The Maryville times. (Maryville, Tenn.) 1884-1944, 1891-11-04


Who Amount to Nothing.
The subject of DIR. Talmage' discourse
Sunday was titled: From the Pyya-
mids to the Acropolis. or what saw in
Egypt and Greece Confrmatory of the
Scriptures" His text was Isaiah xix:
10, 90: I'm that day shall there be an
altar to the Lord in the midst of the
land Of Egypt and pillar at the border
thereof to the Lord. And 1t shall be
for a sign and for witness"
Isaiah no doubt refers to the great
pyramid at Gizah, the chief pyramid Of
Egypt. The text speaks of 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 pyr-
amid 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
We had on q morning Of December,
1889, landed in Africa. Amid the howl
ing boatmen at Alexandria we had
| come ashore and taken the rail train
for Cairo, Egypt, along the banks of
the most thoroughly harnessed river Of
all the world--the river Nile. We had,
ut even-tide, entered the city OF Cairo,
the city where Christ dwelt while stay
ing in Egypt during the Herodic perse-
cution. 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 air
was balmy as an American June. The
next morning we were early awake and
at the window, looking upon palm trees
lin full glory Of LEAKAGE and upon gar
dens of fruits and flowers at the very
season when our homes far away are
:anopied by bleak skies and the last
leaf of the forest has gone down in the
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 sec-the Pyramids. We are mounted
for an hour and a halls ride. We pass
on amid bazars 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 pro-
auctions, priests in gowns, women in
black veils Bedouins in long and seem
ingly superfluous apparel, Janissaries
in jacket of embroidered gold-out and
on toward the great pyramid; for
though there are sixty nine pyramids
still standing, the pyramid of Gizah is
the monarch of pyramids. We meet
camels granting under their load, and
see buffaloes on either side, browsing in
pasture fields. The road we travel
is for part of the way under clumps Of
acacia, and by long rows OF sycamore
and tamarisk, but after awhile it is a
path of rock and sand, and we find we
have reached the margin of the desert
the great Sahara desert, and we cry out
to the dragoman Us we see huge pile
of rock looming in sight "Dragoman,
what is that?" His answer is 1.-THE
pyramid" and then it seemed asst we
were living century 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 pyramid spoken of in the
text, the Oldest structure in all the
earth, 1900 years old at least. Here it
is We stand under the shadow of a
structure that shuts out all the earth
and all the sky, and we look up and
strain our vision to appreciate the dis
tant top, and are overwhelmed while
we cry ''The pyramid! The pyramid!'
| I 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 granatic 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 alti-
Jude to me was simply appalling A
great height has always been to me a
most disagreeable sensation. AS we
dismountet at the base Of the pyramid
said: "Others may go up it, hut not /.
l will satisfy myself with view from
the base. The ascent of it would be to
me foolhardy undertaking" But after
J I had given up all idea of ascending,
found my daughter was determined to &c
and could not let her go with strangers,
and changed my mind and we started
with guides. 1t can not be done with.
, out these helpers. Two or three times
foolhardy men have attempted it alone,
but their bodies came tumbling down
unrecogni,able and lifeless. Each person
IN our party had two or three guides OF
helpers. One Of them unrolled his turbar
and tied it around my waist and he hello
the other end of the turban as matte,
of safety. Many of the blocks of stone
are four or five feet high and beyond
any ordinary human stride unless as
sisted. But, two Arabs to pull and
two Arabs to push, found myself rap
idly ascending from height to height
, and on to attitudes terrific and
, at last, on the tip top, we found
ourselves on level space about
thirty feet square. Through cleares
atmosphere we looked off upon the des
) cru, anu ol upou Vic whining Nhc, du'
off upon the Sphinx, with its feature
of everlasting stone, and yonder upol
the minarets of Cairo, glittering in tn
sun, and yonder upon Memphis il
ruins, and off upon the wreck of empire
and the battle-felds Of ages, radiu
of view enough to fill the mind AM
; shock the nerves and overwhelm one'
entire being. ....
After looking around for awhile, ant
. kodak had pictured the group we de