94- 
have been rendered useful to Biblical students. It will be 
sufficient to mention that the decipherment of the Rosetta 
stone * in the British Museum was first attempted by our 
countryman Dr. Young, about sixty years ago; and that the 
system which he inaugurated has been established by the 
genius of the two Champollions, De Rouge, Mariette, Chabas, 
and Daveira, amongst the French ; . Lepsiusf and Brugsch 
amongst the Germans ; and of Englishmen the not less dis- 
tinguished names of Birch, Renouf, Goodwyn, and others, 
who have contributed their share to the chief philological 
triumph of the present day. 
4. I would remark, in passing, that Egyptology is valuable 
for chronology as well as for history. The former is too long 
a subject to be discussed in this present paper, as it should be 
treated separately; but I have no hesitation in expressing 
my belief, after a prolonged investigation of the matter, that 
the chronology of the Bible as computed from the Hebrew, 
may be proved to be in complete harmony with that which 
may be deduced from the monuments and papyri of Egypt. 
5. My present object, however, is to confine myself to 
those incidents recorded in Scripture relating to the children 
of Israel during their sojourn in Egypt from the time of 
Abraham downwards. And the first proof I would adduce 
on this subject, though of the negative . order, affords a 
striking instance of the rashness with which a certain class 
of critics are apt to impugn the integrity of the Bible. . 
6. Yon Bohlen, a distinguished German writer, considered 
that the fact of the Pentateuch having represented Abraham 
as receiving ec sheep and asses 33 from Pharaoh, was sufficient 
to prove its unhistorical character, as he says in his Die 
Genesis historiscJi-critisch erldutert that <( sheep were unknown to 
the Egyptians at that period, and asses were especially odious 
to them on account of their colour Y In reply to this crude 
objection, without laying any stress upon Manetho's testimony 
* This monument, which was originally set up in a temple at Memphis, 
dedicated to Tomos, “ the setting sun, 5 ’, and built by the Pharaoh-Necho of 
Scripture, was discovered in the year 1799 by M. Boussard, an officer of 
Bonaparte’s army in Egypt. The battle of Alexandria placed it in the 
hands of the British. It bore a trilingual inscription ; the upper one in 
hieroglyphic, the centre in enchorial, and the lower in Greek, from which it 
appeared that the inscription was in honour of Ptolemy Epiphanes, who 
reigned b.c. 205-181. , 
t The recent discovery of another trilingual tablet at ban (possibly tne 
same as the Biblical “ Zoan”), by Professor Lepsius, greater in its extent, 
and half a century older than the Rosetta stone, is considered of much 
value- as throwing additional light upon the present state of hieroglyphic 
literature. 
