silent stupefaction. A short time afterwards he saw an intimate friend and companion, in his old age bereaved of every thing, walking up and down the suburbs, begging his bread. Psammenitus, when he perceived him, wept bitterly, and smote on his head in frantic sorrow. Cambyses sent a messenger to the captive king, to learn what might be the meaning of this inconsistency in his grief-he answered, that the calamities of his own family had confounded him-they were too great to be lamented by any outward signs of grief-but the necessities of a bosom friend had awakened him to reflection, and thence drew tears from him. Cambyses was moved, and tried to stop the execution of his son; but the orders arrived too late, the prince having been the first executed. Psammenitus was set at liberty, and would have been trusted with the administration, had he not shown himself more disposed to vengeance than submission; wherefore he was put to death, after six months' dismal reign.

So died the splendour and liberty of Egypt. The body of Amasis was taken from the tomb, mangled insultingly and burned. The god Apis was slain, and his priests ignominiously scourged. The Egyptians, reduced to the lowest degree of submission, their religion outraged and derided, the institutions of their forefathers set aside, and their royal line extinct, hated their victors and were restless in their subjection. New revolts brought on increased severities, and increased severity but exasperated and increased rebellion. Sometimes they were temporarily successful, but never permanently free. In 414, Amyrtæus, having made himself king, for a short time expelled the Persians; but he was quickly slain. Pausiris, Psammiticus, Nephereus, and Acoris, succeeded him in turn-sometimes the tributories of Persia, sometimes leaguing with the Greeks and other enemies against them. To these succeeded Psammuthis and Nepherotes, and Nectanebis and Tachos-reigning some a few years, others not many months, and all in contention with the power of Persia. The last king of

Eygpt was Nectanebus, the confederate and ally of the Grecian Agesilaus, by whose assistance he for a short time held his kingdom in quiet independence. In the twelfth year of his reign, finding the Persians still determined on his ruin, and about to overwhelm him with their forces, Nectanebus collected the largest army he could raise, consisting of 20,000 Greeks and as many Lybians, the rest Egyptians, to the amount of 100,000; still not a third part equal to the Persian army. A battle was lost and the king's affairs were ruined-both Greeks and Egyptians forsook him and submitted to the conqueror. When Nectanebus saw this he was driven to despair, and taking what treasure he could carry with him, fled from his palace of Memphis into Ethiopia, and returned not again. He was the last Egyptian that ever governed in Egypt, which has been since under foreign jurisdiction even to this day. Egypt was a province of Persia, till Alexander subverted that monarchy, and was received by the Egyptians as their deliverer from a people they hated; but they did no more than pass from one yoke to another less offensive to them: the prediction of the prophet was fulfilled-"There shall be no more a prince of the land of Egypt." B.C. 337.

We are thus compelled to take leave of the Egyptians more than three centuries before the Christian erafor the history of Egypt is ended. The regular succession of rising and falling nations, may be remarked throughout the history of the world—they rise gradually to power, attain their height, and fall some suddenly, as the Egyptians-but there is no instance of their reaching the summit of greatness a second time, except in the miraculous history of the people of God. Greatness, and power, and distinction, pass over the, nations of the earth as the shadow of a cloud over the landskip-it makes but a short pause and comes not back again-we must pursue it now to Assyria and Persia, whence it will very speedily pass away, to rest upon the nations of

southern Europe. Of Egypt we shall have very frequent mention in the history of other nations, as she becomes connected with them-but she has no more a history of her own. Occasionally we shall revert to the condition of the country, as it passes on to its present state of lowest degradation; where all that excites our interest in this first seat of wisdom, learning, and refinement, this first abode of civilization, are the massy vestiges of distant prosperity-the pyramids that have outstood all record of their erection-the colossal statues, of which to move a single limb has almost baffled the antiquary's powers the obelisks so enormous, that we cannot even conjecture the means by which they could be raised. We go, from curiosity, to ransack the cenotaphs of their heroes, and bring away the painted coffins and the embalmed bodies of their kings, to place them in our museums, as the oldest memorials of mankind that can be found on earth: but their people are no longer worth our notice, nor their territories inviting to the conqueror's sword.

For further particulars of Egyptian history, of her amazing works, her learning and legislation, we know of no book within their reach, to which we can better refer our young readers than that of Rollin; though some things, we believe, are there taken for granted that cannot be exactly ascertained; and the early dates in some degree differ from those we have adopted on examination of larger histories. We have before mentioned that the Greek historians are our only authorities for Egyptian story; their own language, and, if they had any, their literature, being extinct, and all their records gone.

REFLECTIONS

ON SELECT PASSAGES OF SCRIPTURE.

And the fowls came, and devoured them up.~
MATT. xiii. 4.

WE lately used this text as a warning how we act towards each other the part of a spiritual enemy, by lessening the impression that may have been made from the dropping of the words of truth upon our hearts. But there came to us, as we wrote, another thought-do we not often act this unkindly part towards ourselves? While honestly, perhaps, desiring the influences of God's Holy Spirit, and ardently pursuing the means of religious improvement, by assiduous attendance on the places of divine worship, fixed attention to the words of the preacher, and feeling appreciation of the Gospel message, whether read or preached to us in the publick service are there not ways-ways too common, if I mistake not by which we ourselves take up the fallen seed and cast it from us, and mar unknowingly the promised harvest? And this by the objects to which we immediately turn our thoughts, and the affairs about which we immediately go to employ ourselves. It is in vain that law, and habit, and decency, and perhaps a better feeling, have forbidden to the Sunday the occupations of the week, if the untrammeled mind takes licence for itself, to be engaged in week-day thoughts, and week-day feelings, and week-day conversations. They may be all innocent in themselves-innocent even on the Sabbath, so far as it regards the express command of God-and yet may they have the effect of lessening the good impressions we have received, deadening the freshawakened feeling, smothering the new-formed desire, or chilling the warmth of a heart that, scarcely aroused from its natural indifference, is ready to be lulled asleep again, in the first moment of permitted thoughtlessness.

We speak not of things forbidden, nor of things that are a breach of the Sabbath-but have we never been conscious, that when the Sunday afternoon, or the Sunday evening, perhaps the very first hour after we leave the church, is passed in talking of the affairs of yesterday or the schemes of to-morrow, our minds are withdrawn from the serious truths they have received, and on returning to the contemplation of them, find the impression considerably weakened, the images grown fainter, the interest in them considerably cooled-if they have been words of alarm to us, that our spirits have gone to rest again—if they have been words of comfort, that our disquietude has returned? "The fowls have devoured the seed,"but the fault is with ourselves-we should have avoided these distractions till it had acquired a stronger hold, and thrown out a deeper root: we should so have spent the remainder of the Sabbath, that our minds might have been kept fixed and serious on the things that had taken possession of them: we should have spent it alone, or with persons whose society would have perpetuated and encouraged the more serious tenor of our thoughts and feelings.

It profiteth a man nothing that he should delight himself with God.-JOB xxxiv. 9.

MANY, very many beside Job, have said this thing; and in the buoyancy of their joys and in the despondency of their sorrows, have believed indeed that the love of God is unneeded in their bosom's gaiety, and can avail them nothing in its sadness. It is hard to say in which they are mistaken most. We must delight in something

we cannot drag ourselves through the weariness of existence, without something on which to set our hearts, and of which to say, "This shall be my good-here will I plant, and here will I gather, and my delight shall be in it." But alas! if that thing be any thing but God, what is the harvest it will yield us? The mildew blight upon the flower we have cultured most-the rotting of the fruit at the very moment we expect to gather it