tended as a
mausoleum for the sacred crocodiles, and was gradually enlarged for
their accommodation--Amenemhat, whose praenomen was found on the pyramid,
being merely the first founder. The number of the pillared courts, and
their similarity, made the edifice confusing to foreigners, and got it
the name of "The Labyrinth"; but it is not likely the designers of the
building had any intention to mislead or to confuse.

Amenemhat's praenomen, or throne-name, assumed (according to ordinary
custom) on his accession, was Ra-n-mat, "Sun of Justice" or "Sun of
Righteousness." The assumption of the title indicates his desire to
leave behind him a character for justice and equity. It is perhaps
noticeable that the name by which the Greeks knew him was Moeris, which
may mean "the beloved." With him closes the first period of Theban
greatness. A cloud was impending, and darker days about to follow; but
as yet Egypt enjoyed a time of progressive, and in the main peaceful,
development. Commerce, art, religion, agriculture, occupied her. She did
not covet other men's lands, nor did other men covet hers. The world
beyond her borders knew little of her, except that she was a fertile and
well-ordered land, whereto, in time of dearth, the needy of other
countries might resort with confidence.

FOOTNOTES:

[11] "Records of the Past," vol. xii. p. 60.

[12] Euterpe, ch. 148

VII.

ABRAHAM IN EGYPT.

"Now there was a famine in the land of Canaan; and Abram went down into
Egypt to sojourn there" (Gen. xii. 10). Few events in the history of
mankind are more interesting than the visit which the author of the
Pentateuch thus places before us in less than a dozen words. The "father
of the faithful," the great apostle of Monotheism, the wanderer from the
distant "Ur of the Chaldees," familiar with Babylonian greatness, and
Babylonian dissoluteness, and Babylonian despotism, having quitted his
city home and adopted the simple habits of a Syrian nomadic sheikh,
finds himself forced to make acquaintance with a second form of
civilization, a second great organized monarchy, and to become for a
time a sojourner among the people who had held for centuries the valley
of the Nile. He had obeyed the call which took him from Ur to Haran,
from Haran to Damascus, from Damascus to the hills of Canaan; he had
divorced himself from city life and city usages; he had embraced the
delights of that free, wandering existence which has at all time