The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1891-10-30
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
What the Brooklyn Preacher Saw
In Egypt and Greece
OF the Stories Contained
La the SerIpt1res-The Commence
ment of nm Interesting Series
of Discourses-

Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage has begun a
series of discourses based upon his tour
in the East, of which the following is
the initial number. The text was:
In that day shall there be an altar to the
Lord In the midst OF the land OF Egypt ard
pillar at the border thereof 10 the Lord.
And i shall be FOR a sign and for witness,
Isaiah x, ls, 10
Isaiah no doubt here refers to the
great pyramid at Gizeh, the chief pyra-
mid in Egypt. The text speaks of a
pillar in Egypt, and this is the greatest
pillar ever lifted; and the text says it
is to be at the border of the land, and
this pyramid is at the border of the
land, and the text says it shall be for
witness, and the object OF this sermon
is to tell what this pyramid witnesses.
This sermon Is the first of a course of
sermons entitled, From the pyramids
TO the Acropolis, or what I saw in
Egypt and Greece con6rmatory of the
Scriptures"
We had on a morning of December,
1889, landed in Africa. Amid the
bowling boatmen at Alexandria we
had come ashore and taken the rail
train for Cairo, Egypt, along the banks
of the most thoroughly harnessed river
in all the world-the river Nile. We
had, at even-tide, entered the city of
Cairo, the city where Christ dwelt
while staying In Egypt during the He
rodic persecution. 1t was our first
night in Egypt. No destroying angel
sweeping through as once, but all the
stars were out, and the skies were
filed with angels of beauty and angels
Of light, and the mir was balmy as an
American June. The next morning we
were early awake and at the window.
looking upon palm trees in full glory
of LEAKAGE, and upon gardens of fruits
and flowers at the very season when
our homes far away are canopied by
bleak skies and the last leaf of the for
est has gone down in equinoctials.
But how can describe the thrill of
expectation, for to-day we are to see
what all the world has seen or wants to
see-the pyramids. We are mounted
for an hour and halls ride. We pass
on amid bazaars stuffed with rugs and
carpets and curious fabrics of all sorts
from Smyrna, from Algiers, from Per-
STA, from Turkey, and through streets
where we meet people of all colors and
all garbs, carts loaded with garden
productions, priests in gowns, women
in black wells, Bedouins in long and
seemingly superhuous apparel, Janis
saries in Jacket of embroidered gold
out and on toward the great pyramid;
for though there are sixty-Dine pyra-
mids still standing, the pyramid at
Gizeh is the monarch of pyramids
We meet camels grunting under their
load, and see buffalos on either side
browsing in pasture fields. The road
we travel is for part of the way under
elumps of acacia, and by long rows
of sycamore and tamerisk, but after
awhile it is a path of rock and sand,
and we find we have reached the mar
gin of the desert. the great Sahara
desert, and we cry out to the dragoman
as we see huge pile of rock looming
in sight: 'Dragoman, what is that?''
His answer is THE pyramid" and then
it seemed as If we were living a CEN
fury every minute. Our thoughts and
emotions were too rapid and intense
for utterance, and we ride on in silence
until we come to the foot of the pyra-
mid spoken of in the text. The oldest
structure in all the earth, four thou
sand years old at least Here it is.
We stand under the shadow O. a struc-
ture that shuts out all the earth and all
the sky and we look up and strain our
vision to appreciate the distant top,
and are overwhelmed while we cry
''The Pyramid! The pyramidr'
/ had started that morning with the
determination of ascending the pyra-
mid. One of my chief objects in going
to Egypt was not only to see the base
of that granite wonder, but to stand
on the top of it. Yet the nearer
came to this eternity in stone the
more my determination was shaken.
Its altitude TO me was simply appalling.
A great height has always been to me
a most disagreable sensation. As we
dismounted at the base of the pyramid
said: ''Others may go up it, but not
/. will salty myself with a view
from the base. The ascent of it would
be to me a foolhardy undertaking."
But after i had given up all idea of
ascending, I found my daughter was
=
go with strangers, and / changed my
mind and we started with guides. 1t
can not be done without these helpers.
Two or three times foolhardy men
have attempted it alone, but their
bodies came tumbling down unrecog-
nizable and lifeless. Each person in |
our party had two or three guides |
or helpers. One of them unrolled his |
turban and tied it around my waist |
as a matter of safety. Many of the |
blocks of stone are four or five feet |
high and beyond any ordinary human |
stride unless assisted. But, two Arabs |
TO pull and two Arabs to push, i |
found myself rapidly ascending from
height to height, and on to attitudes |
terrific, and at last at the tip top we
found ourselves on a level space of |
about thirty feet square. Through |
the desert and off upon the winding
Nile, and off upon the Sphinx with its
features of everlasting stone, and yon-
der upon the minarets of Cairo glitter
ing in the sun, and yonder upon Mem
phis in ruins, and off upon the wrecks
of empires and the battlefields of ages,
a radius of view enough to fill the
mind and shock the, nerves and over
whelm ones entire being.
After looking around for awhile, and
3 kodack had pictured the group, we
descended. The descent was more try
ing than the ascent, for climbing you