Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1891-11-07
REV. DR.. TALMAGB.
The Eminent Brooklyn Divine's Sun.
day Sermon.
Subject. Brick. without straw"


What is all this excitement about in the
streets of Cairo. Egypt, this December
morning in 1889? Stand back, We hear
loud voices and see the crowds of people re-
treating to the sides of the street. The ex-
c1tement Of others becomes our own excite
ment: 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
a chariot or carriage. They are swift, and
sometimes run thirty or forty miles at
a stretch in front of an equipage Make
way They are the fieetest footed men on
earth, but soon die, for the human frame
was not made for such endurance
l 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 COM
manded, Bow the knee;n 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, ''If thou
hast run with the footmen and they have
weaf1ed thee, how canst thou contend with
horsess'
Now my hearers in this course of sermons
am only serving you as fcotman, and clear
ing the way for your coming into the
wonders of Egyptology, a subject that |
would have you study far beyond anything
that can be said in the brevity of pull
pit utterance Two hundred and eighty
nine times does the Bible refer to Egypt aud
the Egyptians. No wonder, for Egypt was
the mother of nations. Egypt, the mother
of Greece; Greece the mother of Rome;
Rome, the mother of England, the mother
of our land. According to that, Egypt is
our great great grandmother
On other Sabbaths / left you studying
what they must have been in their glory !;
the Hypostyle hall of Karnac, the arehi-
tectural miracles of Luxor, the Colonnade
of Horemheb, the cemeteries of Memphis
the Sphinx, which with lips of stone speaks
LOUD enough to be heard across the centu-
ries, Heliopolis and Zoau, the conundrum of
psychologists. But all that extravaganza
of palace and temple and monument was
the cause of an oppression 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
Hebrew slaves, and their blood mixed the
mortar for the trowels.
We saw again and again on and along the
Nile a boss workman roughly smite a sub
ordinate 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, flashing them as they
go by into greater speed, and then these
workmen, exhausted with thu blasting heats
ground suddenly chilled with the night air,
crying out in prayer: IVA, Allahp "Ya,
Allahr which means o God!O Godl But
what must have been the olden times
cruelty shown by the Egyptians towards
their lsraelitish slaves is indicated by pic
ture in the Beni-Hassan tombs, where man
is held Gown 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, have no doubt, fetching the
blood
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 hood of the toilers, and tears and blood
are 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 oxen in the thrashing, and,
this crushed straw denied to the workmen,
they had to pick up here and there a piece
of stubble or gather rushes from the water
side. 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
ludue Oub VI IOuSu straw vi IuSuSs iIOm bub
river bank, the truth of the Book of Exodus
thus written in the brick walls discovered by
the modern explorer.
That governmental outrage has ALWAYS
been a characteristic of Egyptian rulers.
Taxation to the point of starvation was the
Egyptian rule in the Bible times as well as
it is in our own time. A modern traveller
gives the figures concerning the cultivation
of seventeen acres, the value of the yield of
the field stated in piasters:
Iroduce. ..............''...,.. o02
Clear produce. Observation-Disclosures. $685.
taxes. ..-....-'.,.,..,t...... ........ 493
Amount cleared by the farmer ..... 3151t
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 assassination
You say, why did they stand itf' Be
cause they hal to stand it. You see along
back in the worlds twilight there was
famine in Canaan, and old Jacob and his
sons came to Egypt for bread The old mans
boy, Joseph, was prime minister, and Joseph
Il suppose the father and the brothers called
him Joe, for it does not make any difference
how much boy is advanced in worldly sue.
cess, his father and brothers aud sisters al
ways call him by the same name that he was
called by when two years old-Joseph, by
Pharaoh's permission gave to his family,
who had just arrived the richest part oil
Egypt, the Westminster farms or the Lancas
ter farms of the ancients. Jacobs descend
ants rapidly multiplied.
After awhile Egypt took turn at famine
and those descendants of Jacob, the Israel
ties, came to great storehouse which joseph
had provided, and paid in money for corn
But after awhile the money gave out and
then they paid in cattle. After awhile the
cattle were all in possession of the govern.
ment, and then the Hebrews bought corn
from the government by surrendering them
selves as slaves.
Where was help to come from? Not the
throne, Pharaoh sat upon that. Not the
army, Pharaoh's officers commanded that.
Not surrounding nations, Pharaoh's threat
made them all tremble. Not the gods Am
mon and Osiris or the goddess Isis, for
Pharaoh built their temples out of the groan
of this diabolical servitude. But one hot
day the Princess Thonoris, the daughter of
Pharaoh while in her bathing house on the
banks of the Nile, has word brought her that
there is baby af1oat on the river in era
die made out of big leaves
OF course there is excitement all up and
down the banks for an ordinary baby in an
ordinary cradle attracts smiling attention,
but an infant in cradle of papyrus rocking
on river arouses not only admiration, but
curiosity. Who made that boatl Who
made it water tight with bltumen? Who
launched it2 Reckless of the crocodiles, who
lay basklng themselves in the sun. the maid
ems wade in and snatch up the child, and
hfst one carries him and then another car
rles hum, and all the way up the bank heruns
gantlet of careSses, till Thonoris rushes out
OF the bathing house and says: Beautiful
foundling, will adopt you as my own You
shall yet wear the Egyptian crown and sit
on the Egyptian throne"
MOL MOI Mo- He is to be the emancipator
OF the Hebrews Tell it in all the brick
kilns. Tell it among all those VINO are
writing under the lash, tell it among all
the castles of Memphis aud Heliopolis and
Aoan and Thebes. Before him sea will
part On mountain top. alone, this one
VIII receive from the Almighty law that is
TO be the foundation of all good law while
the world lasts. When he is dead, God will
come down on Nebo and alone bury him, no
man or woman or angel worthy to attend
the obsequies
The child grows up and goes out and stud
les the horrors of Egyptian oppression and
suppresses his indignation, for the RIGHT
tlme has not come, although once for min
ute he let fly, and when he saw a taskmaster
put the whip on the back of a workman who
was DONG his best, and heard the poor fel-
low cry and saw the blood squirt, Moses
doubled up his fist AMI struck him on the
temple till the cruel villain rolled over in the
sand exanimate an1 never swung the lash
again. Served him right
But, Moses, are you going TO undertake
the impossibilities? You feel that you are
gong to free the Hebrews from bondage
but where is your army? Where is your
navy Not sword. have YOU, not a spear
not chariot, not a horse. Ali God was
on his side, AMI He has an army of His own.
Inc snowstorms are on COTS side; witness