Excerpt from The Purpose of the Ages Abraham and Moses were reared are not the stage-like creations of a fervid imagination; they are scenes lighted up with local colouring, reflecting what we now know to have been the actual life and thought of the Babylonian or Egyptian of old time. It is Ramses himself who speaks to us, not the historian or rhetorician of a later age; the Egypt over which he rules is the Egypt of reality and not of convention. Those who like myself are engaged in the thankless work of dissecting the languages of the ancient monu ments and deciphering their tale, cannot be too grateful to one who puts life into the dry bones, and clothes them once more with flesh and beauty. The labours of the philologist and antiquarian may be useful and necessary; but they need an interpreter before they can reach the mind and heart of the people of today or teach the lesson which the story of the past is intended to convey. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.