and, further, that, having expelled these intruders, they ascribed these prodigious works to themselves, by whom, perhaps, they were finished. This circumstance also is intimated : for we are told by Diodorus Siculus, that the kings who built the first two pyramids designed them for their sepulchres; "yet it happened that their remains were not here deposited. The people were so exasperated against them, by the severe labours they had been compelled to endure, and were so enraged at the oppressive cruelty of their princes, that they threatened to take their bodies from the tombs, and cast them to the dogs: both of them, therefore, when dying, ordered their attendants to bury them in some secret place." *

We see, then, that, whatever obscurity may rest on the details of early Egyptian history, enough is elicited to afford abundant confirmation of the scriptural account. It is manifest, from the behaviour of Joseph to his brethren, his charge respecting them that they were spies, and the circumstance of "every shepherd being an abomination to the Egyptians," that Egypt had been, but some short time before, delivered from the scourge of the shepherd kings, a race of foreigners who invaded and retained possession of the country for a considerable period.

It was during the rule of these sovereigns that Abraham visited Egypt; and the Pharaoh at whose capital he resided was a shepherd king. Although, as might have been expected, we have no allusion in Egyptian history to this visit of the Hebrew stranger, still the scripture narrative casts important light upon the state of this country at this period. Pharaoh is found surrounded by his princes, and invested with state. Abraham is courteously received, (for there is no proof that the taking of Sarah into the house of the king was intended as an injury,) and allowed all the freedom that the most civilized country could afford. These facts make it apparent, that, whatever may be said by the native Egyptian. writers of this race of sovereigns, they were neither ignorant

* "Historical Library," book i. chap. 5.

nor barbarous. Still the fact that a man with Abraham's large family establishment, numerous servants, and prodigious flocks and herds, could pass and repass through the country, obtaining every accommodation without difficulty or annoyance, exhibits a striking picture of the state of population and manners then existing in the country; and proves the extreme probability of its having been invaded and subdued by one of these numerous nomadic hordes, then roving about, seeking a permanent settlement.

Very few observations are necessary respecting the learning, science, and art of Egypt during this period. A people who could raise the great pyramid must have had ideas as gigantic, and mechanical science and means as complete, as those of which any modern nation can boast. On this subject in general, we need only express our strong conviction, from a careful review of the whole, that the science and art of Egypt do not exhibit progressive improvement. The earliest pyramids are as colossal, the earliest sculptures are as beautiful, as any afterward produced. This uniformity not only pervades existing remains, but is also sanctioned by history. As we have already observed, Diodorus was told that even Menes, the first sovereign, introduced the greatest luxuries in furniture, diet, and dress; and that these were carried to such excess, that it was afterward found necessary to reform and correct them.

We must now turn to the subject of religion. This, in respect of Egypt, is of vast importance. The result obtained. by an author, who has devoted great talents and unremitting industry to the investigation of this particular, is worthy of consideration. He says, "The religion of Egypt underwent no alteration from the time of its establishment by Menes to that of its abolition by Christianity." * If we can rely on this judgment, (and we are assured that we may do so fully,) then this subject presents to our view the means of obtaining some information respecting the principles which led to the first departure from the patriarchal faith in postdiluvian times,

"The Antiquities of Egypt," p. 116.

and of casting light upon the idolatry known to have been so early adopted by the family of Ham. Before we pro

ceed to show the character and principles of this religion, we quote from the accomplished author his proof of this assertion:

"The reading of the hieroglyphics has elicited this singular fact, the proofs of which may be discovered in almost any class of remains to which we direct our attention. A large proportion of those which are deposited in the Museums of Europe consists of funereal monuments, such as sarcophagi in granite or alabaster, mummy-cases, votive tablets, and papyri. On several of these are inscribed the names of the rulers of Egypt, during whose reigns they were executed; and even where this is wanting, the style of the execution will enable a practised eye to determine the date with considerable probability. We know, therefore, that these monuments belong to all the periods of the history of Egypt, from the Pharaohs of the sixteenth dynasty, who were contemporary with Abraham, down to the emperor Alexander Severus, who lived in the third century of the Christian era. The narrow slip of papyrus, covered with a clumsy and almost illegible scrawl, which accompanies the Egyptio-Greek or Roman mummy, is a faithful copy, nevertheless, of some part of the long roll of prayers and rubrical directions, whose elegantlyformed characters, and exquisitely-finished illuminations, indicate that it belongs to those remote periods when the arts in Egypt were at their perfection. The same divinities are besought for the same blessings in both. This uniformity is still more evident on the wooden mummy-cases, which are common to all collections. They likewise belong to various epochs. Sotimes the priest, whose mummy is at Turin, lived in the times of the eighteenth dynasty, about B.C. 1500. Ensa-Amon the scribe, whose body is in the Leeds Museum, was contemporary with the twentieth, about B.C. 1100. There is a splendid case at Liverpool, which had been the depositum of Apices, one of the sons of Psammetichus II., the twenty-sixth dynasty, who lived about B.C. 600. There are mummy-cases also in the British Museum, and in the

of

Louvre, having Greek inscriptions, which inform us that they contain the descendants of the same family; and that they died, the one at Petamen, (at Paris,) in the nineteenth year of the emperor Trajan, A.D. 117; the other, Tphout, (Brit. Mus.) in the fifth year of Adrian's reign, A.D. 122. But all these are decorated in accordance with the tenets of the same mythic system. Differing from each other very widely as to the pattern or mode of disposing the parts of the picture, the same divinity is, nevertheless, depicted and invoked on all of them, over the same part of the body. So that in the one thousand six hundred years which elapsed from the time of Sotimes to that of Tphout, the religion of Egypt had undergone no alteration. This is also corroborated by the numerous similar monuments without dates which abound in the Museums of Europe. They are all embellished after this manner, though belonging to every known period of Egyptian history; as the different styles of art in which they are executed sufficiently indicate.

"This immutability of the religion of Egypt, which the monuments existing in Europe thus render so highly probable, is reduced to absolute certainty by the study of the sculptures and inscriptions that cover the remains of the numerous temples which still attest the devotion of the ancient inhabitants of the Nile to the system of their mythic belief. Among the hitherto unexpected truths which the commission of learned men of France and Italy to Egypt in 1828 discovered and illustrated, there is not one which is more satisfactorily made out than this. We give at length the account of the circumstances, which prove demonstrably a fact so important to our present argument.

"The temple of Dakke, in Nubia, was begun by the Ethiopian Ergamenes, the contemporary of Nechao; was carried on by Ptolemy Euergetes I., 246 B.C., and by his grandson Euergetes II., B.C. 180; but was completed by the emperor Augustus, A.D. 6. Near the gateway of this temple I discovered the remains of a more ancient one, the dedication of which is still extant on two immense blocks of stone. It was constructed by the Pharaoh Moris, B.C. 1736;

and was consecrated to the same form of Thoth, or Mercury, as the present temple. Here is a fact which, like many similar ones, proves that Ergamenes and the Ptolemies merely rebuilt the temples in the places where they had existed in the times of the Pharaohs, and in honour of the same divinities which had always been worshipped there.

"This point is a very important one: the latest temples erected in Egypt contain no new form of divinity. The religious system of this people was so entirely one, so united in all its parts, and prescribed so absolutely and precisely from time immemorial, that the dominion even of the Greeks and Romans produced no innovation upon it. The Ptolemies and the Cæsars merely rebuilt the temples which the Persians had destroyed, and dedicated them to the same gods.' (Champollion's Lettres de l'Egypte, letter xi. p. 151.)

66 6

"I have ascertained, that at Talmis, in Nubia, there have been three editions of the temple of Malouli, the god of that district one built by the Pharaohs, in the reign of Amenophis II., B.C. 1723; a second, of the era of the Ptolemies; and, lastly, the temple now existing, which was never finished, in the times of Augustus, Caius, Caligula, and Trajan, A.D. 100. And the hieroglyphic description of the divinity on a fragment of the first temple, which has been used in building the third, differs in nothing from the same legends on the more recent ones. Thus, then, the local worship of all the cities and towns in Nubia and Egypt underwent no modification; and exactly the same idols, whose worship had been instituted at first, continued to be adored up to the day on which their temples were closed for ever by the triumphs of Christianity.' (Page 157.)

"The immutability of the Egyptian mythology is also abundantly observable in the temples and temple-palaces of Thebes. The additions made to them by the later Pharaohs, the Ptolemies, and the emperors, all carefully abstain from the most distant approach to innovation in their religious allusions. The same divinities are invoked by the same legends on the modern as on the ancient parts of these stupendous monuments of Egyptian greatness. The dogmas of