ANCIENT CIVILIZATION ON THE NILE. 
 
 AN ADDRESS 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE THE 
 
 FRANKLIN AND WASHINGTON LITERARY SOCIETIES 
 
 EASTON, FJL.. 
 
 During the Exercises of the Thirtieth Commencement, July 25th. 1865. 
 
 Rev. J. W. WOOD, A. M. 
 
 Glass of 1837. anb |Jasfor of tjje |)r£sbgf£nan <£bar£b, in gilicntoton. jla. 
 
ANCIENT CIVILIZATION ON THE NILE. 
 
 AN ADDRESS 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE THE 
 
 FRANKLIN AND WASHINGTON LITERARY SOCIETIES 
 
 9 
 
 E ASTON, F A^.. 
 
 During the Exercises of the Thirtieth Commencement, July 25th, 1865, 
 
 BY 
 
 Rev. J. W/WOOD, A. M., 
 
 (Class of 1837, anb pastor of % |jrtsbjit£naii <£bnrr{j, in gilknioton, $a. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE FRANKLIN LITERARY SOCIETY. 
 
 LEWIS 
 
 EASTON, PA.: 
 GORDON, PRINTER, 
 18G5. 
 
CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 Franklin Hall, Lafayette College, Sept. 13, 1865. 
 
 Rev. J as. W. Wood : 
 
 Dear Sib : — At a regular meeting of the Franklin Literary Society, 
 held this day. the undersigned were appointed a committee to solicit, for publica- 
 tion, a copy of your valuable and instructive address, delivered before the Frank- 
 lin and Washington Literary Societies, July 24th, 1865. In discharging this 
 most pleasant duty, allow us to join our own personal solicitations to those of 
 the society. 
 
 With great respect, 
 
 Wm. Mckenzie, 
 e. p. conkling, ' 
 robt. j. hess, 
 
 Committee of Publication. 
 
 Allentown, Pa., Sept. 18, 1865. 
 
 Messrs. McKenzie, Conklino and Hess: 
 
 <J kntlemkn : — Your note of the 13th inst. was duly received. The 
 Franklins, with their usual enterprise and kindness, solicit through you a copy 
 of the address to which you allude for publication. As it was called forth by 
 their flattering partiality, a loyal Franklin, as I claim to be, can do no less than 
 submit it to your disposal. 
 
 Very truly, yours, 
 
 J. W. WOOD 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 The student of the early condition of our race walks among the 
 ruins of Empire, Art, and Morals. Yet these ruins contain in- 
 structive evidences of much culture and advancement, in the periods 
 of which they are the remains. Our race started from an elevated 
 and highly civilized condition, but through sin its progress was 
 gradually downward, until its descent was arrested by the elevating 
 forces of a supernatural faith. 
 
 Man was the noblest work of God. In the brilliant worlds 
 which rolled from the hands of the Great Architect — in the beauty 
 and utility of our planet, and in the mysterious life of animals and 
 plants, He seems to have employed every ideal pattern, and to 
 have wrought it out. into some tangible expression of His wisdom 
 and love. Himself alone remained as the prototype of the next 
 creation, and He adopted even that, ''He created man in his own 
 image — in the image of God created He him.'" and then constituted 
 him lord of the world. Thus created and crowned, with a paradise 
 for his home, was Adam an imbecile in intellect — a child in knowl- 
 edge, a boor in manners? Was Eve a brainless beauty — a banter- 
 ing belle — a barbarian bride Scripture, history, and reason 
 answer, No. Humanity in them was at its highest elevation, and 
 after sin transpired, such was the perfect adjustment of bodily and 
 mental powers that life extended through nearly a thousand years. 
 There was in them such a combination of physical and mental 
 forces, that some of their descendants, for years after the Hood, 
 were a highly civilized, intellectual and thrifty people. The deluge 
 was sent to preserve the knowledge, the arts and the religion of 
 the primitive eras, and these Were treasured and perpetuated by 
 the children of Ham in Egypt. It is to this ANCIENT CIVILIZA- 
 TION IN THE VALLEY of THE NlLE, and to a glance at its westward 
 progress, that your attention i< solicited. 
 
6 
 
 In the days of Peleg, the race was overtaken with laziness and 
 pride, and made up its-mind to stay at home around a tower in the 
 plain of Shinar. But the confusion of the pronunciation (in He- 
 brew — the lip) of the one language, which all used, resulted in 
 emigration. The history of the descendants of Shorn and Japheth 
 is wholly lost, for nearly 900 years after the flood, excepting k 
 few notices of individuals in the Bible. Not until the Exodus (B. 
 C. 1491,) does the national history of the Jews properly begin. 
 Not a single monument is known to exist, erected before the tern- 
 pie of Solomon, to attest the skill and power of the descendants of 
 Shcm and Japheth — while the works of the children of Ham — erect- 
 ed before the Jewish temple, still remain, eliciting the admiration, 
 and commanding the imitation of all subsequent ages. Ham was 
 providentially selected to transmit to modern eras the secular 
 knowledge and civilization of the more ancient times, just as Shem 
 imparts, through a written revelation, the knowledge of religious 
 ideas and purposes.. That the ancient Egyptians descended from 
 Ham we know from the Bible, but Rawlinson in his notes on Her- 
 oditus (vol. II, p. 21, 234,) also says, "their skull shows them to 
 have been of the Caucasian stock, and distinct from the African 
 tribes westward of the Nile." The recent investigations in Eth- 
 nology agree with the suggestions of scripture and strengthen the 
 probability that the negroes have descended from Shem, and not 
 from Ham, so that matters grow worse and worse with the stupid 
 theology that panders to slavery by imputing a curse on Ham ! 
 
 There was a period of 1340 years between the flood and the 
 erection of Solomon's temple. To this period our remarks are con- 
 fined, and it is beyond dispute, that 1340 years afford ample time 
 for the planting — the growth and the monumental and literary 
 works of a great and intelligent nation. It is less than 250 years 
 since our fathers came to these shores to begin, in a rocky wilder- 
 ness, the work which has already been accomplished. What for- 
 ests have been felled — what cities built — canals dug — stone edifices 
 erected — statuary chiselled — inscriptions cut — what giant machin- 
 ery has been set in motion — what tunnels bored through mountains 
 — what acqueducts and viaducts ! Now if this country were made 
 a wilderness to-day, and should continue so a thousand years, the 
 
T 
 
 intelligent traveller would then find most convincing proofs of our 
 knowledge — our arts — our skill and our civilization among the 
 ruins of cities, and on monuments inscribed with names and dates 
 and histories. What curiosities would be found among the debris 
 of the. United States Mint — what curiously shaped masses of iron 
 on the site of forges, rolling mills and locomotive shops — what 
 stone walls, piers and abutments — what a relic for an antiquarian 
 to find, in the millenium, will be that little gun, made in the peace- 
 ful State of Penn. — 17 feet long, and into the muzzle of which 
 an Alderman might creep ! Would it be difficult to draw from 
 such sources a reliable general estimate of the learning, power and 
 civilization of this people ? The remains of Egypt are as abun- 
 dant and decisive for the period which 1 have named. 
 
 Isolated from the ignorance and corruptions of Central Asia — 
 separated and guarded by two wide deserts, and the Mediterranean 
 and the Red Seas, the Egyptians were best situated to preserve 
 uncorrupted the primitive arts and revelations made to Adam, to 
 Enoch and to Noah. It was not chance that laid that green plain 
 600 miles through the desert — that dug the channel for the best 
 river in the world, and flung over all the most enchanting skies. 
 There, in the groves of her lordly palms, her scholars and archi- 
 tects thought, invented and moulded for the world. While all clear 
 ideas in morals and religion are preserved to man in the revelation 
 made to the family of Abraham, almost all the uninspired, vet nor- 
 mal forms of matter wrought by man, originated in Egypt. Gre- 
 cian sa^es travelled thither to sit at the feet of her philosophers, 
 and the architects, who crowned the Acropolis of Athens with its 
 glory, found their patterns on the banks of the Nile. The agricul- 
 tural, mechanical and musical arts cultivated in the family of La- 
 ntech, and the science and skill of those who built the Ark. were 
 not only not forgotten, but usefully employed and enlarged. The 
 proportions of our mighty ocean craft, and the forme of our viols 
 and organs, came down through Egypt from antediluvian times. 
 
 The ancient name of the Nile, as given by Homer, was EgypttlS. 
 Its affluent floods are gathered on the high plateaus of the tropic, 
 and after receiving its last tributary, it rolls yet 1700 miles to the 
 sea. which it enters at about the same latitude as does our Missis- 
 
8 
 
 sippi. There is an enchantment about this <>1<1 river. Its majestic 
 flow is under a climate as calm and sweet as that of the Elysian 
 fields, where Greece sought in fable the home of her gods. Wav- 
 ing acres of grass and grain smilingly attest it- prodigal beneficence 
 — groves, of the tall, plmme^crested palm, adorn its plains — birds 
 of gorgeous plumage bathe in its waters — hoary pyramids and 
 temples ami tombs recall the scenes of 4000 years ago ; and, as the 
 christian traveller glides on its current, charmed, as by the river 
 of a dream, with its magnificence and quiet beauty, he is more 
 I than delighted with the probability, that he is gazing on the very 
 symbol of heaven which John uses when he says: "And he shewed 
 me a pure river of the water of life, in the midst of whose plain, 
 even on either side of the river, was there the tree of life which 
 bare twelve manner of fruits." Here, if anywhere, might the 
 second infancy of the race be reared to manhood, and civilization 
 receive some of its permanent forms. 
 
 Egypl alone, of all the countries mi the Mediterranean Sea. re- 
 tains its ancient fertility. It has been recently shown by Dr. Cole- 
 man in the Bibliotheca Sacra, that nearly one-third of the fertility 
 of Spain, Italy. Greece, Asia Minor, Palestine and North Africa 
 
 has been lost by the destruction of their forests — by meteorological 
 changes, and by war. while that of Egypt is renewed every year by 
 the waters of its life giving river. The agricultural skill of the 
 people made the country the granery of the ancient world, and 
 without it the great population of Palestine under the kings could 
 not have existed. 
 
 1 will not tax your patience with the details of the wonderful 
 monuments of the ancient Egyptians, which attest their learning 
 and civilization. In the vast National Cemetery, near the ruins of 
 Ancient Memphis, we gaze with wonder on the huge old Pyramids 
 — the Sphynx. the tomb of the Apis, and the countless sepulchres 
 of heroes, artisans, princes, millionaires, and sa vans, chiselled in the 
 living rock, and adorned with the arts of sculpture, painting and 
 writing. In like manner, for 500 miles up the sacred river, tem- 
 ples, statues, obolisks and records, bear witness to a race of men 
 who thought and wrought, with a skill equal to that which built the 
 tomb of Napoleon, or the Capitol at Washington. Thebes, the 
 
••populous No" of the Bible, baffles description. The temple of 
 Karnac is 1200 feet long and 275 broad ! Who shall describe its 
 avenues of sphvnxes. its propyla, its statues of Gods and men, its 
 adytum and its inscriptions ? Its obolisks alone seem more like 
 the work of angels than of men. A single shaft of granite 97 feet 
 high, 8 feet square at the base and 4 at the top, its sides dressed till 
 thev converge with mathematical precision, and the whole so per- 
 fectly polished that one can see his face in it after 3000 years, with 
 its inscriptions carved one inch deep with a sharpness of outline 
 nowhere excelled : such was not the work of a rude and ignorant 
 people. Its union of gracefulness and grandeur, of beauty and 
 sublimity is such that Heaven might well preserve it for good 
 spirits to gaze upon. It looks as if the angels had caught a stream 
 of the Northern Aurora and turned it into granite, and as you see 
 it standing against the gorgeous after-gloAv of an Egyptian sun-set. 
 as if it stood upon a plain of burnished gold you may well imagine 
 that holy ones would gather round it to mark its incomparable 
 gracefulness and to chant the supremacy of its beauty. How out 
 of taste to remove such a noble testimony of primitive civilization, 
 and to cobble it up in the Champs d' Elvsie in Paris ! None but 
 freaky Frenchmen would thus offend the honor justly due to an- 
 tiquity. Luxor, with its stupendous columns and architraves, is 
 on the same side of the river. On the west side are the Colossi on 
 the plain, the Memnonium. Medenet Haboo, Goornah, the tombs 
 of the kings, and the statue of Rameses the great. This statue 
 represented the king in a sitting posture, and was 00 feet high, 
 made of a single block of granit. and was brought 200 miles from 
 Asouan ! 
 
 I have only to say, that the men who could rear these structure* 
 and adorn them as they did, must have been far advanced in those 
 departments of knowledge which constitute a large portion of the 
 civilization of modern nations. 
 
 Within 300 years after the flood they began their records which 
 an- now being read, and the art of writing wa< common among 
 them 500 years later, as the writing of the pentateuoh by Moses 
 plainly shows. The pen is one of the mighty instrumentalities of 
 a progressive people. 
 
10 
 
 By their knowledge of astronomy they were the first to adopt, 
 the solar year, and they intercalated one day every fourth year as 
 we do ; and they inscribed the Zodiac on the ceilings of their tem- 
 ples. They understood what we call the Copernican system — 
 that the ecliptic was oblique — that the moon shown by borrowed 
 light, and that the milky way was a grand nebulae of stars. They 
 surveyed their lands, and planned their temples, statues, and ob- 
 olisks, by the axioms and problems of geometry ; they managed 
 water by the modern principles of hydraulics, and used figures on 
 the decimal and fractional system. Medicine was reduced to a 
 science, and by the compounding of drugs, and the division of prac- 
 tice into anatomy, surgery, embalming, dentistry, &c, Egypt be- 
 came the school to which the studeous of other nations resorted for 
 instruction. Mummies are found. 4000 years old, with teeth filled 
 with gold ; with bones ouce broken properly set, and with wi<rs 
 upon their heads ! 
 
 In architecture ancienl Egypt remains the master of the world. 
 What are usually known as the Doric and the Corinthian orders, 
 are familiar objects among the monuments. The grouped column, 
 credited to the rise of the Gothic style, is to be seen in the tombs 
 at Beni Hassan, which are among the oldest in the country. The 
 parts of a column, the plinth, the shaft, (square, polygonal, fluted, 
 or round) the capital, the abacus, as well as the architrave, frieze, 
 and cornice, were conceived and executed long before Athens and 
 Corinth had a name. Greece is pre-eminent in her conceptions of 
 the beautiful, and, in her unequalled taste, she is a model for all 
 times ; but while she excelled in ornaments, the forms on which 
 she placed them were learned in the valley of the Nile. 
 
 We may also omit the details of their household furniture, their 
 implements of husbandry and their weapons of war. The manufac- 
 turing of these, and of other things, is often depicted on the walls 
 of their tombs. Chairs were used instead of the more modern 
 divan ; and herein is evidence, that when a nation leaves its chairs 
 to sit on the floor, its progress is downward. Gold, silver and pre- 
 cious stones, were beautifully wrought into a great variety of arti- 
 cles, and wood, inlaid with wood of other colors, or with metals, 
 ivory and stone, or carved into the forms of animals and fruits. 
 
11 
 
 graced their homes. Glass, plain, colored, and ground, was man- 
 ufactured into beads, bottles, vases, mosaics, and tiles, or was cut 
 by the diamond, or fused by the blow pipe. Large numbers of 
 these and of other articles arc to be seen in the Museums of Cairo, 
 London, and New York. 
 
 At the Exodus, Egypt had lived long enough to have lapsed into 
 gross idolatry, and to begin to die ; yet in religion, too, she led the 
 early states of Europe, so that, when Jehovah rebuked idolatry by 
 the hand of Moses in Egypt, he rebuked it at its source. Herodi- 
 tus says that, "almost all the gods came into Greece from Egypt," 
 and from Greece they were adopted by Rome. Amun was Jupiter 
 — Sate was Juno — Pthah was the Pemiurgus — Neith was Minerva 
 — Kem was Pan — Seb was Saturn — Thoth was Mercury, and so 
 on. almost ad infinitum. But. Osiris was the most celebrated god 
 of Egypt, and the character which they gave him is among the 
 marvels of antiquity. It was held, that he came into this world 
 to do mankind good — that his title was. The Manifester of Good 
 and Truth — that he was put to death through the malice of the 
 Evil oiu — that he was buried — that he rose from the dead — and 
 that now he is the judge of all men at their death ! Was not this 
 the remains of an early revelation, concerning our saviour and 
 judge 1 
 
 It is manifest from an inspection of Egyptian temples, and the 
 records of religious rites practiced in them, that the author of the 
 Mosaic system did not reject everything, because it had been per- 
 verted from its original purpose, and been used in the service of 
 idols. That the heathen bow to their false deities. i< no reason 
 that christians should not bow to the true God. Sacrifices and in- 
 cense first commanded to Adam, came to be used in heathen tem- 
 ples, yet they might properly be again commanded for the taber- 
 nacle. We find it to be a fact, therefore, that Jehovah did not at 
 the Exode intend to invent every form anew, but, that he chaleng- 
 ed for himself alone, much that had before been devoted to idolatry. 
 The tabernacle with it< holy and most holy place, and the temple 
 of Solomon with its walls, open courts, and porches had their pro- 
 totype in Egypt. The Ark was a continuance of the sacred boat, 
 
 which is represented on the walls of the temples :is carried by Btai e* 
 
 I 
 
12 
 
 on the shoulders of the priests. The Urim and Thummim — the 
 robes of the high priest, the offering of incense and of fruits and 
 animals, and a daily sacrifice', were known in the idol worship of 
 Egypt before they were commanded in the Jewish economy. But 
 from these forms, the Decalogue sweeps away all idol gods, and the 
 true Deity assumes his exclusive right to the homage of man : and 
 tenches the world in the retention of appropriate forms although 
 once used in ignorant devotions, that acceptable worship is not in 
 forms and modes, but in the spirit of the worshipper, and the object 
 before which he bows. 
 
 One of the crowning evidences of the high civilization of the 
 most ancient Egyptians, is found in the treatment and position 
 accorded to woman. The king, the priest and the men. had each 
 but one wife. The royal household was. indeed, graced with the 
 most accomplished ladies within reach, but in early times, they held 
 much the same position as do the maids of honor around the Brit- 
 ish throne. The wife or the daughter of a Pharoh, succeeded to 
 the throne and reigned : the husband and his wife sat together at 
 meals and public entertainments on a large fautaeil, and were en- 
 tombed side by side at death. Women appear in the sculptures as 
 priestesses, and as holding honorable positions in society. Greece 
 rejected, but Home adopted the Egyptian usage : and on the Nile 
 and the Tiber, the married me]) could proudly say with Cornelius 
 Nepos — "Which of us is ashamed to bring his wife to an enter- 
 tainment, and what mistress of a family can be shown, who does 
 not occupy the chief and most frequented room in the house ?" 
 Ladies mingle freely with the other sex. or. engaged with each 
 other in animated conversation on household affairs, on patterns, 
 jewelry, matrimonial prospects and politics. They emulated each 
 other in the value and fashion of their garments and in the arrange- 
 ment of their hair in braids, or curls, or puffs, or waterfalls — in 
 offering to a friend the prettiest boquet, or in complimenting the 
 taste and liberality of their host. 
 
 It was to give to the descendants of Abraham the advantages of 
 such a country, and of such a civilization, that Joseph was sent 
 down, and made '"governor over all the land :" and subsequently, 
 his father and all his house. It was the school where they learned 
 
those lessons of science and that practice of the arts, which enabled 
 them in the wilderness to construct and ornament the tabernacle — 
 to make the ark and its mercy seat of gold — to carve, or to mould 
 the cherubims — to elaborate the golden candlestick, and the neces- 
 sary furniture for their worship and their wants. Although Israel 
 fell for a time under the cruelty of an oppressive monarch, it was 
 that thev might go out under a leader ''learned in all the wisdom 
 
 ■I DO 
 
 of the Egyptians," and carrr with them rhe knowledge and the 
 wealth of Pharonic time-. Fur 500 years, Egypt and Israel, both 
 strong nations, lived side by side in an honorable friendship and 
 peace. Solomon became a favorite in Pharoh's family, and Pales- 
 tine drew from the banks of the Nile, her science, her architecture, 
 her arithmetic, her weights and measures, her chariots, horses and 
 linen yarn, and many of her social and religious forms. Indeed, 
 so great was their intimacy, that Israel leaned too much on Egypt, 
 and provoked the divine interference. 
 
 Egypt has her place in history, not as an antagonist to the rev- 
 elation made to the Jews, as Baron Bunsen puts it, but she is to- 
 day, so far as she is understood, a grand repository of evidences 
 to the truthfulness of the biblical records, and a helper to the faith 
 and civilization of Christendom. Learned men have been guilty of 
 very impudent folly, in seizing with relish anything that seems to 
 make against the historical statements in the word of God. The 
 Savans, who accompanied Napoleon to Egypt, found a lintel of a 
 doorway in the temple at Dendora, on which was inscribed the 
 Zodiac, and some historical records. They pried it out, and 
 brought it to Paris. The magi of the University assembled around 
 it with eye glasses, microscopes and books ; and the inscription on 
 the poor stone was made to testify, that man had been on the earth 
 12000 years before the Mosaic date of his creation, and the French- 
 men were ready to swear, that the Bible was a delusion. Books 
 and pamphlets attested the new-born faith. Some unstable Pro- 
 testants were alarmed, but the Romanists are never much worried 
 when the scriptures are assailed, if tradition is let alone; and, since 
 the infallibility of the Pope stands pledged against Galileo's doc- 
 trine that the earth turns round, the incumbent of the chair in 
 which Saint Peter never sat, lias turned his attention to polities 
 
14 
 
 more than to exegesis. But in a few years Youngs and Ohain- 
 polion arose and correctly read the Denderian tablet, and it turned 
 out that Tiberias had made that inscription, to show that he had 
 erected a part to that old temple ! It is said that the learned 
 books, first published in Paris about the Zodiac, are out of print ! 
 
 So, too, some smaller Eg}^ptologists in this country — like Mr. 
 Gliddon — have paraded a superficial knowledge of Nilotic lore, 
 against the Mosaic chronolegy, while the more competent and judi- 
 cious, Wilkinson and Rawlinson, assure us that, " with regard to 
 the age of Menes — the first king of Egypt — and the chronology of 
 the Egyptian kings, all is very uncertain. No era is given by 
 the monuments, which merely recofd some events that happened 
 under particular kings ; and any calculation based on the duration 
 of their reigns given to Manetho, must be even more uncertain than 
 that of gcneologies." M. Mariatte, now exploring Egypt under 
 the Pasha, and before this a strong advocate of the anti-biblical 
 chronology, has just discovered a stela at Memphis which, he ac- 
 knowledges, takes 1500 years from his former calculations ! Let 
 them keep on digging and decyphering for the old Bible stands 
 good yet ! It deserves to be said with emphasis, that every fact 
 that has been agreed upon and settled by those most learned in 
 Egyptian records, corresponds with, and corroborates, the common 
 Hebrew chronology given in our English Bible. 
 
 But Egypt is dead. She lacked the revelation of truth — it came 
 too late for her in the Septuagint — and it is the experiment of 
 Providence to prove, that without that revelation, and its super- 
 natural grace, a sustained civilization is an impossibility on this 
 earth. Idolatry and slaveay corrupted her life ; her kings, no 
 longer nursing fathers, became despots, and her priests deceivers. 
 Egypt and Palestine fell together — the nurse and the child. It is 
 said that it took Rome three hundred years to die — it took Egypt 
 more than a thousand ! 525 B. C. Cambyses struck the corrupted, 
 decrepid old nation the first fatal blow. Greece and Rome succes- 
 sively fell upon her writhing form, and Mahommed wove the dark 
 
 pall that now mantles her remains Egypt is dead ! The 
 
 pale crescent only, shines on the night of her tomb ! 
 
 Yet she lives in her works. Her genius, learning and arts, still 
 
t5 
 
 swell the beneficent stream of human history, and, as 14 West- 
 ward the star of Empire takes its way," we see unfolded the 
 sublime purposes of the "blessed and only Potentate." The first 
 great national movement, involved the disinheritance of Egypt 
 from her patriarchal patrimony, when her ancient civilization, sep- 
 arated from idolatry and despotism, and augmented by new revela- 
 tions, was borne into the uncorrupted wilderness, by the Pillar of 
 Fire and of Cloud. Within the mountain ramparts of Horeb it 
 stood before Sinai, and, with unutterable solemnities, was invested 
 with a heavenly robe — a written constitution — an elective govern- 
 ment and an atoning service. In Palestine, the prophets of the 
 true faith stood upon the mountains, feeding signal fires for a wan- 
 dering world — incense, the shadow of prayer, rolled up in clouds 
 — the throne of David typified the power, and his Egyptian harp, 
 the music, of the coming kingdom — the expecting nations saw the 
 gorgeous symbols of evangelic faith, until the Star of Bethlehem 
 ushered the advent of the Prince of Peace ; who, beyond what 
 Egypt ever knew, taught the world to say — " Our Father who 
 
 ART IN HEAVEN." 
 
 In the later Jewish times Greece inherited the architecture, the 
 philosophy, the science, and, alas, the idolatry of Egypt. But 
 the original contributions of Greece to the civilizing forces, will ever 
 challenge the admiration and gratitude of mankind. It was not 
 blind fate that reared her inspiring mountains — that opened her 
 crystal springs, and hung over all her classic scenes the most be- 
 witching skies. It was the beneficent creator of the human fac- 
 ulties, who thus contrived to inspire the fine conceptions of the 
 Grecian mind, to which "a thing of beauty was a joy forever." and 
 so, to endow a higher school, with better masters, for Egyptian 
 civilization — where unsurpassed taste should attach to ancient 
 forms a diviner beauty, and adorn the world with its secular graces 
 — where poetry might assume her stately measures, and find ex- 
 pression in the cadences of song — where a Praxitiles might throw 
 his imagination upon the cold marble, and almost warm it into 
 life — where Pluto might think out, for all thinkers, the imperisha- 
 ble doctrine of innate ideas and a priori truths, ami where a per- 
 fected language might be prepared, which alone could best express 
 
u; 
 
 the loving mission, and the infinite glory of the world's Redeemer. 
 
 In her turn, Rome became heir to the treasures of antiquity, 
 and made, also, her contribution to the progress of the race. She 
 invented but little in the physical arts, in poetry, or in religion. 
 Egypt, Palestine, and Greece were the Patent offices whence she 
 drew her models — but she did demonstrate the glory and utility of 
 the Supremacy of Law. Her jurisprudence fought her battles — 
 enfranchised her citizens — trained her orators — dignified her court? 
 — developed h<*r literature, and bo-day, largely controls the eivil- 
 ization of our age. 
 
 Apostolic love lavished its wisdom and zeal on this old iron em- 
 pire, and the millenium would have been, chronologically, where 
 the Dark Ages were, had not the quintessence of depravity gal- 
 vanized dying paganism into life — enthroned the beast from the 
 bottomless pit, and then by a stupendous fraud, imposed the in- 
 vention upon Europe as the church of Christ. But Luther's ham- 
 mer, as he nailed his Theses to the door of the Wittemberg church, 
 aroused the nations. As when John "saw a door opened in heaven, 
 and a throne, and He that sat upon it appeared with a rainbow 
 round His head," so when Luther opened the Bible to the people, 
 rightful authority, and inspiring hope reappeared on earth. He 
 was the divinely selected switch-tender on the great road of human 
 progress, and he ran the blood-reddened, rickety, Roman engine 
 off the track. But its chief engineer still sticks to the old ma- 
 chine ; and not able any longer to make fuel of Bibles and Saints, 
 wherewith to fire it up, he amuses the age by throwing cold water 
 on free presses and free pulpits. 
 
 At the Reformation, there had been prepared, for a disenthralled 
 and scriptural civilization, the compass, the printing press, the re- 
 vival of learning, and the discovery of a new continent. John 
 Calvin organized a body of divine truth whose life is the Spirit of 
 God ; and it ran, faster than Ezekiel's wheels, through Germany, 
 France, Switzerland, and England. It was wonderfully borne into 
 the Huguenot and Puritan mind, under Presbyterian forms, and 
 winged them for their flight to these blest shores. They came-- 
 
 "And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang 
 With the anthem of the free." 
 
17 
 
 Here are we, then, enriched with all the historic wealth of the 
 past. Heaven throws its light upon us — and this is the year of 
 American jubilee ! What manner of stewards, young gentlemen, 
 ought we to he ? Shall we inherit Egypt's treasures, and owe her 
 no service 1 She was an asylum for the infant Redeemer — who 
 will tell her that He is "the resurrection and the life ?" Already, 
 Reformed Presbyterians are there, to lift the dark pall from her 
 tomb — the printing press throws off leaves for her healing — the 
 telegraph flashes light on her gloom — and soon the love of God and 
 of man, wielding the sweet forces of a christian civilization, will 
 carry back to her greater blessings than she ever lost — and her 
 good old rive:- will roll under brighter skies, when the songs indit- 
 ed on Judeah's hills, shall be sung through her palmy plains. 
 
DT61 .W87 
 
 Ancient civilization on the Nile : an 
 
 Princeton Theological Seminary-Speer Library 
 
 1012 00049 8149