In

Written Valley, to the very top of Mount Serbal, and point it out as the mountain here mentioned. Exod. xviii. 5, it is called the "Mount of God." It is about twenty miles to the north-west of that peak, in

the range of Sinai, at the foot of which the convent of St. Catherine is situated, and the peak which used to be thought the holy mountain before our travellers had made themselves better acquainted with the several spots.

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DEUTERONOMY, VI. 5.

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might."

It is of the first importance in the history of the world's various religions to remark that no pagan nation, except the Egyptians, taught the duty of loving their gods. The Greeks and Romans often boasted that the gods loved them, but until the spread of Christianity they did not profess to love their gods in return. The Egyptians alone can be classed with the Jews, as recognising the duty which is so forcibly commanded in our text. Rameses II., who reigned about B. C. 1200, usually styled himself" Amun-mai,”— beloved by the god Amun; but he also sometimes styled himself "Mi-amun,”— loving the god Amun. In Alexandria, also, we meet with the name Phil-ammon, in the third century B.C., which is simply a translation of Mi-amun. But the

religious views proved by these names are yet further shown in our drawing, where Oimenepthah I., the father of Rameses II., is represented as affectionately embracing the god Osiris. This is copied from the sculptures in the king's splendid tomb near Thebes, which was discovered by Belzoni.

It is probable that this higher view of religion was, among the Egyptians, for the most part limited to Thebes and Upper Egypt. In Lower Egypt they seem to have worshipped their gods in fear, to appease them, and turn away wrath, rather than in love and thankfulness for blessings received.

DEUTERONOMY, XXVI. 14.

"I have not eaten thereof in my mourning, neither have I taken away ought thereof for any unclean use, nor given ought thereof for the dead."

Part of an Egyptian funereal tablet in the British Museum, with a table of food set out before the figure

of the deceased woman.

The food consists of a crayfish,

various vegetables, bread, and the leg of a deer: beneath the table are jars,—perhaps of wine and honey. The table is spread with rushes, as with a tablecloth, upon which the food is laid; but the artist, from his want of skill, has made the rushes stand upright.

The friends of the deceased met together to eat this sacrifice, or peace-offering; and in Ps. cvi. 28, the writer accuses some of his countrymen of joining with the Gentiles in eating these sacrifices. What was left by the mourners was, of course, eaten by the wild animals; and in the hieroglyphical inscriptions the jackal is styled "the devourer of what is set out for the dead." The frequency of the practice in Egypt led to its being forbidden among the Jews. The same practice is to this day common in China.

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DEUTERONOMY, XXXIII. 27.

The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms."

The Egyptian god Horus, with his outstretched arms, representing the vault of heaven. From a papyrus in

the British Museum.

The beetle, or scarabæus, is the

hieroglyphic for his name.

Some of the early Italian painters, such as Paolo Uccello, represented the Almighty at the head of their pictures in the same way, with the head downwards. Later painters, such as Titian, though they set the head upright, continued to show only head and arms.

Among the Egyptians this is not such an ancient way of forming the vault of heaven as the winged sun, shown in Notes on 2 Chron. xxviii. 2, and on Num. xxxiii. 16.

JUDGES, IX. 7.

"And when they told it to Jotham, he went and stood on the top of Mount Gerizim, and lifted up his voice, and cried, and said unto them, Hearken unto me, ye men of Shechem."

A coin of the city of Neapolis, the modern Nablous, the Shechem of the Bible. Around is written, in Greek letters, "Of Flavia Neapolis, of Palestine in Syria." In