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THE POPULA.E EDUCATOR. 



of mankind. Then there "arose a Pharaoh who knew not 

 Joseph." The Hyksos, or shepherd kings of the vast districts 

 on the west of Egypt, gathering their forces, took an oppor- 

 tunity, and came upon their enemies like a thunder-clap. Vain 

 was the interposition of the Israelites between the desired land 

 and its assailants ; vain was the military system, perfect as it 

 was supposed to be, of the great Egyptian monarchy. The half- 

 savages of the deserts were an overmatch for the refined soldiers 

 of the kingdom, and the old civilisation went down before the 

 mighty onset of the invaders like chaff before the wind. The 

 ancient dynasty of the wise Pharaohs, who had ruled equitably 

 and striven to do right, was ended ; a shepherd chief, indeed an 

 abomination to the Egyptians, was seated on the Egyptian 

 throne, and a rule was established at once subversive of the 

 Israelitish and old Egyptian brotherhood. The Pharaoh who 

 "knew not Joseph" that is to say, who was not bound by the 

 ties which knit Joseph's descendants (for Joseph had been dead 

 Long years before) to the Egyptians governed tyrannically over 

 both peoples alike, bruising both of them in pieces, like a 

 potter's vessel. The Egyptians proper, being the more nume- 

 rous, and the more necessary to the conquerors, fared better 

 than the Israelites, who were doubtless looked upon as deserters 

 from the cause of the wandering tribes, and were punished as 

 traitors who had made common cause with the enemy. They 

 were particularly oppressed, they were set on labour not only 

 derogatory in itself, but hard beyond compare, and even 

 insulted in every possible way both as regarded their nation and 

 religion. From having been the friends of princes they became 

 the slaves of servants, and were forced to endure in a strange 

 land all the miseries and indignities of the most servile peoples. 

 Under the late rule their religion, though regarded with jealousy 

 and dislike by the priesthood, had been liberally tolerated, and 

 "'in the land of Goshen, where the children of Israel dwelt," 

 had been allowed to be the prevailing faith. But now things 

 were altogether different. With difficulty could the descendants 

 of Abraham preserve their distinctiveness ; it was almost 

 impossible for them to worship God according to the rites which 

 tradition bade them observe ; their labour was incessant, the 

 severity of their taskmasters was unremitting, and no amount 

 of zeal, no amount of submissiveness, served to bring an amelio- 

 ration of their condition. The new masters were insensible to 

 pity ; careless whether or not they destroyed the Israelites as a 

 population ; anxious only, while their own rule lasted, to get as 

 much work as possible out of the wretched folk. Many of 

 the people died under the unwonted burdens laid upon them, 

 others took to heart the deep teaching of adversity, and 

 acknowledging the hand of God in the afflictions which were 

 sent upon them, chastened their minds and purified their hearts, 

 and became gradually fitted for the great change which was 

 thereafter to come to them under the guidance and apostleship 

 of Moses. What that change was, how it was wrought, and 

 the effect it has had upon the whole world since that time, will 

 be traced in the historic sketch of the Jewish nation which it is 

 proposed to make one of the present series of papers. Enough 

 here to know that soon after the departure of the Israelites by 

 the mighty hand and stretched-out arm of the God of Israel, 

 the power of the shepherd kings waned and drooped, and was 

 ultimately overthrown by a well-planned insurrection of the 

 Egyptians. 



The people rising again from their ashes, in which had lived 

 their "wonted fires," grew more powerful than before the 

 conquest by the Hyksos. The King of Thebes extended his 

 empire over all Lower Egypt, annexed the greater part of 

 Nubia, and having driven the Hyksos into fortresses, finally 

 compelled them to surrender, and did to the defenders according 

 to the universal, cruel custom of the Egyptians. Although it 

 happened that the Hyksos again made head, and, bringing in 

 reinforcements from the desert, drove the reigning king from 

 his throne, they never more made serious havoc with the 

 Egyptians, and were themselves finally driven out by the aid 

 of an Ethiopian army. Then came an era of great glory for 

 the Egyptians. Sesostris (Rameses the Great) united all the 

 Egyptian states under one king, and developing the resources 

 of the land, grew mighty and flourished. His conquests 

 extended from the extreme south of Ethiopia into Persia and 

 Greece. Large portions of eastern Arabia acknowledged him, 

 and it is said that he even made preparations for the conquest 

 <rf India, by means of his fleets, which were built on the Eed 



Sea, and passed out through the Straits of Bab-el-mandeb. Men 

 of all colours and of all nations were among his prisoners, and 

 he had the wisdom to profit by what his enemies could teach 

 him, and to establish at home the arts and manufactures which 

 his captives knew. Although uncertain, it appears probable, 

 that the conquests of Sesostris, extending to Syria a-nd Pales- 

 tine, took place during the wanderings of the Israelites in the 

 desert ; and if so, by weakening native princes whose territories 

 were not retained, must materially have assisted their occupa- 

 tion of the promised land. 



After Sesostris came many weak princes, relieved now and 

 again by the presence of some strong men ; but for three hundred 

 years after the death of the great conqueror little is known of 

 Egyptian history, the Scripture record making scarcely any 

 mention of it. About a thousand years before Christ, Shishak, 

 King of Egypt, made war upon Palestine, and was one of the 

 first scourges sent by the Almighty upon Israel to bring them 

 back to a knowledge of Him whom they so systematically 

 deserted ; but the power of Egypt was broken by many distant 

 expeditions, and after Shishak's reign declined rapidly. The 

 throne was accessible to whoever was strong and bold enough 

 to seize it even strangers occupied it ; and the manifest weak- 

 ness of the once mighty empire attracted the greedy attention 

 of those who were on the look-out for conquests. In the year 

 713 B.C., Sennacherib, King of Assyria, then one of the mightiest 

 princes on the earth, invaded Egypt with an army which, but 

 for a pestilence which struck down thousands of the troops, 

 must easily have conquered the whole land ; but the sickness 

 was such that the Assyrian army had to turn back, and going 

 up to Jerusalem died there. After this the Egyptians as a 

 nation may be said to have become extinct, so large was the 

 admixture of foreign blood and foreign institutions. Soldiers 

 were brought in from without, and men of no known country 

 became kings. Some of the kings Pharaoh-Necho, for example, 

 B.C. 616 infused the energy and strong will of a new man into 

 the administration, and for a while caused Egypt to shine forth 

 with even more than pristine splendour. His fleets scoured the 

 Mediterranean and Red Seas, and pushed into Indian waters ; 

 and it is asserted that an expedition, fitted out at his cost, sailed 

 down the east coast of Africa, discovered and rounded the Cape 

 of Good Hope, and returned home after an absence of three 

 years, by way of the Atlantic and the Straits of Gibraltar. 



But Egypt had had its day as an empire, and was doomed 

 to fall under the advance of newer civilisations. Cyrus the 

 Persian struck the first great blow at her, and Cambyses, his 

 son and successor, effected her subjugation, put all her chief 

 nobles to an ignominious death, and compelled her wretched 

 king to drink poison. The Persians, who had a religious hatred 

 as well as the contempt of conquerors for the Egyptians, op- 

 pressed the people almost worse than the Egyptians had done 

 by the Hebrews many centuries before. The temples were 

 defiled, the sacred animals were slain and eaten, and the priests 

 of Egypt hateful to the Persians, who detested all priests 

 whatever were made to bear almost unendurable oppression. 

 The history of Egypt, therefore, during the whole period of the 

 Persian occupation, is a record of constant desperate rebellions, 

 fiercely and pitilessly repressed ; and this state of things con- 

 tinued until the overthrow of the Persian power in Asia by 

 Alexander the Great. He, in the year 332 B.C., entered the 

 country, wrested it from the Persians, and built the city of 

 Alexandria and established the great library there. Upon his 

 death the empire he had founded fell quickly to pieces, and the 

 several members of his dominions came into the hands of who- 

 ever could seize them. Egypt once more passed under native 

 rule, and became again famous in history under the Ptolemies, 

 whose line, ending in Cleopatra, lasted two hundred years, and 

 then succumbed to the overshadowing power of the Romans. 

 In the year 30 B.C., and under the auspices of Augustus Caesar, 

 Egypt became a Roman province. What part she played in 

 after history how she was the seat of one of the chief 

 Christian churches how monachism began there how Chris- 

 tians devoid of the spirit of Christ behaved unchristianly, and 

 becoming unworthy were swept away by the tide of Saracenic 

 conquest how Saracens yielded in the end to Turks all these 

 things are matters of history, and may possibly be related in 

 other papers ; but the limits proposed for the present subject 

 do not allow of extension of treatment, and the sketch remains, 

 therefore, essentially one of the history of purely ancient Egypt. 



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