Her priests and wise men were the instructors of the ancient world, and the philosophers of Greece resorted to Egypt to study legislation and philosophy, and Egypt imparted to Greece, and Greece to Rome, the arts and sciences by which they refined and elevated Europe.

God designed Egypt to be the nursery of the nation of Israel.  The granary of the ancient world offering abundant sustenance, he brought Jacob and his sons into it as one family, and here they remained until they multiplied and increased, and became like the stars of heaven for number; and He who led them into Egypt ordained all the events of their national history so as to promote his own eternal plans.

The patriarch led his children, with their flocks and herds,—­the wealth of a pastoral people,—­into this land as the invited guests of Pharaoh, the monarch of Egypt.  And as he bowed before the king, the aged patriarch taught him at once the brevity of man’s life and the unsatisfying nature of all earthly enjoyments, as recalled at the close of a long pilgrimage:  “Few and evil have been the days of the years of my pilgrimage.”  Pharaoh received the aged man with respect, and showed him all honour; while in consideration of the pastoral habits of his sons, a portion of land, separate from the Egyptians, was allotted them for a place of abode.  Thus they were kept a distinct, unmingled people, and enabled to maintain their own peculiar institutions, practise the rites of their own religion, and preserve the worship of the God of Abraham.  And in all the oppression which they here sustained, we do not find that their religion was ever persecuted or their rites forbidden.  And as Egypt was the cradle of the nation of Israel, so it was to be the school in which the children of Jacob were to form a national character.  The wandering, pastoral tribes, transformed into an agricultural people and settled residents, and instructed in the arts of civilized life, were fitted to take possession of the allotted heritage.  After fostering their infancy and feebleness, the monarchs of Egypt gradually changed their course as the increasing numbers of the Israelites excited jealous apprehension.  Yet all this varying policy and every cruel edict advanced the designs of Jehovah and promoted the welfare of his chosen people.  The cruelty of the Egyptians alienated the hearts of the Israelites from the nation and from the land of Egypt, and kept freshly before them the remembrance of the inheritance promised.  While considered as strangers, treated as aliens, and surrounded by enemies, the bonds of brotherhood were more closely drawn, and they clung together, a distinct and separate people.