the European; and, for centuries past, has ranked much lower in degree. The civilization of China is very unlike that of Germany, and probably much inferior to it. Yet, no person would confound the Chinese with the aborigines of New Holland, any more than he would consign the Germans to the same category with the natives of Congo and Oregon. I resort to this species of illustration to avoid any misapprehension about the precise meaning of the word civilization. Of this word, I have attempted no definition. I use it as custom has authorized. I speak of civilized nations and savage tribes, as existing facts, well known and universally understood. If there be any nations or tribes in a transition or doubtful stateso that they would not, by common consent, be assigned to the one or the other of these grand divisions-I leave them out of the account.

I assert then, that the most ancient Egyptians known to history were civilized as truly so, as were ever the Greeks or the Romans, or as now are the Britons or the Italians. With forms and degrees, I repeat, I have no controversy. Pass what sentence you please upon the remnants and ruins of Egyptian architecture, sculpture and painting; you will never pronounce them the work of savages. The builders of the stupendous temples at Thebes and Tentyra may possibly suffer somewhat in comparison with the artists who designed and embellished St. Peter's and St. Paul's at Rome and London; but no man will be hardy enough to insinuate that the former were savages.

But to return, for a moment, to the Scriptural history. Whoever will peruse the Mosaic account of mankind, during the first ages after the flood, will discover no trace of barbarism, and no deficiency in the arts of civilized life. So early as the time of Abraham, we find a king in Egypt of the common name of Pharaoh, and a civil polity established, apparently of the same general character with that which prevailed in the days of Joseph and Moses, and which probably continued until the Persian conquest. The kingdom abounded in agricultural products, and afforded ample relief to strangers in seasons of famine. Moses represents the sovereign, who reigned at the time of the patriarch's temporary sojourn in that then most fertile and hospitable country, as a powerful and magnificent monarch, surrounded by his princes and officers of state, maintaining a splendid and luxurious court, and exhibiting also

much more magnanimity and moral principle than is usually to be met with in crowned heads among the ancients or the moderns. Several writers, particularly Goguet and Warburton, have contrasted the circumstances of Abraham's journey into Egypt and of his dismission by Pharaoh, with those of a similar adventure on the part of Isaac with Abimelech, styled king of Gerar,-in which the superiority of an Egyptian monarch over a petty Philistine sheik or chief is strikingly manifested.

In the days of Jacob, the caravan of Ishmaelite merchants from Gilead," with their camels bearing spicery, and balm, and myrrh," and their ready purchase of Joseph as a slave, sufficiently indicate the nature of the market which Egypt then presented for the rarest commodities, as well as the safe and regular manner in which the over-land foreign commerce was conducted. We read of a captain of Pharaoh's guard, of a chief butler and baker, and other important functionaries—of a distinct priesthood-of a prison, "where the king's prisoners were bound"—of "magicians and wise men"-and of sundry curious facts and incidents, rather casually glanced at than directly stated in the general narrative. "And Pharaoh took off his ring from his hand, and put it upon Joseph's hand, and arrayed him in vestures of fine linen, and put a gold chain about his neck; and he made him to ride in the second chariot which he had," etc.; all evincing much luxury and refinement. And in the cities for the laying up of stores and provisions for the approaching seven years of famine, we see the effects of wise government and of great national opulence. Soon after Joseph's death, we find the power and grandeur of the kingdom very significantly illustrated in the employment of the enslaved Israelites in building treasure cities, and in preparing materials for splendid public edifices. "Indeed (adds Warburton), if we may believe St. Paul, this kingdom was chosen by God to be the scene of all his wonders, in support of his elect people, for this very reason, that through the celebrity of so famed an empire, the power of the true God might be spread abroad, and strike the observation of the whole habitable. world. For the Scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might show my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth.'" Rom. 9: 17.

The description of the Egyptian priesthood by Diodorus Siculus is worthy of notice in this connection. "The whole

country being divided into three parts; the first belongs to the body of priests, an order in the highest reverence among their countrymen, for their piety to the gods, and their consummate wisdom, acquired by the best education, and the closest application to the improvement of the mind. With their revenues they supply all Egypt with public sacrifices; they support a number of inferior officers, and maintain their own families: for the Egyptians think it utterly unlawful to make any change in their public worship; but hold that every thing should be administered by their priests, in the same constant, invariable manner. Nor do they deem it at all fitting that those, to whose cares the public is so much indebted, should want the common necessaries of life for the priests are constantly attached to the person of the king, as his coadjutors, counsellors and instructors in the most weighty matters. For it is not among them as with the Greeks, where one single man or woman exercises the office of the priesthood. Here a body or society is employed in sacrificing and other rites of public worship, who transmit their profession to their children. This order, likewise, is exempt from all charges and imposts, and holds the second honors, under the king, in the public administration." Moses also tells us that the Egyptian priests were a distinct and superior order, and had an established landed revenue; that when the famine raged so severely that the people were compelled to sell their estates to the crown for bread, the priests still retained theirs unalienated, and were supplied with corn gratuitously from the public stores. "Only the land of the priests bought he not: for the priests had a portion assigned them of Pharaoh, and did eat their portion which Pharoah gave them wherefore they sold not their lands." Gen. 47: 22. Diodorus gives us the reason of this indulgence, and corroborates the Scriptural history; or, rather, is himself sustained by this venerable authority-although ignorant, probably, of its existence.

Herodotus says the inhabitants of Heliopolis were deemed in his time the most ingenious of all the Egyptians. The schools of its priesthood were famous for wisdom and learning. And Strabo, even so late as the beginning of the Christian era, speaks of certain stately edifices as still remaining in that ancient city, which, as it was reported, had formerly been occupied by the priests, who cultivated the studies of philosophy and astronomy. This statement is incidentally confirmed by

Moses. When Joseph was created grand vizier or prime minister of Egypt, Pharaoh "gave him to wife, Asenath, the daughter of Poti-phera, priest of On" or Heliopolis. All the circumstances of the case plainly show that the king was then disposed to do Joseph the highest honor: and the sound policy of this distinguished alliance is apparent from the passages already cited from the Greek historians. The sudden and extraordinary, elevation of a stranger, over the heads of the hereditary administrators of public affairs, might have proved a dangerous experiment. The introduction of Joseph. therefore, into their own priestly order by marriage, was probably the best, if not the only expedient, calculated to allay their envy and prejudices, and to secure their cordial support and co-operation.

It is worthy of remark also, that, throughout this whole period from Abraham to Moses, the Scripture represents Egypt as an entire kingdom under one monarch, and not as distributed into a number of petty independent sovereignties, as most modern historians, from the imperfect traditions detailed by the Greeks, would lead us to believe. That Egypt might, in after times, have been thus temporarily divided among several tyrants or competitors for the throne, or that the powerful nobles or military commanders might, during the reign of a weak prince or the minority of a young one, or at any other favorable crisis, have seized upon the crown and shared its honors among them, is very probable, and will account for the stories found in many writers about the confusions of ancient Egypt. Domestic feuds and animosities may have commenced at or soon after the exodus of the Israelites. At any rate, the prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel, centuries later, when predicting the desolation of Egypt by the Babylonians, speak of internal commotions and divisions as the principal cause of her deplorable weakness, and of her forty years' endurance of the most dreadful calamities ever inflicted upon a conquered enemy. "And I will set the Egyptians against the Egyptians; and they shall fight every one against his brother, and every one against his neighbor; city against city, and kingdom against kingdom." Is. 19: 2. "And I will make the land of Egypt desolate in the midst of the countries that are desolate, and her cities among the cities that are laid waste shall be desolate forty years: and I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and will disperse them through the countries." Ezek. 29: 12. We must not confound the early with the later history of Egypt.

Nor are we to forget that, however much of error or fiction may have found its way into their historical statements, the more intelligent and travelled Greeks, with one voice, assigned to Egypt both the remotest antiquity and the highest wisdom and learning. Herodotus says that the Egyptians were the wisest of all nations, and that they were never beholden for any thing to the Grecians; but on the contrary, that Greece had borrowed largely from Egypt. All the Hebrew records support the Grecian evidence for the extreme antiquity and pre-eminent wisdom of the Egyptians. Thus, Isaiah, in denouncing the divine judgments against this people: "Surely the princes of Zoan (or Tanis) are fools, the counsel of the wise counsellors of Pharaoh is become brutish: how say ye unto Pharaoh, I am the son of the wise, the son of ancient kings? Where are they? Where are thy wise men?" Is.

19: 12.

I transcribe the following paragraph from Warburton, chiefly as furnishing a curious specimen of a kind of reasoning which is always convenient to the system-maker, and in the main abundantly satisfactory to the general reader. "This superior nobility of the priests of On or Heliopolis seems to have been chiefly owing to their higher antiquity. Heliopolis, or the city of the Sun, was the place where that luminary was principally worshipped; and certainly, from the most early times: for Diodorus tells us that, 'the first gods of Egypt were the sun and moon the truth of which, all this laid together remarkably confirms. Now if we suppose, as is very reasonable, that the first established priests in Egypt were those dedicated to the sun at On, we shall not be at a loss to account for their titles of nobility. Strabo says, they were much given to astronomy; and this too we can easily believe: for what more likely than that they should be fond of the study of that system, over which their god presided, not only in his moral but in his natural capacity? For whether they received the doctrine from original tradition, or whether they invented it at hazard, which is more likely, in order to exalt this their visible god, by giving him the post of honor, it is certain they taught that the sun was in the centre of its system, and that all the other bodies moved round it, in perpetual revolutions. This noble theory came with the rest of the Egyptian learning into Greece, being carried thither by Pythagoras; who, it is remarkable, received it from Enuphis, a priest of Heliopolis, and, after having given