Egyptians recovered their liberty, but were quickly subdued by Cyrus, and their country terribly ravaged by Cambyses, his son, and some thousands of their idols transported to Persia. This so enraged them, that they again revolted from the Persian yoke, but were still reduced to more grievous servitude; and their own civil broils tended much to accelerate their ruin. About A. M. 3672, they submitted to Alexander the Great: from thence they were governed by a race of Greek kings, mostly of the name of Ptolemy, for about 320 years. About A. M. 3995, the Romans reduced Egypt into the form of a province; and it continued under their yoke till A. D. 640. Under the Greeks, a prodigious number of Jews settled in Egypt, and the Old Testament was commonly read. Under the Romans, the Egyptians had the gospel very early planted among them, and the church considerably flourished. Since the Arabs seized the country, in A. D. 640, and destroyed every monument of learning, the Mahometan delusion has been established, and Christianity tolerated; but it has been in a very low and wretched condition. About A. D.970, the Fathemite Calif of Cyrene wrested Egypt from the Calif of Bagdad, and he and his posterity governed it about 200 years. About A. D. 1171, Saladine the Curd craftily seized it; and his posterity, called Jobites, reigned till 1250. Be tween that and 1527 it was governed by kings, which the Mameluke slaves chose out of their body, twenty-four of whom were Turks, and twenty-three Circassians; since which it has been subject to the servitude of the Ottoman Turks. Thus the sceptre of Egypt hath departed; it hath for thousands of years been without a prince of its own, and hath been the basest of kingdoms, long governed even by slaves, and the people most stupid. 1 Kings iii. 1; ix. 16; xi. and xiv. 21– 26. 2 Kings xvii. 4; xxiii. and xxiv. Isa. xix. xx. xxx. and xxxi. Jer. xxv. 18, 19; xxxvii. 9. and xliii. 8. 13. Ezek. xxix.-xxxii. Dan. xi. Joel iii. 19. Zech. x. 11. Isa. xix. 18-25. Psal. lxviii. 31.

The Egyptians were a people exceedingly given to divination and idolatry; and the Greeks confessed that they borrowed, not only their religious ceremonies, but the names of almost all their gods from them. Their chief idols were Osiris and Isis, or the sun and moon, Jupiter Ammon, Serapis, Anubis, Harpocrates, Ovus and Canopus, &c. The pyed bull, in the worship of which so much of their religion consisted, was the representative of Osiris. They also worshipped sheep, goats, cats, and even leeks and onions. A great number of their civil regulations, however, were exceedingly reasonable; and they were reckoned by the more ancient Greeks as the

most noted for philosophy. They were no less famous for building; the three pyramids, of about 3000 years' standing, are to the south-west of Grand Cairo. The largest is 499 feet high, and 693 at the bottom on each side, which makes the whole area of its foundation to be 480,249 square feet, or something more than eleven acres of English measure: this building is gradually carried up to a point. What use these pyra→ mids served for, whether as repositories for their dead monarchs, we know not. It is said 36,000 or more persons were employed in building the largest. The labyrinth was a kind of a structure with one door, and which contained twelve palaces, and 3000 chambers, half of them under ground. Here, it seems, was an assemblage of all their idols; and here the magistrates of the whole nation held their grand conventions. At Alexandria there still stands Pompey's pillar, erected by Julius Cæsar, to commemorate his victory over Pompey. It is of granite marble, and is seventy feet high, and twenty-five in circumference." *

2. ETHIOPIA. This country is frequently mentioned in Scripture under the name of Cush, though it is not always intended under that term. The ancients appear to have given the name of Ethiopian to all persons, either perfectly black, or of a very swarthy complexion. The Arabs, therefore, and other Asiatics, as well as a great number of Africans, came under this denomination. Thus the wife of Moses, who was a native of Midian, on the eastern shore of the Red Sea, is called a Cushite or Ethiopian, and the river Gihon, which is supposed to be the Araxes, is said to compass the whole land of Ethiopia, Gen. ii. 13. It is plain, therefore, that there are three countries bearing this name, referred to in Scripture. The

proper Ethiopia, however, was on the south of Egypt, on which side it was bounded by the Lesser Cataract, and the island Elephantine; on the west it was bounded by Libya Interior; on the east by the Red Sea; and on the south by a part of Africa unknown to the ancients, and therefore difficult to define. Ethiopia is now known under the name of Abyssinia, one of the large kingdoms of Africa.

Ethiopia was once a very large empire, consisting of fortyfive kingdoms, according to Pliny. It is exceedingly mountainous. Some of the mountains are of salt, and others abound with mines of iron, copper, and gold. Its chief river is the Nile, into which almost all the inferior ones run.

It appears that about the time of the Hebrew bondage in

*Brown's Dict. art. Egypt, and Ancient Universal Hist. vol. i. p. 467. See also Encyclopædia Metropolitana, vol. ix. pp. 42-51; 207-213.

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Egypt, or perhaps in the time of the Judges, the Cushites of Arabia, spoken of before, with part of the descendants of Joktan, passed the Red Sea at the straits of Babelmandel, and settled in this country. The language of the modern Abyssinians is plainly a dialect of the true and ancient Arabic. Many of their laws were similar to those of Egypt, and others resembled the customs of the more civilized Arabs. Ham, the father of Cush, or Jupiter-Ammon, was their chief deity. They likewise paid divine honours to Isis, Pan, Hercules, Esculapius, and others. There is a tradition among the Abyssinians that their ancestors embraced Judaism in the time of Solomon, to which they stedfastly adhered till their conversion to Christianity. According to this tradition, the queen of Sheba, whom our Saviour calls the queen of the South, and who ruled over at least a powerful nation of Ethiopia, had a son by Solomon, who was educated at that prince's court, and instructed in the law of God, under the care of his father. Being afterwards anointed king of Ethiopia, and sent home to take possession of his kingdom, he was accompanied by several eminent Jewish doctors, under whose superintendence the law of Moses was established among his people. It is certain that circumcision, the ob servance of the seventh day Sabbath, and a number of other Jewish rites, are practised by the Ethiopians to this day. But that their sovereigns are descended in a direct line from Solomon, it is somewhat difficult to believe. It is probable that the Ethiopians were conquered by Shishak, king of Egypt, either in the time of Solomon, or shortly afterwards. During the civil war which happened in Egypt after his death, Zerah, the Ethiopian, appears to have possessed himself of Egypt and Libya. Intending to add Judea to his dominions, he advanced with a large army against Asa, but was defeated by the Jews, who afterwards assisted the Egyp tians to recover their liberty, 2 Chron. xiv. 9—15. About A. M. 3257, So or Sabacon, king of Ethiopia, reduced Egypt, which then consisted of three or more distinct kingdoms, and entered into an alliance with Hoshea and the Israelites against the king of Assyria, which issued in the destruction of the kingdom of Israel by Shalmaneser, 2 Kings xvii. 1-8. Tirhakah, perhaps the same with Sethar, marched an army against Sennacherib, 2 Kings xix. 9. Some time after, Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, having ravaged Egypt, subdued a great part of Ethiopia, and held the people in bondage for three years, that is, till his death; when the Ethiopians, volting from the Assyrians, asserted their independence, which they maintained, though a monarchy distinct from Egypt,

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the time of Cyrus, by whom, and his successor Cambyses, they seem to have been much harassed, and by Xerxes were either partly or wholly subdued, Isa. xix. 23; xx. 4, 5; Ezek. XXX. 4, 5.*

4. LIBYA was a large country on the west of Egypt, the eastern part of which was generally subject to this power. The Lybians or Lubim assisted the kings of Ethiopia against the Jews (2 Chron. xii. 3.; xvi. 8.), and the Egyptians against the Assyrians or Chaldeans, Neh. iii. 9.; Jer. xlvi. 9.; Ezek. Xxx. 5. The Libya mentioned by St. Luke (Acts ii. 10.), is that by Ptolemy called Libya Cyrenaica, in which dwelt a great number of Jews. This was the country of that Simon who was compelled to carry our Saviour's cross, Mat. xxvii. 32.

* Ancient Universal History, vol. xviii. p. 277, &c.

THE earliest form of government among the Hebrews, of which we have any knowledge, was the patriarchal, as exercised by Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It is quite natural to suppose that Adam, the progenitor of mankind, would during his life time be acknowledged as supreme among his children, and that the authority he exercised over them would be unlimited. When his posterity separated into distinct families, the respective fathers of each tribe were acknowledged as princes, maintaining the chief power and command over them, without being accountable to any other authority. They also officiated as priests in their respective families.

This form of government appears to have been continued under some modifications, to the time when Moses was invested with the supreme authority, to liberate his oppressed brethren from the yoke of Egypt. Upon the accomplishment of this object a new form of government was introduced, which has obtained the distinctive appellation of a theocracy. Jehovah assumed a marked and visible relation to the posterity of Abraham, becoming their lawgiver, king, and judge. Under this character he gave the law from Sinai, appointed judges and magistrates, made peace and war, and received the half shekel as a tribute or revenue. It is only with this view of the Hebrew Government that we can understand the reason of various prescribed laws and institutions under that dispensation. Thus, we must regard the Tabernacle and