The Brookhaven leader. [volume] (Brookhaven, Miss.) 1883-1891, 1891-11-05

Come to prayers Come to salvation.
God is great There Is no other but
God. Prayers are better than sleep"
The sky and city and palm groves and
river shipping were bathed in the
light 1t was not much of craft that
we boarded. II would not be hailed
on any of our rivers with any rapture
OF admiration. 1t fortunately had but
little speed. for twice we ran aground,
and the sailors jumped into the water
and on their shoulders pushed her out
But what yacht of gavest sportsman,
what deck of swiftest ocean queen could
give such thrill of rapture as sail on
the Nile? The pyramids in sight, the
remains of cities that are now only a
name, the villages throngcd with popu-
lation. Both banks crowded with his
torical deeds of forty or sixty centuries.
Oh, what a book the Bible is when read
on the Nilel
While sailing on this river, or stop
ping at ono of the villages, we see peo-
pie on the banks who verify the Bible
description, for they are now as they
were in Bible times. Shoes are now
taken off in reverence TO sacred places.
Children carried astride the mothers
shoulder as in Hagar's time. Women
with proiusion of jewelry, as when
Rebecca was affianced. Lentils shelled
into the pOttage, as when Esau sold his
birthright to get such dish. The same
habits of salutation as when Joseph
and his brethren fell on each others
necls Courts of law held under big
trees as in the oldcn times. People
making bricks without straw, com
peeled by circumstances to use
over or standing on the bank,
as in Scripture days, are tlamingoes,
ospreys, eagles, pelicans, hcrons, cuk-
COS and bullfinches. On all sides of
this river sepulchers. Villages of Sc
pulcbers. And one is tempted to call
it an empire of tombs. l never saw
such place as Egypt is for graves
And now we understand the complain
ing sarcasm of the Israelites when they
were on the way from Egypt to Cana
an: because there are no graves in
Egypt hast thou taken us away to die
in the wilderness?" Down the river
bank come the buffalo and the cattle or
kline to drink. And it was the ances-
tors of these cattle that inspired Pha-
raoh's dream of the lean kline and the
fat kline.
Here we disembark little while for
Memphis, off from the Nile to the right.
Memphis, founded by the first king of
Egypt, and for long while the capital.
A city of marble and gold. Homo of
the pharaohs City nineteen miles in
circumference. Vast colSnuades through
which imposing professions marched.
Here stood the Temple of the Sun, itself
in brilliancy sun shown ON by another
sun. Memphis in power over a thou
sand and one hundred years, or nearly
ten times as long as the United States
have existed Here is a rccumbe
statue seventy-fve feet high. Bronzed
gateways. A metropolis called the
haven of the bleSt." Here Joseph
was prime minister. Here pharaoh
received Jacob. All possible splendors
were built up into this royal city. Ho-
sea, Ezekiel, jeremiah and Isaiah speak
of it as something wonderful. Never
did visit city with such exalted an
ticipations and never did nay anticipa-
tons drop so fiat. Not phla" stands.
Not a wall is unbroken. Not foun-
tain losses in the sun. Even the ruins
have been ruined and all that remains
are chips of marble, small pieces of
fractured sculpture and splintered hu-
man bones. Here and there a letter of
some elaborate inscription, a toe
or ear of Il statue that
once stood in niche of palace
wall. Ezekiel prophesied its blctting
out, and the prophecy has been full
filled. Ride on" | said to our party,
land don't wait for me-" And, as
stood there alone, the city of Memphis
in the glory of past centuries returned
And heard the rush of her chariots,
and the dash of her fountains, and the
conviviality of her palaces, and saw the
drunken mobiles roll ON the floors of
mosaic, while, in startling contrast,
amid all the royalties of the palace,
saw Pharoah look up into the face of
aged, rustic Jacob, the shepard, saying:
"Iiow old art thou?"
But back to the Nile and on and up
till you reach Thebes. in Scripture
called the City of No. Hundred-gated
Thebes A quadrangular city four
miles from limit to limit. Four great
temples, two of them karnac and
Luxor, once mountains of eXquisits
sculpture and gorgeous dreams solified
in stone. Statue of Rameses H.,
eight hundred and eighty-seven tons in
weight and seventy-tive feet high, but
now fallen and scattered Walls a.
bloom with the battlefields of centu-
ries. The surrounding hills of rock hol-
lowed into sepulchers on the walls of
which are chiseled in picture
and hieroglyphics the confirmation
of Bible story in regard to the treat
ment of the Israelites in Egypt so that,
as explorations go on with the work,
the walls of these sepulchers become
commentaries of the Bible, the
Scriptures originally written upon
parchment here cut into everlasting
stone. Thebes mighty and dominant
five hundred years. Then she went
in fulfllment of Ezekiers prophecy
concerning the city of No, which was
another name for Thebes: II will
execute judgment in No. I will cut
off the multitudes of No"
jeremiah also prophesied: Thus
saith the Lord, l will punish the
multitudes of No." This city of
Thebes and all the other dead cities of
Egypt iterate and reiterate the veracity
of the Scriptures, telling the same