his descendants became dissimilar to him, is a problem which is yet to be clearly solved. The fact that the universal Father has varied the complexions of his children, does not detract from his mercy, or give us reason to question his wisdom.

[7]

Moses is the patriarch of sacred history. The same eminent station is occupied by Herodotus in profane history. To the chronicles of these two great men we are indebted for all the information we have in relation to the early condition of man. If they are incorrect, to what higher authority shall we appeal—and if they are true, then we may acquaint ourselves with the history of our race from that period,

Ham was the first African. Egypt was settled by an immediate descendant of Ham, who, in sacred history, is called Mesraim, and in uninspired history he is known by the name of Menes. Yet in the face of this historical evidence, there are those who affirm that the ancient Egyptians were not of the pure African stock. The gigantic stature of the Phynx has the peculiar features of the children of Ham—one of the most celebrated queens of Egypt was Nitocris, an Ethiopian woman; yet these intellectual resurrectionists dig through a mountain of such evidence, and declare that these people were not negroes.

We learn from Herodotus, that the ancient Egyptians were black, and had woolly hair. These people astonished the world with their arts and sciences, in which they reveled with unbounded prodigality. They became the masters of the East, and the lords of the Hebrews. No arm less powerful than Jehovah’s, could pluck the children of Abraham from their hands. The plagues were marshalled against them, and the pillars of cloud and of fire,[8] and at last the resistless sea. “Then the horse and the rider, sank like lead in the mighty waters.” But the kingdom of Ptolemys was still great. The most exalted mortal eulogium that could be spoken of Moses, was that he was learned in all the learning of the Egyptians. It was from them that he gathered the materials with which he reared that grand superstructure, partaking of law, poetry, and history, which has filled the world with wonder and praise. Mournful reverses of fortune have passed over that illustrious people. The star that arose in such matchless splendor above the eastern horizon has had its setting. But Egypt, Africa’s dark browed queen, still lives. Her pyramid tombs—her sculptured collumns dug from the sands to adorn modern architecture—the remnants of her once impregnable walls—the remains of her hundred gated city, rising over the wide-spread ruins, as if to guard the 

 Prev. P 4/19 next