places still attest the magnificence of Pharaoh Moris, and the riches of Egypt in his days, which could extend themselves even to this remote dependency. Diodorus Siculus informs us that he also erected the propyla of the great temple of Memphis, and that they surpassed all other similar constructions in magnificence. These, and doubtless many others, have entirely perished in the course of the calamities which have befallen Egypt since the days of Pharaoh Moris.

But it was not merely to these works of magnificence and decoration that Moeris owed the renown' and the grateful remembrance of after ages. He was also the author of one of the most stupendous works of utility of which history has preserved the record.

By means of canals and embankments he directed the waters of the Nile, at the period of inundation, to a vast lake, which, taking advantage of the direction of the levels, he had excavated in a swampy portion of Middle Egypt, to the west of the river, and nearly on the borders of the desert.

When the inundation subsided, the waters were prevented from leaving the lake by means of flood-gates.

As this lake, when completed, was nearly a hundred miles in circumference, he had thus an immense supply of that which, as we have already seen, is so essential to the fertility of Egypt; and was thereby often enabled to remedy the defects of an insufficient inundation, and to convey away the waters of a superfluous one; both equally mischievous. Thus eminently did Moeris serve his country. The lake was called after his name; and Herodotus, who has preserved the account of it, also informs us, that he erected two pyramids in the midst of it, having a colossal figure seated on the summit of each. These have long since perished, but the lake itself still remains, and is called the lake of Feyoum.

But amid all these details of the greatness and magnificence of Egypt, the Christian's heart will still be with the people of God: and he will naturally inquire, What evidence do the monuments afford of the state in Egypt at this period, of the descendants and lineage of Joseph, by whose instrumentality God had poured the wealth that accomplished these wonders into its coffers? We answer him in the words of holy Scripture:-" The Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigour: and they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in morter, and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field: all their service, wherein they made them serve, was with rigour," Ex. i. 13, 14; and as an unanswerable proof of this, we refer to the annexed design, which is copied from the tomb of pe5шapн Rek-sharé, the chief architect of the temples and palaces of Thebes, under Pharaoh Moris. Never, perhaps, has so striking a pictorial comment as this upon the sacred text