352 THE EVOLUTION OF THEOLOGY vm 



the worst practices of their neighbours. As to 

 their conduct in other respects, nothing is known. 

 But it may fairly be suspected that their ethics 

 were not of a higher order than those of Jacob, 

 their progenitor, in which case they might derive 

 great profit from contact with Egyptian society, 

 which held honesty and truthfulness in the highest 

 esteem. Thanks to the Egyptologers, we now 

 know, with all requisite certainty, the moral 

 standard of that society in the time, and long 

 before the time, of Moses. It can be determined 

 from the scrolls buried with the mummified dead 

 and from the inscriptions on the tombs and 

 memorial statues of that age. For, though the 

 lying of epitaphs is proverbial, so far as their 

 subject is concerned, they gave an unmistakable 

 insight into that which the writers and the readers 

 of them think praiseworthy. 



In the famous tombs at Beni Hassan there is a 

 record of the life of Prince Nakht, who served 

 Osertasen II., a Pharaoh of the twelfth dynasty 

 as governor of a province. The inscription speaks 

 in his name: "I was a benevolent and kindly 

 governor who loved his country. . . . Never was 

 a little child distressed nor a widow ill-treated by 

 me. I have never repelled a workman nor hindered 

 a shepherd. I gave alike to the widow and to 

 the married woman, and have not preferred the 

 great to the small in my gifts." And we have the 

 high authority of the late Dr. Samuel Birch for 



