12 PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 



God granted him that which he requested " (I. Chronicles iv., 10). 

 The following extract from the first Sallier Papyrus, which 

 is a mutilated fragment, tells the same story from a foreign 

 inimical standpoint, " It came to pass that the land of Egypt was 

 held by the Aadtous. Then king Sekenen Ra was a ruler 

 in the southern region, the Aadtous in the district of Amu, 

 their chief king Apapi in the city of Avaris. The whole land 

 did homage to him, paying tribute. King Apapi took to himself 

 Suttech for lord, refusing to serve any other god in the whole 

 land. King Apapi appointed festivals, days for making sacrifice 

 to Sutech, with all rites that are performed in the temple of 

 Ra Harmachis. He built for him a temple of goodly and en- 

 during workmanship." The remainder of the fragment relates to 

 message sent by Apapi to Seken-en-Ra in the south and of the 

 dismay of that king and all his court when they heard it. The import 

 of the message is doubtful. It is evident, however, that Jabez 

 overthrew idolatry and established throughout his dominion the 

 worship of one God ; this God he called Sutech, which is not a 

 Hittite word, but a form of Shaddai, the Almighty, the name by 

 which God revealed Himself to Abraham, and to Jacob, and in 

 whose name Jacob was blessed by his father Isaac. Manetho gives 

 Amenemes III. a reign of only eight years, which is significant as 

 it was in the eighth year of his reign, Jabez renounced the worship 

 of idols, and called Shaddai the God of Israel. It was Aahpeti, 

 no doubt, who removed the scribes from Memphis to his new 

 capital, Thebes, where they continued to be masters of inscriptions, 

 writers of papyrian despatches, and historiographers royal, and 

 would be in possession of all the archives of an empire which stood 

 in intimate relation with the neighbouring people and nations. 

 They must have had a perfect knowledge of at least two languages, 

 the Egyptian and the Hittite. 



In Egypt the Kenites adopted the Hebrew faith. It is to them, 

 therefore, and not to any Israelitish writer, that we have the 

 remarkable statement that Jabez called upon the God of Israel 

 and the prayer which accompanies it. This faith they still 



