Fort Worth gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-1898, 1891-11-12
GOOD BYE, EGYPT.
TaImage Tells Us of the Gospel
Archipelago.
POST MORTEM EXAMINATION.
Sounding Resurrection Trumpets Above the
Slain Empires of the Long Ago.
No Book in the World Is so Accurate as the
Divine Book-Here is Heroism I'M
mortal - Here is a Queen
Unto God Forever.
Special TO the Gazette.

Special to the Gazette.
BROOKLYN, n Y, Nov. S.-An overflow
ing congregation at the Brooklyn tabernacle
this morning attested the interest the reli-
gious public is taking in the series of sermons
DR. Talmage is preaching on what he saw
confirmatory OF the Scriptures during his
tour from the pyramids to the Acropolls.
This mornings sermon, the fourth of the
series, was on the Islands of the Greek
Archipelago. The doctor took two texts:
Acts Xxi, B. ''When we had discovered Cy-
prus we left it on the left hand;" and Reve-
lation i. y, II, John was in the isle
that is called Patmos.'
Goodbye, Egypt! Although interesting
and instructive beyond any country IN all
the world, excepting the Holy Land, Egypt
was to me somewhat depressing. 1t was
post mortem examination of cities that died
1000 years ago. The mummles, or wrapped
up bodies of the dead, were prepared with
reference to the resurrection day, the
Egyptians departing this life wanting their
bodies to be kept in as good condition as
possible, so that they would be presentable
when they were called again to occupy
them. But if when Pharaoh comes to res
direction he finds his body looking as l saw
his mummy in the museum At Boulac, bis
soul will become an unwilling tenant. The
sphinx also was to me stern monstroSily,
statue carved out of rock of red granite
sixty-two feet high and about one hundred
and forty-thTee feet long, and having the
head of man and the body of a lion. We
sat down in the sand of the African desert
to study it.
WITH A COLD SMILE
it has looked down upon thousands of years
of earthly history: Egyptian civilization,
Grecian civilization, Roman civilization;
upon the rise and fall of thrones innumera-
bic: the victory and defeat of the armies of
centuries. 1t took three thousand years TO
make one wrinkle on its red cheek. 1t Is
dreadful in its stolidity. It's eyes have
never wept tear. Its cold ears have not
listened to the groans of the Egyptian ma
ton, the burden of which tried to weigh
last Sabbath. Its heart is stone. 1t cared
not for Pliny when he measured it III the
first century. 1t will care nothing for the
man who looks into its imperturDable coun-
tenance in the last century.
But Egypt will yet come up to the glow
of life The Bible promises it. The mis-
sionaries like my friend, good and great Dr.
Lansing, are sounding resurrection trum-
pet above those slain empires. There viii
be some other Joseph at Memphis. There
will be some other Moses on the banks of
the Nile There will be some other Hypa-
tia to teach good morals to the degraded.
Instead of a destroying angel to Stay the
first born of Egypt. the Angel of the new
Testament will shake everlasting life from
its wings over a nation born in day.
When, soon after my arrival in Egypt, |
took part in the solemn and tender obse-
guies of 4 missionary from our own land,
dying there far away from the sepulchres
OF her fathers, and saw around her the
dusky and weeping congregation of those
whom she had come TO save, said to my
self: Here is self-sacriiice of the noblest
type Here is heroSm immortal. Here is a
queen unto God forever. Here is some
thing grander than the pyramids. Here is
that which thrills the Heavens. Here is a
specimen OF that which will yet save the
world
Goodbye, Egypt This sermon finds us
on the steamer Minerva in the Grecian
Archipelago the islands of the New Tesla
ment, and islands Paulinian and Johannian
in their Renaissance. What Bradshaw's
directory is 10 travellers in Europe, and
what the railroad guide is to travellers in
America. the book of the Acts in the Bible
is TO voyagerS in the Grecian, or as l shall
call it, the Gospel Archipelago. The Bible
geography of that region is accurate with
out shadow of mistake. We are sailing
this morning on the same water that Paul
sailed, but in the opposite direction to that
which Paul voyaged. He was sailing south
ward and we northward. With him
it was: EpheSus, Coos, Rhodes, Cyprus
With us it is reversed and it is: Cyprus,
Rhodes, Coos, Ephesus. There is no book
In the world so accurate as the divine book.
My text says that Paul left Cyprus on the
left; we, going in the opposite direction,
have it on the right. On our ship Minerva
were only two or three passengers beside
our party; so we had plenty of room to
walk the deck, and oh, what night was
Christmas night of 1889 in that Grecian
Observation-Disclosures of light above, islands
of beauty beneath! 1t is royal family of
islands, this Grecian Archipelago; the
crown of the worlds scenery,
SET WITH SAPPHIRE
and topaz and chrysoprasus and ablazewith
a glory that seems let down out of celes-
tial landscapes. God evidently made up his
mind that just here he would demonstrate
the utmost that can be done with islands
for the Identification of earthly scenery.
The steamer had stopped during the night
and in the morning the ship was as quiet
rs this floor, when we haStened up to the
deck and found that we had anchored off
the isle of Cyprus In a boat, which the
natives rowed standing up as is the custom,
instead of sitting down as when we row,
we were soon landed on the streets where
Paul and BarnabaS walked and preached. |
Yea, when at Antioch, Paul and Barnabas
got into 4 tight-aS ministers sometimes
did, and sometimes do, for they all have
lmperfections enough TO anchor them 10 |
this world until their work is done. | say
when because Of that hitter controversy |
Paul and Barnabas parted, Barnabas came |
back here to Cyprus, which was his birth |
place Island wonderful for history 1t |
has Deen the prize sometimes won by Per- |
STA, by Greece, by Egypt, by the Saracens, |
by the Crusaders, and last of all, not by |
sword, but by pen, and that the pen of the |
keenest diplomatist of the century, Lord |
Beaconstield, who under a lease which was |
as good as n purchase, set Cyprus among |
the jewels Of Vict0ria's crown.
We wen. out into the excavations from |
which Di Cesnola has enriched our Ameri- |
can museums with antiquities and with no |
better weapon than our foot we stirred up |
the ground deep enough TO get 4 tear-bottle |
in which some mourner shed his tears |
thousands of years ago and lamp which |
before Christ was born lighted the feet of
some poor pilgrim on his way. That Island |
Of Cyprus has enough 10 set an antiquarian |
wild. The most of its glory is the glory of |
the past, and the typhoid fevers that sweep |
its coast and the clouds of locusts that often |
black its skies Though S200.O00 were ex-
pended by the British empire in one year
for the eXtirpation of these noxious insects,
Yet failing to Go the work. and the frequent |
change of governmental masters. binders
prosperity. But when the islands of the
sea come 10 God. Cyprus will come with
them. and the agricultural and
COMMERCIAL oPULENCE
which adorned it in ages past will be
eciipsed by the agricultural and commercial
and religious triUmphs of the ages to come,
Why is the world SO stupid that it cannot
see that nations are prospereds in temporal
things in proportion as they are prospered
in religious thingSl Goodness is profitable