The voice of freedom. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1839-1848, 1847-06-03

Eercu their leader-thGlr DnlnT after Egypt
after finding it impossible to live there. II
was inconceivable how they could long to &C
back to place of such cruel oppression, tol
the sake Of anything it could give. | now
wonder no longer, having seen and felt the
desert, and knowing the charms of the valley
of the Nile. One evening lately, just at sun
set, the scene struck upon my heart, Cypress
ing it with the sense Of beauty. A village
was beside an extensive grove Of palms, which
sprang from out of the thickest and richest
clover, to the height of eighty feet Their
tops waved gently in the soft breeze which
Tulled the surface Of a blue pond lying among
grassy shores There we're golden lights and
sharp shadows among the banks where a
stream had lately made its way. The yellow
sandhills of the desert just showed themselves
between the stems of the more scattered palms.
Vithin view were some carefully tiled fields,
with strong wheat, lupins and purple bean
blossoms; and some melon and cucumber
patches were not far off. Cattle were tether-
ed beside the houses; and on a bank near sat
an old woman and a boy and a girl, basking
in the last rays of the sun with evident en-
ioyment though the magical coloring given
by Egyptian atmosphere could hot be 40
striking as to English eyes. But what must
it have been in the memory Of the 1sraelites,
wandering in the desert where there is no col
or except at sunrise and sunset, but only glare
-parched rocks and choking dust or sand ! |
will not attempt now,for no one has ever sue
ceeded in such an attempt, to convey any i'm
preston of the appalling dreariness of the
depths of the degart. l can only say, that
when it rose up before me in contrast with
that nook Of the valley at sunset, / at last I'M
lerstood tle surrender of heart and reason on
the part of the ISraelites, and could Sympa-
thig1 in their forgetfuness of their past woes
in their pining for verdure and streams, for
shade and good food, and for perpetual
sight of the adored river, instead Of the hate.
tul sands which hommed them in, whichever
way they turned.
This is not the place for even the most rev.
erential inquiry into the relation between the
Egyptian theology and philosophy, and the
eystem of Moses That great subject must be
left untouched, now and here and ! must
come down at once to the time when Egypt
had sunk from her highest pitch Of great
ness, and had been conquered, first by the
Persians, and then by Alexander the Great
! will only observe that Moses was the son-in-
law of a priest, and must therefore have been
of the priestly caste; of that caste which held
more power, more knowledge, more wealth,
anu ~ SGdtlOil bLldtl ]AH Oit
Egyptian historian declares that Moses was
cannot suppose this to be true but it shows
how he was connected in the popular belief
with the priesthood, and how naturally much
of his system must have been derived from
the institutions of the country he was brought
up in.
The despised Israelitcs spread and con-
quered their enemies, and became a nation
powerful enough to have acknowledged inter- |
course Of waror peace with the kings Of Egypt, |
King Solomon married princess born and |
reared in the Nile valley and when Solo
mon died. his father-in-law, Shishank, went
up against Jerusalem, and brought home many |
captives and gricyous spoil. | have seen on
the walls of the great temple of Karnac, at |
Thebcs,a sculptured group ofJewish captiYes, |
whom the conqueror was holding by the hair
O. .lair heads, and raising his war-knife over
tAom, while they iuplorcd mercy with upift.
cd hands.
These battle pieces abound on the walls
and gates of the grand old temples which are
ranged along the Nile valley as far as it has
been explored; and they remind every one
who look at them Of the battles Of Homer's
pocms-except in the great point that Homer
makes the gods take part in wars, while the
Egyptian gods were OF too high an order to be
debased by human passions. Some scholars
think that Homer had seen the city Of Thebes,
of which he gives such magnificent reports,
and where he represents the gods as coming
down to visit the noble inhabitants. 1t is
pleasant to think, while gazing abroad, that
the father Of poetry saw what l see, and
wrought his epics in his mind from looking on
the sculptured walls that | have been study
ing. About another great man-thc first OF
his cass-the old Herodotus, whom scholars
as the father of history, there is no
such doabt, We have his account of Egypt
in his day. and so remarkable in his venera-
ton for the antiquity Of Egyptian usages and
cliG,es, that l shall ever think of him as
standing before the great monuments Of the
enough, AMI plainly declared that the Greeks
derived their religion from the Egyptians-a
thing which it would be hard to doubt, when
we think of their account Of the scene after
d9ath-thcir river Styx, their fcrryman Cha
ron, their dog Ccrborus, and the judges All
this, natural and solemn amid the funeral
scenery Of Memphis, WAS borrowed and spoil
ca by the Greeks-a5 was much else which IS
supposed to be their own. If anything is
called Greek more emphatically than another,
it is the philosophy Of Plato but Plato lived
thirteen years at 1Ieliopolis, studying philos-
Ophy under the priests, who were considered
masters of all learning No one will under
take to say that we should have had Plato's
philosophy as it is, if he hal not studied IN
der Egyptian sages for thirteen years This
happened nearly 400 years before the time Of
Christ.
Now, after considering these things, and
seeing what Egypt was while the rest Of the
known world was in an ntantile or barbarous
state what becomes OF our pride Of knowledge
and achievements 1t is clear that the Egyp-
fans Of Abraham, and for generations before
his day, could do things of which we arc inca
pab!e, and had knowledge which is yet con
coaled from US. Amid their abstract religion