Milford chronicle., 1891-11-06

asked all around me who the man in
the carriage was, but no one seemed to
know. Yet as fell back with the rest to
the wall ! said, This is the old custom
found all up and down the Bible, footmen
running before the rulers, demanding
obeisance, as in Genesis before Joseph S
chariot the people.were commanded, Bow
the knee;' and as ] see the swift feet Of
the men followed by the swift feet of the
horses, how those old words of Jeremiah
rushed through my mind, III thou hast
run with the footmen and they have
wearied thee, how canst thou contend with
horses?"
he SERVES AS A FOoTMAN
Now, my hearers, in this course Of ser
mons l am only serving you as footman,
and clearing the way for your coming into
the wonders of Egyptology, a subject that
/ would have you study far beyond any
thing that can be said in the brevity Of
pulpit utterance Two hundred and
eighty-nine times does the Bible refer to
Egypt and the Egyptians. No wonder, ior
Egypt WAS the mother of nations Egypt,
the mother of Greece; GREECE, the mother
of Rome; Rome, the mother Of England;
England, the mother Of our own land. Ac-
cording to that, Egypt is our great-great
grandmother.
On other Sabbaths I left you studying
what they must have been in their glory;
the HypOstyle hall of Karnac, the archi
tectural miracles at Luxor, the COlOunade
of Horemheb, the cemeteries Of Memphis
the value Of a kingdom in one monument
the sphins, which with lips Of stone
speaks loud enough to be heard across the
centuries, Heliopolis and Zoan, the conun-
drum Of arch9olOgists. But all that ex-
travagance of palace and temple and mon
ument was the cause of an oppression high
as heaven and deep as hell. The weight Of
those blocks Of stQne, heavier than any
modern machinery could lift, came down
upon the Hebrew slaves, and their blood
mixed the mortar for the trowels.
We saw again and again on and along
the Nile q boss workman roughly smite a
subordinate who did not please him. 1t is
no rare occurrence to see long lines of men
under heavy burdens passing by taskmas-
ters at short distances, lashng them as
they go by into greater speed, and then
these workmen, exhausted with the blast
ing heats of the day, lying down upon the
bare ground, suddenly chilled with the
night air, crying out iii prayers IA,
Allahr sYa, Allahr' which means o
Godl o God But what must have been
the olden times cruelty shown by the
Egyptians toward their lsraeltish slaves
is Indicated by picture in the BENZ
Haesan tombs, where man is held down
on his face by two men and another holds
up the victims feet while the officials beat
the bare back Of the victim, every stroke,
l have no doubt, fetching the blood.
Hog THEF COULD AFFORD IT.
Now You see how the PharaOhs could af-
ford to build such costly works. 1t cost
them nothing for wages-nothing but the
tears and blood of the toilers, and tears and
blood are acheap drink for devils. Bricks
without straw" may not suggest SO much
hardship until you know that the bricks
we're usually made with ''crushed straw" F"
stray crushed by the feet Qf the oxen in
the thrashing, and, this crushed straw de-
MED to the Workmep, they had to pick up
here and there piece of stubhle or gather
rushes from the waterside. This story of
the Bible is confirmed by the fact that
many Of the brick walls of Egypt have on
the lower layers brick made with straw,
but the higher layers of brick made out. OF
rough straw or rushess from the river
bank, the truth of the Book of Exodus
thus written in the brick walls discovered
by the modern explorers.
That governmental outrage has always
been n characteristic OF Egyptian rulers.
Taxation to the point of starvation was the
Egyptian rule in the Bible times as well as
IL is in our own time. a modern traveller
gives the figures concerning the cultiva-
tion Of seventeen acres, the value Of the
yield Of the field stated in piasters;
Produce. W
EXPENSES ses.......,...,f..f....s.. eao;a
Clear produce. ,....,...--...:...'...''..' s9o5s
Taxes. ...............,............ 4a5
Amount cleared by the farEer....... sl5ja
Or, as my authority declares, seventy. per
cent, of what the Egyptian farmer makes
is paid for taxes to the government. Now
that is not so much taxation as Gssassina-
ton. What think you OF that, yo1 who
groan under heavy taxes in America! !
have heard that in Egypt the working
people have a song like this, "ihey starvo
us, they starve us, they beat rs, they beat
rs: but there's some one above, there 3
some one above vino viii punish them