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"This Shishak is the Pharaoh Sesonchis of Manetho, and was the head of the twenty-second dynasty of kings, which originated at Bubastis, a very ancient city of Lower Egypt. It so happened that before the mixed commission of French and Italians that visited Egypt in 1828, Champollion without then having ever seen Egypt detected the cartouche of this Pharaoh in some of the engraved representations of Europe and read it 'Beloved of Amon, SHESHONK.' It was four years afterward before Champollion saw Egypt, during which interval,' says Mr. Gliddon, the name of Sheshonk and his captive nations had been examined times without number by other hieroglyphists, and the names of all the prisoners had been copied by them and published, without any one of them having noticed the extraordinary biblical corroboration thence to be deduced.' On his passage up the Nile, Champollion landed for an hour or two about sunset to snatch a hasty view of the ruins of Karnac; and on entering one of the halls he found a picture representing a triumph in which he instantly pointed out, in the third line of a row of sixty-three prisoners, (each indicating a city, nation, or tribe,) presented by Sheshonk to Amunra, a figure, the writing upon which he translated king of the country of Judah.' "The picture had been executed by order of Shishak, or Sheshonk, so that here was found the sculptured record of the invasion and conquest recorded in the Chronicles. On the same picture were shields containing in hieroglyphics the names of Beth-horon, Megiddo, Mahanaim, and some others, all towns through which Shishak passed on his invasion of Judea."

From the foregoing evidence gleaned from the monuments compared with the incidents in Joseph's career, which we find in the sacred narrative, and from the direct confirmation of the conquest of Judea by the army of Shishak, our readers will be able to judge respecting the testimony borne by ancient Egyptian remains in favor of the Bible. It lays no claim to the dignity of direct, positive testimony. With regard to a multitude of events of which the sacred writer speaks, it is silent. Yet, purely circumstantial though it be, who can fail to appreciate its interest and value? It is particularly valuable for a class of minds apparently so constituted that an incidental argument, an undesigned coincidence, especially from a source having no reference to the principal subject, is, in matters of religion, most of all satisfactory and conclusive. For it ordinarily proves to be at least the one drop more which sets the mind overflowing in conviction. For this reason we have no sympathy with those minds which profess to despise this kind of evidence. And yet it is quite possible to injure the cause of truth by raising expectations, and putting forth assumptions in regard to monumental evidence for the Bible, which are unwarrantable. Hence we accord fully with the following judicious remarks at the close of the volume.

"The truth of the Bible is not dependent, in any degree, on our being able to produce evidence for its support from the monuments of Egypt. If that country had not a monument within it, it would not affect the genuineness and authenticity of the Old Testament. That it has such monuments, and that in modern times, God in his providence has permitted us to see that in many particulars they do illustrate and confirm our sacred writings, is cause for thankfulness; but such confirmation it must be remembered, when found is purely incidental, and cannot, therefore, be expected to present to us a continued story of events, which would constitute in fact but another complete history of what is already written in the Bible."

We have been specially interested while traversing this general subject with the indications of a providential agency in the preservation and production at the present day, of these monumental confirmations of the Bible. Indeed had Dr. Hawks given to the idea of this agency a greater prominence, it would have enhanced, certainly to the Christian scholar, the interest of his work. Nor would it, with any reasonable mind, have at all impaired the force of his argument by the impression that he was leaping too often from the region of fact to that of fancy. In the exercise of the same discrimination and judgment which he has elsewhere displayed, he would have thrown around it an additional charm. Writing for Christians, as well as for inquirers into the authenticity and credibility of the Bible, he might have penned on this theme one of his most attractive chapters, or have interwoven it more through the entire discussion. That his mind was not a little impressed with this agency is clearly apparent. Indeed it were impossible even for a candid deist to shut out entirely the conviction of a providential agency in furnishing us, in these latter days, with so copious materials, so numerous remains, and these so instructive, in reference to the Bible. Whence those peculiar characteristics of the ancient Assyrlans and Egyptians we speak with reference to the colossal scale which distinguishes their architecture, and to its massive materials, as if originally intended to defy the tooth of time and outlast all time? Whence the custom of paying such respect to the dead, as appears from those threescore and ten pyramids, built, as it is now ascertained, for royal mausolea, and constituting "that sublime Necropolis of the world," and as appears too from the embalming of bodies and storing them with so costly a care in rock-hewn tombs? Whence their superstitious care to conceal the localities of these sepultured dead-a concealment to which may be attributed, perhaps, past security and more extensive present discovery and exploration? Whence the custom

of painting their tombs with life scenes, national and domestic, and of placing in them many of the productions, utensils and ornaments of Pharaonic times-articles which we may now, more than three thousand years afterward, look upon and handle? Whence their habit of constructing for the great, imperishable sarcophagi, covered with significant sculptures, and minute inscriptions, forming, when collected together, a sort of running chronicle of national affairs? Of a truth, these remarkable peculiarities of the people, viewed in connection with the unparalleled dryness of the atmosphere of Egypt, whereby the most ancient monuments have been preserved from corrosion, and the most ancient paintings from fading, viewed too in connection with the preservation of the monumental records through the successive billows of calamity that have swept over that now degraded

country, and in connection with the close relation of these records to the Israelites and the Bible, bespeak the finger of God. Taken together they form a chain of circumstances, which it is immeasurably less superstitious to ascribe to the providence of God than to accident or chance.

Conspicuous to us likewise is a providential agency in the great discovery of Champollion by which the mysterious hieroglyphics have been made to disclose their long treasured secrets. One can hardly read the admirable description which Dr. Hawks has given of the successive steps of progress made by such archæologists as De Sacy, Akerblad, Young and the immortal Chanipollion, till the latter achieved his triumphant entrance into the temple of hieroglyphic learning, and opened its doors to the world, without confessing that the finger of God was in this thing. It was not a little marvelous that the minds of these eminent orientalists and their coadjutors should be simultaneously waked up to the subject. It was no less marvelous that, while eager and earnest they were congregated around the doors of this wonderful temple, a French officer should, in the Rosetta stone, dig up for them its key, and French scholars, accompanying Napoleon's expedition to Egypt, should furnish to their hand such an abundance of hieroglyphic inscriptions, and that soon after Caillaud should light upon the obelisk at Phila, previously discovered by Belzoni, and so valuable in verifying their conclusions. When we remember, too, that from the ruins of ancient Nineveh, Layard is digging fragments of the chronicles of Assyrian dynasties and finding there many a striking confirmation of scripture; when we consider that the advancement of the modern sciences, particularly chemistry and geology, has incidentally arrayed them among the witnesses for the Bible-the former, demonstrating that the infidel's alleged impossibility of a general conflagration of the earth, such as many suppose to be revealed in the Scriptures, is not only no impossibility but entirely credible, and the latter, confirming the Bible's chronology of the creation of man, by the fact that no human remains occur in geological strata of anterior date-we can not be blind to the footsteps of Providence. It savors of no superstition to believe, that, in this age of inquiry and skepticism, God is multiplying from unexpected sources, evidence, incidental, indeed, but for this reason more impressive, of the authenticity of the Bible.

And we look hopefully to the future. We look for a better understanding of the cuneiform character and the inscriptions written therein; for more discoveries in the tombs of Egypt, and a more extended and thorough deciphering of hieroglyphic literature. The end of these interesting confirmations of scriptural history, we are sure, is not yet. Not that they are important to supply a felt deficiency of evidence for the Old Testament; not

that the Christian asks them for himself, but that even on the proclivities towards infidelity on which so many of our youth and business men are thrown, there may be found various and ample restraining influences to keep them back from the abyss. We can not conclude this article without calling attention to one or two other interesting bearings of the information derived from researches into Egyptian antiquities. The knowledge already obtained, not only respecting Egypt but Assyria, ought to eradicate forever the notion of many that this world began in barbarism. Founded on this assumption is an infidel objection to the Old Testament, which urges the high civilization of Egypt at so early a period as evidence that the creation of man took place earlier than the time indicated by the writer of the Pentateuch, on the ground that the interval between Adam and the period of Egypt's grandeur, is too brief for the race to have grown up to so elevated a condition. But how much more rational is it to believe, from the evidence we have of Egypt's high civilization, at an antiquity so remote as the days of Abraham, that the world began in intelligence as well as in purity. How much more rational to believe that its original progress was, not from barbarism to civilization, but the reverse; that sin and selfishness have been bearing only their natural fruit in human darkness and degradation, and hence that man's recovery to universal civilization may be expected only to keep pace with his recovery to God."

These researches among Egyptian antiquities bear in their results with peculiar interest on the interpretation of portions of the Old Testament Scriptures. They have gone far toward a settlement of many of the interpretations about which the learned have disagreed. Many a time, a hint derived from the monumental records has been the interpreter's guiding light, conducting him to a satisfactory view of what was dark before. One passage, which has been the theme of much discussion among commentators, we can not forbear to instance. The Bible states that at the time of Jacob's arrival in Egypt, "every shepherd was an abomination" there; while, prior to this, at the time of Abraham's sojourn in the country, nothing of the kind appears to have existed. Conjectural explanations of this fact are not difficult. Several rather ingenious ones have been proposed; but by far the most satisfactory is suggested by what the researches of antiquarians have brought to light relative to Egypt's early history. It is believed to be now a settled fact that Lower Egypt was at a very remote period overrun and tyrannized over by a race of Asiatic nomads, or shepherd kings, and that between the arrival of Abraham in Egypt and that of Jacob, they had been expelled by the native sovereigns. This explains the national prejudice against the shepherd race at the time of Jacob's arrival, and explains too the absence of such a prejudice in Abraham's

time. Although more disputed than some others, the fact on which this interpretation rests, and the interpretation, furnish a good illustration of the important use which may be made of that knowledge of ancient Egypt which is likely to be gained by these researches. From the same source we have already learned the probable origin of many precepts in the Jewish national code. But to trace all the important bearings of the discoveries already made, not only on the question of the credibility of the Bible, but also on its interpretation, would form a copious theme by itself.

J.G. Davis

ART. II.-SYSTEMATIC BENEVOLENCE.

The Divine Law of Beneficence. By Rev. PARSONS COOKE, Lynn, Mass.

Zaccheus; or, the Scriptural Plan of Benevolence. By Rev. SAMUEL HARRIS, Conway, Mass.

The Mission of the Church; or, Systematic Benevolence. By Rev. EDWARD A. LAWRENCE, Marblehead, Mass. All published by the American Tract Society, 150 Nassau street, New York.

THE American Board has recently published the forty-first annual report of its missionary operations. From the table of receipts which is annexed, we can ascertain by a glance what has been the actual increase of contributions for the support of this great Christian enterprise during the whole period of its existence. Dividing the time in which this Society has been employed in the work of Missions into periods of ten years, it appears that in the second and third of these periods, there was an increase of two hundred and of two hundred and fifty per cent. In 1830, the contributions were double those of 1820, while the receipts of 1840, were two and a half times greater than those of 1830. But the next ten years exhibit no corresponding advance; so far from it, the contributions of the three successive years, 1841, 1842, and 1843, furnish a larger sum than those of the last three years. The natural inference from these facts is, that these ten years evince a diminution of interest in the missionary cause among those who sustain this Society. Before assenting to this conclusion, however, it might be proper to enquire, whether the number of contributors has diminished, or other causes have operated to divert the charities of the Congregational and Presbyterian churches, once connected with the Board, into other channels. Without the means at hand of authenticating our statements, we feel warranted in saying that the number of churches and individuals who now contribute to the funds of the Board is

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