Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1857-07-18
THE WANE OF THE CRESCENT.
From "BOat-Life in Egypt" by W. c. Prime.

1t is profoundly interesting to stand in spot
where, daily for thousand years, the prayers
of men have been offered up where the stones
are worn with the knees of sincere, if mistak-
en-, believers; where there has never been a
day, since the ninth century, when the voice Of
the muezzin was not heard across the court and
through the sladowy arches, uttering that sim
pie 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 prayer is better than sleep; come TO pray
er. God is most great There is no god but
God"
At MONDAY and at sunsetting the same chant
has filled these arches with solemn melody
One cannot stand and hear it now without feel
ing 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 magnif-
cent if it be old and cannot look on these
to,terng walls, these upheaving pavements,
these crumbing towers, without 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 like
the memories of Isis and Apis-shadows fit
ting around the ruins of old Egypt. In broad
daylight, when eyes and intelects are wide
awake, the shadows are as clouds dark with
memories of crime and wrong shapes of hid
eous deeds, blackening the very name Of hu-
manity.
But in night time and the moonlight, when
we do not see these, there will be shapes like
halos around the falling minareis Of Tooloon
and Amer as around the obelisk OF Heiopois
and the unchanging pyramids; memories Of
simple but grand faith in the hearts of old men
that worshipped God and died in every year
and month of all the thousands that have shone
upon these stones; shadows that will forever
haunt the places that are sanctifed by man g
holiest emotions-sincere and prayerful trust in
God, though it were in a false god; shadows
that are changeiul, but always there; long
shapes and forms cast on the walls by the altar
flames, that remain and appear and fit here and
there on pavement and wall, though atar-fTes
be long extinguished and the wall lie in dust
on the broken pavements of the temple.
But is this so, and is the end approaching :
| asked myself the question in the city of Vic
tory, seated at my open window in the night
time, the moon shining gloriously-a dazzling
moon-my table drawn TO the window, and the
fame of my candle rising steadily, and without
flicker, in the profoundly silent air. Two
hundred thousand people were lying around me,
and asked who and what they were, and what
part they formed in the grand sum Of human
valuations Literally nothing. They are not
worth the counting among the races Of men.
/ had been conversing that same day with
intelligent Mus;ulmans, who not only express
ed their belief, but added their anxious hope
that the advance of English power in the East
would soon make Egypt an English possession.
| heard this everywhere among them. If they
knew anything about it-and Turks ought to
know more of it than Americans-they would
see that it is their manifest destiny. England
begins to see it as before she has only wished it,.
answered my question, Yes, the end is not
far distant. The mosque of Amer, traditional
metre of the duration of the faith, is falling.
saw with my own eyes huge piece of its
wall go crashing down into the dusty court,
where the still sunshine fell on it as il it had
been waiting for it and no ono will ever dis
turb its ruins.
Just before break of day, from the mosque Of
Mohammed Ali at the citadel, the morning call 10