Connecticut western news., 1891-11-05
TABERNACLE PULPIT.
DR. TALMAGE BREACHES ON BRICKS
 WITHOUT STRAW.

Though the Pharaohs of old Egypt Have
 Been Dead for Many Centuries, There
 Are Still Many Pharaohs Who Are De-
 mandiny Bricks Without Straw.
 BROOKLYN, Nov. 1.-The Tabernacle was thronged as usual this morning. The vast edifice filled to it's utmost capacity with eager listeners shows how the popular preacher retains his power over the people. Although he has been preaching in Brooklyn for more than twentyfour years, his audiences were never so large as now, and although the largest Protestant church in Amer ica has been built for him, there never was time when so many persons were turned away for lack of room. The subject of this mornings sermon was Bricks Without Straw" continual tion of the series on the confirmation of Holy Scripture which Dr. Talmage found in his journey from the Pyramids to the Acropolis. His text was Isaiah xix, 1, ''The burden of Egypt"
 What is all this excitement about in the streets of Cairo, Egypt, this Decem- Der morning in 1882 Stand backl We hear loud voices and see the crowds of people retreating to the sides of the street. The excitement of others be- comes our own excitement. Footmen come in sight They have rod in the hand and tasseled cap on head, and their arms and feet are bare Their garb is black to the waist, except as threaded with gold, and the rest is white. They are clearing the way for an official dignitary in chariot or car riage. They are swift and sometimes run thirty or forty miles at @ stretch in front of an equipage. Make wayl They are the fleetest footed men on earth, but soon die, for the human ance
 I 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 rul- CTS, 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, fol lowed by the swift feet of the horses, how those old words of Jeremiah rushed through my mind, If thou hast run with the footmen and they have wearied thee, how canst thou contend with horses2"
 Now, my hearers, in this course oi sermons I am only serving you as foot man, and clearing the way for your coming into the wonders of Egyptology, subject that would have you study far beyond anything that can be said in the brevity of pulpit utterance. Two hundred and eighty-nine times does the Bible refer to Egypt and the Egyp- tians. No wonder, for Egypt was the mother of nations. Egypt, the mother of Greece; Greece, the mother ot Rome; Rome, the mother of England England, the mother of our own land. According to that, Egypt is our great great-grandmother
 On other Sabbaths left you study. ing what they must have been in their glory; the Hypostyle hall of Karnac, the architectural miracles at Luxor, the Colonnade of Hore1nheb, the ceme- teries of Memphis, the value of a king dom in one monument, the Sphinx, which with lips of stone speaks loud enough to be heard across the centu- ries, Heliopolis and Zoan, the conun- drum of arch@ologists. But all that extravaganza of palace and temple and monument was the cause of an oppres. sion high as heaven and deep as hell. The weight of those blocks of stone. heavier than any modern machinery could lift, came down upon the He. brew slaves, and their blood mixed the mortar for the trowels.
 THE ROUGH TASKMAsTERs We saw again and again on anu. along | the Nile boss workman roughly smite a subordinate who did not please him. | It is no rare occurrence to see long lines
 
 | by taskmasters at short distances, lash ing them as they go by into greater speed, and then these workmen, ex hausted with the blasting heats of the day, lying down upon the bare ground, suddenly chilled with night air, crying out in prayer: ''Ya, Allah!" ''Ya, i Allah!' which means o God! o God! But what must have been the olden times cruelty shown by the Egyptians toward their Israelitish slaves is indicated by 8 picture in the Beni | Hassan tonbs, where a man is held 1 down on his face by two mon and an other holds up the victims feet while the officials beat the bare back of the victim, every stroke, 1 have no doubt fetching the bood
 Now you see how the Pharaohs could afford to build such costly works II cost them nothing for wages, nothing but the tears and blood of the toilers and tears and blood are 8 cheap drink for devils. Bricks without straw may not suggest SO much hardship until you know that the bricks were usually made with crushed straw, straw crushed by the feet of the oxer in the thrashing, and, this crushed straw denied to the workmen, they had to pick up here and there a piece o1 stubble or gather rushes from the
 waterside. This story of the Bible Ii confirmed by the fact that many of the
 brick walls of Egypt have on the lowe, ! layers brick made with straw, but the