OLD EGYPT. ■ 141 



self competent to teach until he had sat at the feet of Egyptian masters and drunk 

 deeply at the fountain of Egytian learning. There is some unconscious acknowl- 

 edgment of our indebtedness to the men who lived and thought and toiled and 

 died on the banks of the Nile thousands of years ago. Egyptian ideas are repro- 

 duced in our architecture and ornamentation, metaphysics and theology; Renouf, 

 Eber, and many other brilliant intellects are devoting their lives to the manu. 

 ■scripts and inscriptions in which the Egyptian mind reveals itself; and more 

 brain and pen labor has been given to the mechanism and meaning of the Pyra- 

 mids than to the grace and beauty of Parthenon and Pantheon. But a broad 

 margin of justice still remains unfilled; and whenever — if ever — full justice is 

 done to the achievements of a vanished race, Greece and Rome will look small 

 to an intelligent and impartial eye as compared with Egypt. The ancient king- 

 dom of the Pharaohs occupies but an insignificant part of the earth's surface; 

 only a narrow strip of ground on either side of the river whose annual overflow 

 redeemed it from the desert — so narrow that at the widest place a man on horse- 

 back can cross it in less than a day, and in the upper portion in a few hours. Yet 

 from this little spot, almost lost upon the map, influences have radiated to the 

 farthest limits of Christendom and heathendom. It has been among the most 

 potent factors of the world's education, and its power, though perhaps unrecog- 

 nized by the majority, will be felt while the world endures. The Egypt of to-day 

 is a mere geographical point, a bit of territory for European Governments to 

 wrangle over, European soldiers to take and hold, European statesmen to rule 

 well or ill as they see fit. The people who made Egypt what she was, and what 

 she never can be again, have disappeared forever, crushed out by the relentless 

 heel of Persian, Roman, Arab and Turkish conquerors. Their degenerate de- 

 scendants are unworthy to bear an illustrious name ; the mummies in the pits are 

 entitled to more respect than the fellaheen who dig up and sell them. Ages of 

 grinding oppression and hopeless ignorance, in which the sword and the whip 

 have had full swing and sway, have produced their legitimate result in a cowardly 

 and contemptible race, utterly incapable of self-government and fit only to wear 

 a foreign yoke. But, for the sake of Egypt's past, if for nothing else, it is to be 

 hoped that Egypt's future will be brightened and bettered by the new regime 

 which the conference must introduce ; and that the modern Egyptians may re- 

 ceive whatever elevation, advancement and general prosperity their capacity per- 

 mits from nations which were at the bottom of the ladder when ancient Egypt- 

 ians were at the top. — Globe- Democrat. 



