Orleans independent standard. [volume] (Irasburgh, Vt.) 1856-1871, 1857-08-07
From "Boai Life in Egypt"
WANE OF THE CRESCENT.
by W. c. PRIME.

there has never been day, since the
ninth century, when the voice of the
muezzin was not heard across the court
ard through the sbadowy arches, utter
Ing that simple and sublime passage that
has been so often uttered above this city
and all the East that one might think the
air would sound it with its own morning
winds forever after, "God is great. There
is no deity but god. Mahommed is Gods
apostle. Come to prayer, come to pray
er. God is most great. There is no god
but God"
At monday and at sunsetting the same !
chant has filed these arches with solemn
melody. One cannot stand and hear it
now without feeling that the voice is the
same voice that uttered it ten centuries
ago, though the men through whose thin
lips it escaped on the air are the dead
dust of those centuries. Age is sublime.
A creed, though false, is nevertheless
magnificent fit be old ; and cannot look
on these tottering walls, these upheaving
pavements, these crumbling towers, with
out melancholy regret stealing in along
with other feelings that this worship, this
creed, is approaching its end, and that
the day is fast coming when Islam and
the creed of the Prophet will, be to men
liketh memories of Isis and Apis-shad-
r ows fitting around the ruins of old Egypt.
In broad daylight, when eyes and intel
lects are wide awake, the shadows are as
O clouds dark with memories Of crime and
a wrong; shapes of hideous deeds, black
ening the very name of humanity.
q But in night time and the moonlight,
when we do not see these, there will be
e shapes like halos around the falling min
arats of Tooloon and Amer as around the
obelisk of Heliopolis and the unchanging
pyramids memories of simple but grand
faith in the hearts of old men that T7or
: shipped God, and died in every year and
month of all the thousands that have
=, shone upon these stones shadows thai
:, will forever haunt the places that art
sanctifed by mans holiest emotions-sin
cere and prayerful trust in God, though
=. it were in a false god shadows that art
changeful, but always there long shapes
" and forms cast on the walls by the altar
" flames, that remain and appear and fiji
a. here and there on pavement and wall
though altar-fres be long extinguished
"a and the walls lie in dust on the broker
OF pavements of the temple,
IL But is this so, and is the end approach
e. ing :? l asked myself the question il
n the city of Victory, seated at my opei
1t window in the nighttime, the moon shin
It. ing gloriously-a dazzling moon-m.
In table drawn to the window, and the fam
ar of my candle rising steadily, and withou
OF a flicker, in the profound silent air. Tw
RS hundred thousand people were lyin
by around me, and | asked who and wha
they were, and what part they formed j
ay the grand sum of human valuation
'es Literally nothing. They are not wort
: it the counting among the races Of men.
TO had been conversing that same da
ill with intelligent Mussulmans, who NJ
is only expressed their belief, but add the
Ike anxious hope that the advance Of Englis
ell power in the East would soon max
Egypt an English possession. ! hear
this everywhere among them. If the
me- knew anything about it--and Turks ougl
ore to know more of it than Americans
on they would see that it is their mantle
I'VE destiny. England begins to see it as b
om fore she has only wished it.
if l answer my question, Yes, the end
er- not far distant. The mosque Of Anne
,ad traditional metre Of the duration Of Il
or faith, is falling. saw with my own ey
"a huge piece ofits wall go crashing dow
,bo into the dusty court, where the still su
shine fell on it as If it had been waitiI
for it and no one will ever disturb
''"' ruins.
just before break Of day, for the me
'nt que of Mohammed Ali at the citadel, q
morning call to prayer sounds over q
5-g2- city. The Sultan Hassan, Of fooloo
a and another and another take It up, al
who three hundred voices are filing the q
with rich soft chant, that reaches the r
.ap- ofthe Mussulman in his proloundesi slu'
ZEN Der, and calls him up to pray. DOES
YOU obey There was a time when, al th
call, the city Of selah-e'deen had no clos
run eve, no unbent knee in all It's walls. B
cry the Mussulnan is changed now. |
heard the call in his half drunken siea
.ap- stupified With Aashish, and be damned {
|. muezzen, and turned over to deeper slut