The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1891-10-30

ing; open your long sealed lips and
speak Memphis and Thebes, Is the
Bible truep ''Truem respond Mem.
phis and Thebes, Babylon, is the
book of Daniel true2" "True" re-
spends Babylon. "Ruins OF Palestine
and Syria, is the New Testament
trueT 'Truew respond the ruins all
the way from Joppa to the Dead sea,
and from Jerusalem to Damascus.
What a mercy that this testimony of
the dead cities should come at time
when the Bible is especially assailed
And this work will go on until the We
racity and divinity of the Scriptures
will be as certain to all sensible men
and women rs that two and two make
four, as that an isosceles triangle Is one
which has two of its sides equal, rs
that the diameter of circle Is line
drawn through the center and ter
minated by the circumference as Ger.
tain as any mathematical demonstra-
ton.
Never did feel more encouraged
than when after preaching sermon on
evidences of the truth of the Bible
drawn from oriental lands. A distin-
guished senator of the United States,
known and honored everywhere, but
now deceased, came up to the plat
form and said, ~ was brought up in
the faith of Christianity, but /. got
Specializing on all these subjects and
had given up my faith in the Bible, but
those facts and arguments archeolog
ical take me back to my old faith in the
Bible, which my father and mother
taught me-" The tears rolling down
his cheeks evlnced the depth of his
emotion. When read of the senator's
death l was comforted to think that
perhaps may have helped him little
In the struggle of his life, and perhaps
given him an easier pillow on which to
die.
A VALUABLE BOOK.
Two great nations, Egypt and Greece,
dlplomatized and almost came to bat
tie for one book, a copy of "Hschylus.
Ptolemy, the Egyptian king, discovered
that in the great library at Alexandria
there was no copy of 'Eschylus. The
Egyptian king sent up to Athens,
Greece, to borrow the book and make
a copy of it. Athens demanded a de-
post of seventeen thousand seven hun
dred dollars as security. The Egyptian
king received the book, but refused to
return that which he had borrowed,
and SO forfeited the seventeen thousand
seven hundred dollars.
The two nations rose in contention
concerning that one book. Beautiful
and mighty book, indeed! But it is a
book of horrors, the dominant idea
that we are the victims of hereditary
influences from which there is no
escape, and that fate rules the world,
and although the author does tell of
Prometheus who was crucitied on the
rocks for sympathy for mankind, a
powerful suggestion of the sacrifice of
Christ in later years, it is a very poor
book compared with that book which
we hug to our hearts, because it con-
tains our only guide in life, our only
comfort in death and our only hope
for blissful immortality. If two ma
tions could afford to struggle for one
copy of "Hschylus," how much more
can all nations afford to struggle for
the possession and triumph of the Holy
Scriptures9
But the dead cities strung along the
Nile not only demolish intidelity, but
thunder down the absurdity of the
modern doctrine of evolution which
1 says the world started with nothing
and then rose, and human nature be-
gan with nothing but evolved into
SPLENDID manhood and womanhood of
itself Nay; the sculpture of the world
was more wonderful in the days of
Memphis and Thebes and Carthage
than in the days of Boston and New
York.
Those blocks of stone, weighing three
hundred TONS high up in the wall at
Karnac, imply machinery equal to if
not surprising the machinery of the
Nineteenth century. How was that
statue of Rameses, weighing eight hun
dred and eighty-seven tons, transport
ed from the quarries, two hundred
miles away, and how was it lifted2 Tell
us, modern machinists. How were
those galleries of rock, still standing at
Thebes, filled with paintings surpassed
by no artists pencil of the present day?
Tell us, artists of the Nineteenth cen
fury. The dead cities of Egypt, SO far
as they have left enough pillars or
statues or sepulchers or temple ruins to
tell the story-Memphis, Migdol, IIicr-
opolis, Zoan, Thebes, Goshen Carthage
all of them developing downward in
stead of upward. They have evoluted
from magniticence into destruction.
The gospel of Jesus Christ is the only
elevator of individual and social ma
| tional character. Let all the living
cities know that ponp and Opulence
and temporal prosperity are no security.
Those ancient cities lacked nothing but
good morals. Dissipation and sin slew
them and unless dissipation and sin
are halted they will some day STAY our
modern cities, and leave our palaces OF
merchandise, and our galleries of art,
and our city halls as fat in the dust as
we found Memphis on the afternoon OF
that Thanksgiving day. And if the
cities so down the nation will go down
"Oh," you say, that is impossiblc; we
have stood so long-yca, over Il hun
bred years as nation" Why what
OF. that2 Thebes stood five hundred
years; Memphis stood thousand
years. God does not forget. One day
with the Lord is as thousand years
and thousand years as one day.
Rum and debaucllery and bad poll
tics are more rapidly working the de
struction of our American cities than
sin of any kind and all kinds worked