The Brookhaven leader., 1891-11-12
BRICKS WITHOUT STRAW.
Rev. 7. Dewitt Talmage Contin-
ues to Talk on Egypt.
The Expressions of the Children Of israel
by the Pharaohs of Old Find IA
rallel In the Methods of
Modern Egypt.

lyn tabernacle, is the third of his series
on what he saw Prom the Pyramids to
the Acropolis." His text was:
Tho burden of Egypt.-Isaiah xix, 1.
What is all this excitement about in
the streets of Cairo, Egypt, this Decem-
Der morning in 1889? Stand back We
hear loud voices and see the crowds of
people rctreating to the sides of the
street The excitement of others be-
comes our own excitement. Footmen
come in sight. They have a 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 os6cial dignitary in a chariot or car
riage. They are swift and sometimes
run thirty or forty miles at a stretch in
front of an cquipagc. Make way.
They are the fectest-footed men on
earth, but soon die, for the human
frame was not made for such endur-
ance. | asked all around me who the
man in the carriage was, but no one
seemed to know. Vet as | fell back
with the rest to the wall ! said: This
is the old custom found all up and
down the Bible footmen running be-
fore the rulers, demanding obeisance,
rs in Gcnncsis before Joseph's chariot
the people were commanded, "BOw the
knee" 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 footmcn
and they have wearicd thee, how canst
thou contend with horses?'
We saw again and again on and along
the Nile boss workman roughly smite
subordinate who did not please him.
1t is no rare occurrence to see long
lines of men under heavy burdens pass
ing by taskmasters at short distances,
lashing 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 the night air,
crying out in prayer: "Ga! Allah!'
"Ya. Allah!" which means, Oh. God.
But what must have been the Olden
times cruelty shown by the Egyptians
toward their Israelitish slaves is in
dicated by picture in the Beni-llas-
san tombs, where man is held down
on his face by two men and another
holds up the victims feet while the
officials beat the bare back of the vic
tim, every stroke, l have no doubt,
fetching the blood.
The governmental outrage has al
ways been characteristic of Egyptian
rulers. Taxation to the point of starva-
tion was the Egyptian rule in the
Bible times as well as it is in our time.
A modern traveller gives the figures
concerning the cultivation of seventeen
acres, the value of the yield of the field
states in piastres:
Produce. ............... 1902
LxpCs;ses. OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES. 9S3Ia
Clea- produce. OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES. s0si2
TuXes...... ..,.,,................ .......... S"5
Amount cleared by the farmer....... 3l5l3
Or, as my authority declares, seventy
per cent of what the Egyptian farmer
makes is paid for taxes to the govern
ment. Now that is not so much taxa
ton as assassination. What think you
of that? You who groan under heavy
taxes in America? | have heard that
in Egypt the working people have a
song like this: "They Starve us, they
starve us, they beat us, but there's
some one above, there's some one
above, who will punish them well,
who will punish them we'll" But sew
enty per cent of government tax in
Egypt is q mercy as compared to what
the Hebrew slaves suffered there in
Bible times They got nothing but food
hardly fit for dog, and their clothing
was of one rag, and their roof a
burning sky by day and the stars of
Heaven by night. You say: why did
they stand it?" Because they had 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 suppose the father and
| the brothers called him Joe, for 1T does
not make any difference how much
boy is advanced in worldly success, his
father and bIothers and sisters always
call him by the same name that he was
called by when two years old-Joseph,
bv Pharoh's permission, gave to his
family, who had just arrived, the rich
est part of Egypt, the Westchester
farms or the Lancaster farms of the
! ancients. Jacobs descendants rapidly
multiplied. After awhile Egypt took
a turn at famine, and those descendants
of Jacob, the Israelites, came to great
store-house 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 gov
ment and then the Hebrews bought
corn from the government by surren-
dering themselves as slaves.
Then began slavery in Egypt The
government owned all the Hebrews.
And let m odern lunatics, who in Amer
lea propose handing over telegraph
oomnanies and railroads and other
things to be run by government see
the folly of letting government get lts
hands on everything. l would rather
trust the people than any government
the United States had or ever will have,
Worth to the day when legislatures
and congresses and administrations get
nossession of anything more than 1t is
necessary for them to have. Ihat
would be the revival in this land OF
that old Egyptian tyranny for which
| Cod has never had anything but red
1 .r-l. ala