A Crisis in Egypt? Or What Happened on the Day of the Exodus

Light still comes to us from the Monuments of Egypt. The land of the Khedive is familiar to all at the present day, and this intimacy is increasing year by year. The proceedings in Cairo are flashed across the globe, and the appointment of a Premier becomes a matter of interest in the poorest home in the cities and towns of Europe and America. The eyes of scholars everywhere are turned towards the banks of the Nile, because of the startling discoveries which been made there during the past few years. First, men unearthed the Tell-el-Amarna tablets, giving us the official correspondence of the Court of Egypt in the fourteenth century before Christ. Then we were charmed with specimens of art belonging to the artists of a naturalistic school, in the employ of the great disc worshipper Khuenaten, the earliest religious heretic. Then came news of the discovery of a very ancient version of portions of the Old Testament, and more recently from the same country, the so-called Gospel of Peter.

The facilities for reaching the sunny land have been so greatly improved that thousands of persons now make an annual visit, in order to escape the rigour of Northern climes, and artists, authors, and playwrights vie with each other in presenting to us the scenes which they have witnessed, or the mental pictures which they have conjured up whilst floating in the dahabeahs.

The work of the Egypt Exploration Fund, and the founding of a chair of Egyptology in the University of London will doubtless lead to renewed interest being taken in the parts of the Old Testament which refer to Egypt. It is believed that the result of this research will strengthen the conviction that the writers of the first five or six books in the Bible were well acquainted with that country and the customs of its people, especially at the time with which the Book of Exodus professes to deal.