Page:Ancient Egypt Her Testimony to the Truth.pdf/18



work is designed to present to the Christian reader a few examples of the extent to which the Bible is susceptible of illustration from the remains of Ancient Egypt, now that the mode of interpreting the hieroglyphic writings has been discovered. It will be found to differ from other recent publications with the same professed object, in appealing, not merely to the pictures which occur on Egyptian temples and tombs, but also to the inscriptions that accompany them,—without which they were never intended to be understood, and are, therefore, necessarily unintelligible. It is for want of this reference to hieroglyphics, that little, beyond a series of pleasing and somewhat instructive embellishments, has yet been produced from a quarter whence such large accessions of facts of real value and importance in biblical criticism were reasonably to be anticipated.

Some prefatory remarks on the history of Ancient Egypt are necessary.