EGYPT.—AN INTRODUCTION. 
arose in Rome itself, extended to the provinces, and for many centuries Egypt was the 
seat of those horrors which attend an unsettled government. 
Whilst the Romans, and, subsequently, the Greeks of the Eastern empire governed, 
Christianity was promulgated in Egypt. It was introduced there soon after its dispen¬ 
sation ; hut the history of its early propagation is obscure. It was probably through 
the agency of those men from “ Egypt and the parts of Libya about Cyrene ” (Acts, ii.), 
who were present when the gift of tongues was given to the Apostles, and who 
heard the new doctrine delivered “ to every man in the tongue wherein he was born.” 
Egypt is known, however, in Christian history as the first place where the Anchorets 
and Coenobites established their wild perversions of that beneficent doctrine, which taught 
“good tidings of great joy to all people.” Alexandria was the seat of a Christian 
bishop at an early period, and among those who held its chair, and are venerated 
as the Fathers of the Church, are Origen, Athanasius, and Cyril; and here the first 
great doctrinal struggles which divided the Christian Church occurred, between the 
Athanasians and the Arians. From Egypt, Christianity ascended the Valley of the 
Nile into Ethiopia and Abyssinia. Of Ethiopia the first Bishop was Frumentius, a 
young Roman, who had been a prisoner in that country, but who afterwards rose to 
great power and distinction; he became a Christian, and was consecrated Bishop of 
Axum by Athanasius. 
In Abyssinia Christianity is still the religion of the country, and many Christian 
communities exist in Ethiopia. Nearly every temple in Nubia, and in Egypt was 
used as a- place of worship by them, and their symbols are still found in many 
places amidst the hieroglyphics of the early periods. Now, the only native Christians 
are a few Copts, the descendants of the ancient Egyptians, and they are not found 
above Esneh. With them the only vestiges of Christianity in Egypt remain, which 
Gibbon calls “a sightless and hideous mummy of a Christian Church.” 
But the enmity and power of the followers of Mahomed subdued or extirpated 
the doctrines and professors of our religion. Egypt had continued under the rule of 
the Romans till the rise of the Eastern empire, and Rome herself was deserted. The 
feeble power of the Paleologi could not. defend these distant possessions, and, in 634 
of our era, Egypt was conquered by the Arabs under Omar. 
Wherever “ The Koran or the Sword” has established its power, mankind has 
degenerated and sunk into barbarism, and has nowhere been raised above it. Countries, 
the most favoured by Heaven, have become wild deserts; and the curse of Mahomedanism 
has been allowed, in the inscrutable wisdom of the Almighty,, to cast its blight over 
the very scenes where our inspired religion arose, and the countries where it was 
first promulgated. With Omar commenced the Mahomedan power and sovereignty 
in Egypt, but to us the history of her various Caliphs has little interest. The dynasties 
of the Omaides, the Abbasides, Toloomides, the Fatimites, and the Curds, extended 
to the middle of the thirteenth century; when the Memlook power arose, which continued 
to our own day, to be extinguished by the reigning sovereign, Mehemet Ali. 
The present condition of Egypt is one of the greatest importance to us, since the 
establishment of a communication by the Nile, and transit by the Isthmus of Suez to 
