PILLARS OF KARNAK.

107

columns still glowing with the colours of the ancients. At present they are the old stone book that Egypt renders up to modern discovery, testifying to the victories of Pharaoh Shishak (Sheshonk) over Rehoboam king of Judah, at a later day. "In the long defile of

ruins," says Stanley, "every age has borne its part from the time of Joseph to the Christian era. Through the whole period of Jewish history, the splendour of the earth kept pouring into that space for 2000 years."

Even in our small representation, borrowed, with the

preceding one, by permission, from Mr. Roberts' beautiful illustrations of the "City of the Hundred Gates," the colossal Pharaoh may be discerned making offerings, and on the dilapidated remains of a palace at Karnak there is a hieroglyphic account of the deity Ameen-Ra addressing Amenophis, in which mention is made of a shepherd race, whom he promises to restrain within their own territories; this probably refers to the Jews and the land of Goshen. At Gournou, near Thebes, there is a tomb on which the hieroglyphics read: “The reception of the tribute of the land brought to the king by the captives in person."

The races of prisoners are represented as engaged in the occupation of making bricks, and are carefully watched by Egyptian taskmasters, one of the captives belongs to Lower Egypt, whose people are distinguished by their red complexion; the other, of a different colour and cast of features, seems to be Jewish.

On this tomb of Rekshare, near Thebes, a degraded race is everywhere figured, performing acts of drudgery, in torn and patched garments. The statement of Scripture concerning their being obliged to gather straw for themselves to complete their tale of bricks, is corroborated by Rosellini, who remarks that the bricks now found in Egypt belonging to the period of one particular Pharaoh, have always straw mingled with them, although in those most carefully made it is found in small quantities.

These bricks, mixed with straw, are to be seen in the room with the mummies, at the British Museum.

In the architecture of Egypt there appear to be three distinct epochs. Very fine specimens of the earliest are seen in the temples and palaces of Karnak, and Luxor, and at Ibsambul, and these are coeval with the Hebrews.

The temples of Edfou and Dakhe belong to the second

THREE EGYPTIAN EPOCHS.

109

epoch of Egyptian art, and on these the alphabet of phonetic hieroglyphs enables us to read the names of Græco-Egyptian Kings and Queens. They belong to the times of the Ptolemies.

The temple of Dendera or Tentyra is the third and most recent, and in this last period the legends of the Roman Emperors are inscribed, from Augustus down to Antoninus Pius. Most people have heard of the Zodiac of Dendera, which Dupuis declared, and even Burckhardt supposed, to be so many thousand years older than the chronology of Scripture allows. It was a large black stone in the ceiling of the temple, and is now in Paris, secured by the vain enterprise of savans, who

slept within the precincts that they might carry it away; but when obtained, so far from proving to be of the extreme antiquity that had been supposed, Champollion read upon it the names of Augustus, Tiberius, Claudius, Nero, and Domitian. The principles on which this and other

110

MORNING IN THE DESERTS.

Egyptian Zodiacs were formed seem to have been astrological rather than astronomical.

The beautiful sketch, over leaf, after Roberts, is inserted chiefly to point attention to the orb and wings, which are so well known on all Egyptian sculptures, and which are the symbol of the early worship of the sun, as we shall have occasion to refer to a similar form on the Assyrian and Persian monuments.

"Through the night the dews fall heavily," writes Lieut. Burton in his African travels, "the moon shines bright, the breeze blows cool, the jackal sings lullaby, till the 'wolf's tail' appears in the heavens (the Persian name for the first brushes of gray light, which are the forerunners of the dawn); then a mist floats along the horizon, beautifying the haggard land-its flayed rocks and skeletons of mountains; and the sun at once appears, rejoicing as a strong man to run a race."" This is morning in the deserts, as the quiet dwellers in English homes never see it, and the first idolators in Egypt worshipped their sun, and named their kings from him; but we would rather take it for a sign of the spiritual morning which is now dawning on the darkness of Africa. The Holy Scriptures are taking flight even into her deserts, hitherto in small portions, and by slow degrees. Three translations of the Bible, NOT AFRICAN, have during the last century exercised a silent individual influence there, which the future may bring clearly to light; the ARABIC, the ENGLISH, and the DUTCH. And now to these are added the AMHARIC for Abyssinia, with the KAFFIR, the SECHUANA, and other dialects, for the millions of the Southern part of the continent.

We must pay our awful debt to Africa in the "Pearl of Great Price." The Sun of Righteousness may dawn in sudden power over her long gloomy skies as does her sun in the heavens.

JOB AND HIS ERA.

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CHAPTER V.

JOB AND HIS ERA.

JOB'S

AND

CHARACTER-HIS ERA-THE MINGLED PEOPLE-GENUINE ADOPTED ARABS-JOB'S DESCENT, THE BLESSING OF ISHMAEL JOB'S AGE-ABOVE AND BELOW-EARLY CULTIVATION OF ARABIA-GOD'S JUDGMENT CONCERNING JOB-HIS REVELATION TO THE PATRIARCH-LANGUAGE OF BOOK OF JOB-ETHIOPIA-LENGTH OF PATRIARCHAL PERIOD-RELIGION AND MORALS OF TIMES OF JOB-STUDY OF THE CHARACTER OF THE PATRIARCHS.

HERE was one servant of God in the Patriarchal
times of whom the Omniscient said Himself—
"There is none like him in the earth,” “
a per-
fect and an upright man: one that feareth God
and escheweth evil." His character seems to

have been given to Moses as a study for the years of his wilderness training. He was a king of men among the Arabian races, towering mentally, at least, over them all; taught of God himself in all the knowledge of the Patriarchal era. Placed as his biography is in the midst of our Bibles, (though it stands first in many ancient Syriac copies of the Old Testament,) it is difficult to realize that all that JOB knew must have been treasured in the patriarchal families of ARABIA in his time. There are many reasons for supposing that after the days of Peleg and the division of the earth then recorded, Southern Arabia was the chosen retreat of the Patriarch HEBER, and even of his great great grandfather NOAH. Of this we have some further traces to notice. Job may be enthroned in our memories as the grand living representative of the early Arabians.