84 
It is my pleasant task this evening briefly to treat in the 
same manner the story of Joseph given to us in the first book 
of the Holy Scriptures, and I entreat your “ favourable 
censure " whilst endeavouring to put in small compass 
some results of those laborious and delicate researches which 
Egyptologists have given to the student of sacred history. 
You will find the chief sources of information indicated in 
foot-notes. But I must signalise the great value of Dr. 
Birch's recent edition of Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians and 
of Brug'scli-Bey's History of Egypt * (now made available to 
the English reader). f 
I must also call attention to a very able and valuable work 
by the Abbe Vigouroux, J whose writings have only become 
known to me (I am sorry to say) within a year past, since the 
publication of my book before mentioned. 
It is not my intention to enter largely on critical argument. 
The old impeachments of the history as incongruous with the 
details of Egyptian life have been answered by Ebers and 
others. Still it is no less a profitable study to lay the story 
as it has reached us side by side with the monumental records 
and pictures, and thus to become familiar with the substantive 
evidence. Afterwards those who wish to inquire into the 
divergent theories of analytical critics will find themselves in 
a fair position to begin that task. 
The subject before us now is not only more frequented than 
“the Times of Abraham," but far less complex and difficult. 
There is not that interweaving of the races and destinies of 
Elam, Babylonia, Syria, and Egypt. The story soon drifts 
down into the Delta, and it is to Egyptian sources almost 
alone that we look. 
But we must never forget that it is underlaid by all that 
has gone before. § The expeditions of Una, the adventures 
of Saneha, the tide of Chaldean migration, the stream of 
Phoenician commerce, shocks of Elamite conquest, filtering of 
Shemitic traffic, and at length the mastery of Hyksos invaders 
and overlords of Mizraim, all have to be taken into account 
by those who would discern in the twilight of history that 
background into which the figures of J oseph and Potiphar, 
of the priest-prince of On and his daughter Asenath, of the 
Amu immigrants Jacob and his house, so naturally fall, and 
Hist. cVEgypte. Leipzig, 1875. 
t Murray, 1879. 2 vols. 
X La Bible et les Decouvertes Modernes. Paris, 1877. 
$ See in addition, on forerunners of the Hyksos, Zeitschr. 1879, 34, &c. 
