The question they proposed to themselves was—How the memory of their greatness, and of their achievements, might be preserved eternally. There was the method we know was practised by the Assyrians, the Persians, and the Hebrews. They might have caused to be recorded what they pleased in chronicles of their reigns, written in whatever was the ordinary character, and on whatever were the ordinary materials. There can be little doubt but that this was done. Such records, however, did not give sufficient promise of the eternity they desired. All materials for writing were perishable. Great national overthrows might occur, and all written documents might be destroyed. The language in which they were written might change, and even the memory of it die out. Written documents, too, in order that the record might be preserved, must be transcribed. Here were opportunities for omissions and alterations. These objections were conclusive against trusting exclusively to written documents. We can now see that if the old Pharaohs had relied only on such records as these, very little would at this day be known about them, or ancient Egypt. What we now know would have occurred, fully justifies their prescience: just as well as we know now, after the event, what would have been, they knew, before the event, what would be. They, therefore, devised another method—that both of inscribing, and of sculpturing, on stone what they had to record. This was a material which might be so used as to be practically imperishable. What was written on this would not require to be rewritten from time to time. The work might be so done as to bid fair to survive national overthrows. It might be read by any man’s eyes, although the language of Egypt might be lost. The sculptures, at all events, would be partially understood.