8 



the focus of knowledge, and at the same time the centre of that 

 intellectual radiance, which lighted onward the nations of the 

 earth, in their march from barbarism to refinement. There 

 were nurtured the vast tribes of Israel, there were they 

 trained to fulfil the high destinies which awaited their mirac- 

 ulous Exedus. From thence went forth that wonderful nation, 

 those chosen people of God, whose present existence, 

 whose language, faith, and identity of character, is a perpetual 

 testimony of the prophets, and of the truth of those revelations, 

 which coustitute the religion we profess. 



Egypt ! who can hear that word without being excited ? It 

 seems to embrace the entirety of the past. What throngs of 

 ideas, what multitudes of events, rush upon the memory, 

 what mustering conceptions does the aroused imagination 

 embody forth ! The gorgeous courts of the Pharaohs, the con- 

 quests of Sesostris, the disastrous invasion of Cambyses, the 

 triumphal march of Alexander, the splendid reigns of the Ptol- 

 emys, Pompey's tragic death, the victories of Caesar, the fate of 

 Mark Anthony, the devastations of the Saracens, the Ottoman 

 subjugation, and the battles of Napoleon, all pass in rapid 

 review, like the magic pageantry of an illuminated scene. 



It was on the banks of the Nile, that the moral powers of 

 man were first and most successfully developed. There were 

 laid the deep and broad foundations of an empire, which sur- 

 passed all others in the extent of its power, in the range of 

 commercial enterprise, in the number and grandeur of its cities, 

 the magnitude and elegance of its palaces and triumphal mon- 

 uments, in wealth, intelligence and the arts, in all that 

 reflects glory on a people and gives eternal lustre to nations. 

 There, too, was established the dominion of Agriculture ; there 

 she commenced her reign ; and yet how long was that mighty 

 kingdom wrapt in obscurity, until revealed, in the ever-inter- 

 esting and instructive tale of that adventurous shepherd boy, 

 Israel's darling son. Then, indeed, does it burst forth with 

 imposing magnificence, and the holy annals are filled with its 

 importance, and the gigantic influence which it possessed over 

 all the nations of the East. Subsequently we are very exactly 

 instructed, by both Greek and Roman authors, as to its vast 

 agricultural resources ; and the accurate delineations on the 



