these were in danger, he was firm, resolute, and unyielding. But he sought the peace of Zion, and preferred the calm to the tempest-the advantages of peace to the exciting perils of war. Seldom has there been exhibited a conduct which more beautifully illustrated the admonition," Love as brethren-be courteous." Unobtrusive in his manners, warm in his affections, and attentive to all the charities of life, he was grateful for services rendered, and never forgot, even in the case of those who waited on him daily, to evince by his words and looks that he felt their kindness. His uncommon sweetness and gentleness of temper, combined with his many dignified excellencies, aided much in binding to him so firmly all who knew him.

His practical sagacity and knowledge of men and things, were very great. He was, in every sense of the term, a wise man, whose counsel it was ever safe to follow, who had carefully observed events, both in the church and in the world. Numerous were the maxims of wisdom -the result of observation and reflection—which he had treasured up, and which he was wont to express in language terse, pointed, and beautiful. His estimate of character was generally sound. No person knew better, or could delineate more happily and naturally, the characters of those men of God, who for the last sixty or seventy years have been the prominent teachers and pastors of the Secession Church. That he possessed this talent in a very peculiar degree, has been proved by several Memoirs which he has published, gemmed with striking and far-reaching remarks.

All these excellencies and practical virtues were crowned by humility, profound and unchanging; and by a consistency which knew neither break nor interruption. He was ever" clothed with humility." If the seraphim who stand before the throne of light, and know most of God and of his ways, are the highest examples of this virtue, its being so marked in him, showed that his character was moulded by the Spirit, and was composed of the finest, the noblest, and the most enduring materials. Nothing but the influences of heaven, operating constantly on him, could have made him, who was by nature guilty and sinful, an example of godliness, so attractive and so lovely.

Few men have engaged more universal esteem and love. Society saw him, and pronounced him a "man almost spotless." Long was he before the public eye,-taking an active share in all christian and benevolent enterprises-and yet there is none that accuses him of neglect or of deficiency. Religious persons, with one voice, account him a faithful servant of the Most High; and none that knew him has the shadow of a doubt that he has "entered into rest," and that his reward will be "great in heaven." Yes! he now stands before the throne, in company with patriarchs, and prophets, and apostles; and when the scenes of time shall be closed, and the final rewards are distributed, he will receive from the hand of the Judge a bright and glorious crown, and shall shine, amid perfect saints, as the "brightness of the firmament, and as the stars for ever and ever."

He is gone. With all his excellencies he has passed from amongst us. A burning and a shining light has been extinguished-rather, we should say, has been transferred from the earthly to the heavenly firmament, there to beam in bright and eternal splendour. We bow to the dispen

sation; and with sorrowful, but not, we trust, with murmuring hearts, we say "Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight."

MONUMENTAL SCULPTURES AND INSCRIPTIONS OF EGYPT.

THIRD ARTICLE.

ABRAHAM, whose occupation was of a pastoral nature, was kindly treated by the Egyptians, and we find sheep and oxen enumerated among the presents conferred on the patriarch by Pharaoh. But, at a later period, we are informed that the pastoral occupation had become odious in the eyes of the Egyptians, in consequence of the invasion of the country by a race of nomade shepherds.* The Egyptians suffered long and very severely from the ravages of these pastoral tribes, and their thorough detestation of them meets us almost every where on the monuments. We see them crushed under the chariot wheels of the kings, trampled beneath the feet of the warriors, dragged in fetters as slaves to the markets, or massacred without mercy. They are figured as supporting vases and other articles of domestic furniture, and are even supposed by Champollion to be represented by the figures painted on the soles of Egyptian slippers, in token of contempt. On few points connected with Egyptian history have more various or conflicting opinions been held, than respecting the origin and era of these shepherd tribes. Josephus following Manetho (a priest, who about 180 years B.C. by command of Ptolemy Philadelphus, translated into Greek the annals of the ancient kings as they then existed on the walls of the temples), has confounded the shepherds with the Israelites.t This theory, at all times an extremely improbable one, is now completely exploded. It is difficult, indeed, to conceive how any one could have thought of transforming the peaceful family of Jacob, consisting of only sixty-six persons, into an overwhelming deluge of conquering barbarians, and a dynasty of six successive kings. Rosellini concurs in the more probable notion of Champollion, who traces the shepherds in the tall, white, slender, blue-eyed, bearded, red-haired, and skin-clad race, depicted on the monuments. "All this nation," says Manetho, "was styled Hyc-sos, that is-the shepherd kings,-for the first syllable Hyc, in the sacred dialect, denotes a king, and Sos signifies a shepherd." Among the different names given to them on the monuments, is that of Scios, and in the paintings, where the different people subjected to the king of Egypt are passed in review, the Scios are comprehended under a race which are distinguished by the more generic name, Sceto. From this name, and from their physical appearance, Rosellini infers, with every appearance of probability, that they were a Scythian race. With regard to the time of their invasion and conquest of Egypt, it must have taken place before Joseph was sold into that

* Gen. xlvi. 34; Exod. viii. 26,

+Joseph. contra App. lib. i. c. 14, 15. See also Marsham's Canon, Egypt, pp. 90-106. Ros nmu ler Scholia in Vet, Test, Pa. 1, vol. ii. p. 8; and Wilkinson's Materia Hieroglifica, part ii. p. 80.

country, and though not without difficulties the notion of Rosellini that it occurred shortly after the time of Abraham, is perhaps, on the whole, the most plausible, and agrees best with the scripture narrative. The learned professor is of opinion with Eusebius, that a shepherd king reigned over Egypt when Joseph was brought into that country; and, probably, both the ease with which Joseph rose to power, and the fact that his father and brethren repaired to Egypt for a supply of food during the famine, may be accounted for, by the circumstance, that a kindred race then held dominion in the land, and would be favourably disposed towards members of the same family to which they themselves belonged. We are told in the book of Genesis that Joseph, upon presenting his father and brethren to Pharaoh, was careful to tell him that they were shepherds, and that their trade had been to feed cattle, and that they had brought their flocks and herds with them. But in his instructions to them, there seems to be an extraordinary contradiction. "When Pharaoh shall call you and shall say, 'What is your occupation,' ye shall say, Thy servant's trade hath been about cattle from our youth even till now, both we and also our fathers,' that ye may dwell in the land of Goshen, for every shepherd is an abomination to the Egyptians." Now, the difficulty is to understand why Joseph should so carefully instruct his brethren to tell Pharaoh that they were all shepherds, because all shepherds were an abomination to the Egyptians;' and this is at once explained, if we suppose that Egypt was then under the dominion of the shepherd kings. We can easily understand, in that case, how strangers, belonging to a race so odious to the Egyptians, should at once be received into favour with the reigning monarch; how he should willingly bestow on them the rich frontier province of Goshen, and how the very circumstance which made them an abomination in the eyes of the conquered people, should recommend them to a sovereign whose family followed the same occupation. This state of things in Egypt, as Rosellini justly remarks, may serve to explain the measures pursued by Joseph, during the famine, to bring all the land and persons of the Egyptians into a feudal dependence upon their sovereign.‡

6

When the shepherds invaded the land, a great number of the people fled into Upper Egypt, where they penetrated southward into Nubia, and eastward to the shores of the Red Sea, founding another empire, of which Thebes became the metropolis,- -a circumstance which will account for the peculiarity of two capitals in Egypt. The monarchs of this dynasty made extensive conquests in Nubia and Ethiopia; and, by these continual wars, acquired so much military skill, as enabled them to recover possession of Lower Egypt, and expel the invaders, before whom their ancestors had ignominiously fled. It has been conjectured, with great appearance of probability, that the warlike spirit of the shepherds may have been enervated by the wealth which the administration of Joseph had poured into their coffers, from the whole of the neighbouring countries. The usurpation of the Hycshos lasted two hundred and sixty years. They were at length expelled from Egypt by Amosis, the founder of the eighteenth dynasty, and proceeding northward they settled in Palestine, and became the Philistines of

Gen. xlvi. 33, 34. † Wiseman's Lectures, vol. ii.p. 86. Rosellini, p. 180.

the sacred history.* We learn from an inscription on the tomb of one of the officers of Amosis, which has been found at Thebes, that his wars against the shepherds was of long duration; and that he fought many battles with them, both by land and sea, before he succeeded in expelling them from Egypt. Amosis is supposed to be the Pharaoh who oppressed the children of Israel. The scripture tells us that, after Joseph and all his brethren, and all that generation died, "there arose up a new king over Egypt, who knew not Joseph," a description which could scarcely be applied to any lineal successor of a monarch, who had received such signal benefits from him; but must rather be supposed to refer to a new dynasty hostile to the preceding, which at that time obtained possession of the throne. The scripture,” says James of Odessa, "does not mean one particular Pharaoh, when it says a new king, but all the dynasty of that generation.” † This exactly agrees with the monumental records, which show that, at this period, the founder of the eighteenth dynasty ascended the throne of Egypt. That he knew not Joseph, and the services he had rendered to the land is a satisfactory proof that he was a stranger. In the circumstances in which he was placed, he would naturally consider the Israelites as necessarily his enemies, and likely to make common cause with their friends whom he had expelled, and, as the shepherds after their expulsion, continued long to harass the Egyptians by attempts to recover their lost dominion, we can understand the fears which he expressed, when he said to his people, "Come and let us deal wisely with them, lest they multiply, and it come to pass, that when there falleth out any war they join also unto our enemies, and fight against us."‡ He therefore sought by oppres sion first to weaken, and then to extinguish the Hebrew population. "They did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens, and they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Raamses." It has often been asserted that the Hykshos destroyed the monuments of the native princes, and Champollion observed that many of the edifices erected by the kings of the eighteenth dynasty, are upon the ruins of older buildings which had manifestly been destroyed.§ The employment of the children of Israel in re-building the cities of Egypt, would give an opportunity, therefore, to the Egyptians to compel those whom they considered the allies of the shepherds to repair the injuries which they had inflicted; and we learn, both from scripture and the records on the monuments, that the Israelites were actually employed in the erection of those stupendous buildings which have rendered the eighteenth dynasty the most celebrated of all the generations of kings that ever sat upon the throne of Egypt. A most remarkable proof of this is given by a design which Rosellini has copied from the tomb of Rek-share, the chief architect of the temples and

The name Palestine or Pali-sthan, which first their own district in Canaan and afterwards the whole country took from them, means "Shepherd-land." It had acquired this name as early as the departure of the Israelites from Egypt.

+ Wiseman, vol. ii. p. 88.

Exod. i. 10. Rosellini, p. 291. Manetho, as quoted by Josephus, Cont. Appian. Lib. i.

Champollion, 2d Lett. pp. 7, 10, 17.

palaces of Thebes under Pharaoh Moris, the fifth monarch of this race. This interesting picture of "the Jewish brickmakers" is already well known to the public, and furnishes a most striking comment upon the declaration of scripture, that "the Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigour, and they made their lives bitter with hard bondage in mortar and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field." It is impossible to mistake the Jewish physiognomy so changeless and so peculiar to that people, while their half-grown beards, denoting the abject and slavish nature of the servitude which did not allow them leisure to attend even to this necessary act of cleanliness, "the splashes of clay with which their bodies are covered, the air of intense exertion with which their labours are pursued, and, above all, the Egyptian taskmaster with his heavy baton ready to visit with remorseless blows the least relaxation of the slaves from their toilsome task of making bricks, and spreading them to dry in the burning sun of Egypt, give a vivid impression of the accuracy of the scripture phrase, "All their service wherein they made them serve, was with rigour." We read in the fifth chapter of Exodus, that, when Pharaoh withheld from the Israelites the straw necessary to make brick, they were unable to complete the work assigned them, and that the officers who were set over them were beaten, and demanded "wherefore have ye not fulfilled your task in making brick both yesterday and to-day, as heretofore?" The painting to which we have referred affords a remarkable confirmation of the literal accuracy of the narrative. To the right of the sketch there is a group of Egyptian officers over the Israelites sufficiently distinguished from them by their head-dresses and complexion, the Israelites being painted of a sallow colour, the Egyptians in the usual red. Two of these are represented as compelled by the blows of the taskmasters to bear themselves the vessels of clay and the brick yoke, and to complete the work which they had failed to exact from the slaves entrusted to their charge.*

The reigns of the Pharaohs of the eighteenth dynasty, form the most splendid and interesting era of early Egyptian history. The sublime and magnificent monuments erected by this ancient race of monarchs on the plain of the "hundred gated Thebes," attest to this day their taste, their wealth, and their power. The immense and superb palaces at Karnac and Medinet Abou, and the famous obelisks at the former place, which surpass in delicacy and beauty all the other great monuments of Egyptian art now in existence, owe their origin to these illustrious sovereigns. They erected superb temples in every city of Egypt, and crowded the plains of Thebes and Memphis with those magnificent edifices, the mutilated remains of which still overwhelm the mind of the spectator with wonder and admiration. The wealth which the adminstration of Joseph brought into the royal coffers, accounts for the style of gorgeous profusion which distinguishes the public monuments of this period. We have already seen that both sci 4)ture and the monumental records attest that the children of Israel were employed in the erection of these buildings; and this is incidentally confirmed by Diodorus Siculus, who expressly states, that it was the

*Antiquities of Egypt, pp. 221, 222.