he
oldest Christian church now existing.

The greatest change in the history of Egypt, however, and the one that
has left the most permanent effect upon it, was the Mohammedan
invasion in A.D. 640, and I must tell you something about
this, because to the great majority of people who visit Egypt the two
great points of interest are its historical remains and the beautiful
art of the Mohammedans. The times of the Pharaohs are in the past, and
have the added interest of association with the Bible; this period of
antiquity is a special study for the historian and the few who are
able to decipher hieroglyphic writing, but the Mohammedan era, though
commencing nearly 200 years before Egbert was crowned first King of
England, continues to the present day, and the beautiful mosques, as
their churches are called (many of which were built long before there
were any churches in our own country), are still used by the Moslems.

Nothing in history is so remarkable as the sudden rise to power of the
followers of Mohammed. An ill-taught, half-savage people, coming from
an unknown part of Arabia, in a very few years they had become masters
of Syria, Asia Minor, Persia, and Egypt, and presently extended their
religion all through North Africa, and even conquered the southern
half of Spain, and to-day the Faith of Islam, as their religion is
called, is the third largest in the world.

Equally surprising as their accession to power is the very beautiful
art they created, first in Egypt and then throughout Tunis, Algeria,
Morocco, and Spain. The Moslem churches in Cairo are extremely
beautiful, and of a style quite unlike anything that the world had
known before. Some of my readers, perhaps, may have seen pictures of
them and of the Alhambra in Spain, probably the most elegant and
ornate palace ever built.

No country in the world gives one so great a sense of age as Egypt,
and although it has many beauties, and the life of the people to-day is
most picturesque, as we will presently see, it is its extreme
antiquity which most excites the imagination, for, while the whole
Bible history from Abraham to the Apostles covers a period of only
2,000 years, the known history of Egypt commenced as far back as
6,000 years ago! From the sphinx at Ghizeh, which is so ancient that
no one knows its origin, to the great dam at Assuan, monument of its
present day, each period of its history has left _some_ record, some
tomb or temple, which we may st