THE work of the Bible Society may be said to have been begun at Alexandria under the Ptolemies: for there the first translation of the Bible, so far as it then existed, was made. Under the old kings of Egypt there was no city on the site of Alexandria, but only a coast-guard station for the exclusion of foreigners, and a few scattered huts of herdsmen. These monarchs had no enlightened appreciation of the benefits of commerce, and cherished a profound distrust of strangers, especially