The Forrest City times., 1891-10-30

description for they are now as they were in bible times. shoes are no" taken off in reverence to sacred places Children carried astrlde the mother shoulder as in Hagar tune Women with profusion of JeweIry Is when Rebecca was affianced. Len ails shelled into the pottage. as when Esau sold his birthright to get sucn q dish. The same habits of salutation nd when Joseph and his brethren feli on each others necks. Courts ot Ia" held under big trees as in olden times People making bricks without straw, comnelled bv circumstances to use stubble instead of straw. Flying over, or standing on the banks as in scrip tnre days. are fiamingoes, ospreys, eaples pelicans, herons, cuckoos ana buIlfshes. On all sides of thls river sepulchres. Villages or senulchres. Cities of sepulchrcs, Nations of sepulchres. Ana one is tempted to call it an empire oi tombs. never saw such place as Epypt is for graves And now we un, derstand the complaining sarcasm or the Israelites when they were on the way from Egypt to Canaan: " Because there are no graves in Egypt hast thou taken ms away to die in the wilder ness?~ Down the river bank come the buffalo and the cattle or kine 10 drink. And it was the ancestors ot these cattle that inspired Pharaoh's dream of the lean kline and the fat kine
 Here .e disembark little while Tor Memphis, off from the Nile to the right Memphis founded by the first King of Egypt and for a long while the capital. A city of marble and gold Home of the Pharaohs. City nineteen miles in circumference. Vast colonnades through which imposing processions marched. Here stood the Temple of the Sun, itself in brillancy q sun shone on by another sun Iheoes in power over a thousand one nun dred years, or nearly ten times as long as the United States have existed. Here is a recumbent statue seventy five feet long Bronzed gateways. metropolis called "the haven Of the blessed" Here Joseph was Prime Minister. Here Pharaoh received Jacob. All possible splendors were built up into the royal city. Hosea. Ezekiel, Jeremiah and Isaiah speak of it as something wonderful. Never did I visit city with such exalted an ticipations an never did my anticipa- tions drop so flat. Not pillar stands. Not wall is unbroken. Not a foun- tain losses ill the sun. Even the ruins have been ruined and all that remains are chips of mar ble, small pieces ot fractured sculpture and splintered hu- man bones. Here and sthere letter of some elaborate inscription toe or ear of a statue that once stood in niche of palace wall Ezekiel prophesied it's plotting out and the prophecy has been fulfilled. Ride on, said to our party and don't wait for me" And as l stood there alone. the city of Memphis in the glory of past centuries returned. And I heard the rush of her chariots and the dash of her fountains and the conviviality of ner palaces and saw the drunken nobles roll on the floors of mosaic, while in startling contrast amid all the regalities of the place l saw Pharaoh look up into the face of aged rustic Jacob, the shepherd, say ing: How old art thou?'
 l notice the voice of those ancient cities is hoarse from the exposure of forty centuries, and they accentua.e e slowly with lips that were palsied for ages, but altogether these cities along the Nile intone these words, Hear us, for we are very old. and it is hard for us to speak We were wise long before Athens learned her first lesson. We sailed our shlps while yet navigation was unborn These obelisl1s, these pyr- amids, these pillars, these wrecked temples, these colossi of black granite, these wrecked sarcophagi under the brow of the hills, tell you of what l was in grandeur, and of what am coming down to be. We sinned and fell. Cur learnings could not save us: See those half obliterated hierogly- phics on wonder wall. Our architec- Cure could not save Us; See the painted columns of Phile, and the shattered temple of Esneh. Our heroes could not save HIS. Witness Menes, Diodorous, Rameses, and Ptolemy. Our gods Ammon and Osiris could not save us. See their fallen temples all along the four thousand miles of Nile. 0, ye modern cities, get some other God; God who can help a God who can pardon, God who can save. Called up as we are for n little while to give testimony, again the sands of the desert will bury us. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,n And as these voices of porphyry and granite ceased, all the sarcophagi under the hills re- sponded, "Ashes to ashes" and the capital of lofty column fell grinding itself to powder among the rocks, and responding, Dust to dust"