INTO THE LAND OF EGYPT

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLV, Issue 21090, 16 July 1938, Page 10

INTO THE LAND OF EGYPT

(Continued from front page.)

cause all its vitality has been spen! in the efforts to survive.

The Copt has been persecuted so much in the past that furtiveness and self-effacement have become his second nature. In its tremendous fight for existence the Coptic Church has been absolutely alone. It was separated in early times from the churches of the East and the West by differences in dogma, and so could look nowhere for help. That it has survived at all is miraculous. That it should have come down until to-day, with its traditions and customs unaltered, makes it almost a museum piece of primitive Christianity. I hope in the course of these articles to describe from time to time the life of the Copts and their interesting church ceremonies. I am sure that few people realise that the descendants of the ancient Egyptians exist 'to-day, that they are Christians, and that, no matter how they have sunk into the background of Christianity, they once led the intellectual vanguard of the Faith, and even, it is believed, helped to convert Ireland. (To be continued next week.)