The Dickinson press., 1891-11-14
HAD NO STRAW.
Hence the Children O Israel Were Com.
pelled to Make Bricks for Pharaoh
Without It.
Egypts Ruins Bear Witness to the
Fact That Straw Was Necessary
in Manufacturing Bricks.

BROOKLYN, N. Y.,-[Special. 1.-THE
subject of this sermon was "Bricks
Without Straw" a continuation of
the series on the confirmation OF Holy
Scripture which DR.. Talmage found in
his journey from the pyramids to the
Acropolls, his text was, Isaiah xix,
1, "The burden of Egypt"
What is all this excitement about in
the streets OF Carlo, Egypt, this De-
cember morning in 1889? Stand back!
We hear loud voices and see the
crowds Of people %retreating to the
sides OF the street. The excitement OF
Others becomes our own excitement.
Footmen come in sight. They have a
rod in the hand and tasseled cap on
head, and their arms and feet +
bear. 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 q
choriot or carriage. They are swift
and sometimes run 80 or 40 miles at
a stretch in front of an equipage.
Make wayl They are the tleetest-
footed men on earth, but soon die,
for the human frame was not made
for such endurance. / asked all
Ground me who the man in the
carriage was, but no one seemed to
know. Yet as 1 fell back with the
rest to the wall I 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 commanded, "Bow the
knee" and as 1 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:
eff thou hast with the footman
and they have wearied thee, how
canst thou contend with horses?"
Now, my hearers, in this curse Of
sermons 1 am only serving you as a
footman, and clearing the way Tor
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
pulpit utterance. Two hundred and
eighty-nine times does the Bible refer
to Egypt and 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; England, the
mother of our land. According to
that Egypt is our great-great grand
mother. On other Sabbaths l left
you studying what they must have
been in their glory. The Hypostyle
Hall of Karnac, the architectural
miracles at Luxor, the Colorado of
Horemheb, the cemeteries OF Memphis,
the value of q kingdom in one monu-
ment, the Sphinx, which with lips of
stone speaks loud enough to be heard
across the centuries, Heliopolis and
Zoan, 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 mod
ern machinery could lift came down
upon the Hebrew slaves, and their
blood mixed the mortar for the trow-
els.
We saw again and again on and
along the Nile a boss workman rough
ly smite a subordinate who did not
please him. 1t is no rare occurrence
to see long lines of men under heavy
burdens passing by task-masters at
short distances, flashing them as they
90 by into greater speed, and these
workmen, exhausted with the blasting
heats of the day, lying down upon the
bare ground, suddenly chilled with the
night air, crying out in prayer, ava!
Allah Val Allah" which means ooh!
God! Oh! God!" But what must have
been the olden time cruelty shown by
the Egyptians towards their Israelit-
ish slaves is indicated by q picture in
the Beni-Hassan tombs, where a man
Ia held down 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, l have no
doubt, fetching the blood.
Now you see how the Pharaohs
could afford to build such costly
woks. It cost them nothing for wages,
nothing but the tears and blood Of
the toilers, and tears and blood are
cheap drink for devils. "Bricks with
out straw" may not suggest so much
hardship until you know that the
bricks were usually made with "crush-
Cd straw" straw crushed by the feet
OF the oxen in the threshing, and, this
crushed straw denied to the workmen,
they had to pick up here and there a
piece of stuhble or gather PUSHES from
the waterside. 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 made
out o. rough straw, or rushes from
the river bank, the truth of the book
the river bank, the truth of the book
OF Exodus is thus written in the brick
walls discovered by the modern e <
plorers.
That governmental outrage has al.
ways been a characteristic of Egyp.
tian rulers. Taxation to the point oi
starvation was the Egyptian rule in
the Bible times as it is in our owl
time. A modern traveller gives the
figures concerning the cultivation o
II acres, the value of the yield of tn,
field stated in piastres:
ny ,802
1913
Clear produce soS
Amount cleared by the farmer....... s15
Or, as my authority declares, u
per cent of what the Egyptian farme
makes, is paid for taxes to the govern
r,a~< No., Al