Egypt was one of the first kingdoms founded after the deluge, and it is
probable that those who repeopled it after this event, had retained many
impressions of the former world. Her monuments, yet remaining, attest
the high antiquity of her arts and sciences, and her early advancement
in refinement and civilization.

Her priests and wise men were the instructors of the ancient world, and
the philosophers of Greece resorted to Egypt to study legislation and
philosophy, and Egypt imparted to Greece, and Greece to Rome, the arts
and sciences by which they refined and elevated Europe.

God designed Egypt to be the nursery of the nation of Israel. The
granary of the ancient world offering abundant sustenance, he brought
Jacob and his sons into it as one family, and here they remained until
they multiplied and increased, and became like the stars of heaven for
number; and He who led them into Egypt ordained all the events of their
national history so as to promote his own eternal plans.

The patriarch led his children, with their flocks and herds,--the wealth
of a pastoral people,--into this land as the invited guests of Pharaoh,
the monarch of Egypt. And as he bowed before the king, the aged
patriarch taught him at once the brevity of man's life and the
unsatisfying nature of all earthly enjoyments, as recalled at the close
of a long pilgrimage: "Few and evil have been the days of the years of
my pilgrimage." Pharaoh received the aged man with respect, and showed
him all honour; while in consideration of the pastoral habits of his
sons, a portion of land, separate from the Egyptians, was allotted them
for a place of abode. Thus they were kept a distinct, unmingled people,
and enabled to maintain their own peculiar institutions, practise the
rites of their own religion, and preserve the worship of the God of