EGYPT.

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Old Persian has deserted him.

He who was cele

brated by Xenophon as above all men the speaker of truth, has become proverbial for lying.

If

II. The history of Persia at a certain period becomes connected with that of Egypt. The connexion is a religious one. The Persian king, Cambyses, seems to have been a fanatic, and to have carried on wars, if not for the propagation of his own faith, at least, for the punishment of those who held what he thought a false one. The Egyptian priests were especial objects of his abhorrence. we ask on what grounds, we shall be led into the consideration of another faith of the old world, which has left the most singular records of itself; which at different periods of its existence is bound up with Jewish and with Greek history; which was an object of profound interest to students two thousand years ago, and is scarcely of less interest to the students of our own century.

One subject immediately suggests itself to most of us when we think of Egypt. I mean its hieroglyphics, or sacred symbolical writing. And as the deciphering of this writing has been the key to all modern discoveries respecting the details of the history of this people, so the mere fact itself that they did use such a character, is, perhaps, the most helpful of all to the understanding of its principle. We have seen what a puzzle it was to the Persian to connect the outward things which he saw with those which were objects of his thought; how continually there seemed to be some light very near to his mind and heart which was revealing

itself to him; how while he realized this conviction, the outward sensible things which withdrew him from this light, were regarded as dark and evil; and yet how difficult he found it to express his thoughts about that inward light, except in terms which soon became confused with sensible images. The Egyptian never seems to have had this horror of visible things. He felt that something very sacred lay beneath them, and was expressed by them. To discover what this was, to read what was hidden in the objects of nature, was, in his apprehension, the function of the wise man. Then he was to translate back these perceptions of his, into outward forms and images, that the vulgar might be able to profit by them so far as it was meant that they should. Hence, there grew up an order of priests in Egypt, as separate from the rest of society, as the Brahmins. A caste system organized itself in the African, as in the Asiatic, nation. But the Egyptian priest was not an abstracted man in the same sense as the Hindoo; he did not so much withdraw himself from the contemplation of outward things, as seek to extract a virtue and a meaning from them. His first thought of all seems to have been that there was a Being hidden from man, but who was making himself manifest in different forms and signs. His operations in nature, the power which is exerted over the earth, and the life which goes on within it, might, especially in a country of such unparalleled fertility as Egypt, present themselves as objects of wonder and witnesses of a Divine

presence.

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But it would be impossible to think of these powers in the earth, without thinking of the animals which dwell upon it, of the different powers and qualities which they display, of their birth, and decay and renewal. These animals supply him with more distinct and definite symbols than the vague expanse of the heaven or earth. Different kinds of power are more concentrated and expressed in them; they can be far more easily exhibited in stone or in writing. Hence these became predominant objects of meditation to the priests. The various characteristics of the Godhead very soon become Gods. Students of Egyptian monuments discover three stages in the worship-three different cycles of gods. In the earliest cycle the idea of the Ammon, the hidden god, is the predominant one; and his manifestations are themselves rather in active energies, in vital operations, than in outward objects. The third cycle is the one most directly outward, hinting, however, at principles which in the first period were less perceived. As might be expected, different cities are found to have different classes of symbols; those in Upper Egypt to be characteristically diverse from those in the Lower ; though at some period an attempt must have, been made to bring all into one system.

Here, then, we seem to be in the idolatrous country-the country of divided worship: that which teaches us what idolatry means; how man loses sight of a centre: how every separate thing about him may become his master.

And yet,

throughout the whole of this idolatry there is a perpetual questioning of an unknown power to tell what this visible creation means. Each thing that is beheld is a riddle, an oppressive, tormenting riddle, of which some solution must be found. The Egyptian priest feels that the riddle is in the things. He does not put it into them, and it is not for him to do more than catch a stray hint of what each is denoting. But there is some object, some centre. The Pyramids point up to heaven as if they would say, "We are in search of it, we would reach it if we could."

Such a system as this, on whatever side he viewed it, would be very offensive to a Persian king, especially if he lived shortly after the revival of his own faith, and before it had undergone any of its later changes. The Egyptians would seem to him worshippers of those outward things, which he was taught to regard as in some sort the possessions of Ahriman. And all their mystical wisdom would look like miserable attempts to bring light out of darkness. It was far otherwise with the Greek. The enquiries and speculations of the Egyptian priests were listened to by him with attention and wonder. He thought they had a secret which he did not possess; he eagerly, but often in vain, questioned them to learn what it was. In later times, when a Greek kingdom had established itself in the heart of Egypt, under the Ptolemies, both Jews and Greeks met upon that soil, and the old Egyptian feeling, of a mysterious meaning lying at the root of all things,

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exercised a remarkable influence over both. The influence was felt by the Christian Church which established itself afterwards there, and which consisted of both elements. It has left deep traces in the thoughts of men during all subsequent periods. But Christianity, which had a strong hold upon the Greek cities of Egypt, seems never to have penetrated into the heart of the country population. The symbolizing tendencies which it had inherited from the old faith led to divisions on most momentous points, which appeared to lose their momentousness in the violent party strifes and intellectual subtleties to which they gave rise. Egypt became sectarian and demoralized; the Mahometan power established itself there. Various dynasties and various forms of Islamism have possessed it at different times; the arms which swept away subtleties and janglings were utterly unable to cultivate the mind of the Egyptian. All the European refinements and material wisdom of its present ruler have not awakened one thought in the people's heart, or done ught but make their slavery more ignominious and hateful. If the Memnon lyre is again to give forth any music, it must be touched by the rays from some sun which is not yet visible in that heaven.

III. To understand the difference between the Egyptian and the Greek faith, it is not necessary to study a great many volumes, or to visit different lands: our own British Museum will bring the contrast before us in all its strength.