News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1891-10-29

mine and [ have made it.
AS IN BIBLE TIMES.
While sailing on this river or stopping
ut one of the villages, we see people on
the banks who verify the Bible descrip
ton, for they are now as they were in
Bible times. Shoes are now taken off
in reverence to sacred places. Chill
dren carried astride the mothers shout
der as in Hagars time. Women with
profusion of jewelry us when Rebecca
was affianced. Lentils shelled into the
pottage, as when Esau sold his birth
right to get such Il dish. The same
habits of salutatiOn az when Joseph and
his brethren fell on each others necks.
Courts of law held under big trees as
in olden times. People making bricks
without straw, compelled by circum-
stances to use stubble instead of straw.
Flying over or standing on the banks,
as in Scripture days, are tiamingOes, Os-
preys, eagles, pelicans. herons, cuckoos
and bullfinches On all sides of this
river sepulchers. Villages of sepulchers
Cities of sepulchers Nations of sepul-
chers. And one is tempted to call it an
empire of tombs. ] never saw such u
place as Egypt is for graves. And now
we understand the complaining sarcasm
of the Israeltes when they were on the
way from Egypt to Canaan. Because
there are no graves in Egypt hast thou
taken us away to die in the wildernessY'
Down the river bank come the buffalo
and the cattle or kline to drink and it
was the assessors of these cattle that
inspired Pharaoh's dream of the lean
kline and the fat kline.
Here we dsembarll little while for
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 cir
conference. Vast colonnades through
which imposing professions marched.
Here stood the Temple of the Sun, it
self in brilliancy a sun shone on by an
other sun. Thebes in power over a
thousand one hundred years. or nearly
ten times as long as the United States
have existed Here is a recumbent
statue seventy-five feet long. Bronzed
gateways. A metropolis called 1.-THE
haven of the best" Here Joseph was
prime minister. Here Pharaoh received
Jacob. All possible splendors were
built up into this royal city. Hosea,
Ezekiel, jeremiah and isaiah speak of
it as something wonderful.
Never did | visit a city with such ex
allied anticipations and never did my
anticipations drop SO fiat. Not pillar
stands. Not wall is unbroken. Not
a fountain losses in the sun. Even the
ruins have been ruined, and all that
remains are chips of marble, small
pieces of fractured sculpture and splin
tered human bones. Here and there a
letter of some elaborate inscription, n
toe or ear of a statue that once stood
in niche of palace wall Ezekiel proph
esied its blotting out, and the prophecy
has been fulfilled.
ride on, ;" | said to our party, land
don't wait for me-" And as l stood
there alone the city of Memphis in the
glory of past centuries returned. And
| heard the rush of her chariots, and
the dash of her fountains, and the con
VITALITY of her palaces, and saw the
drunken mobiles roll on the floors of mo-
sale, while in startling contrast amid
all the royalties of the place saw Pha-
raoh look up into the face of aged, rus
tic Jacob, the shepherd, saying, How
old art thou2'
THE CITY OF NO.
But back to the Nile and on and up
till you reach Thebes, in Scripture
called the City of No. Hundred gated
Thebes A quadrangular city four
miles from limit to limit. Four great
temples, two of them Karnac and
Luxor, once mountains of exquisite
sculpture and gorgeous dreams solidified
in stone Statue of Rameses II, eight
hundred and eighty-seven tons in
weight and seventy-fye feet high but
now fallen and scattered, Walls
abloom with the battIefields of cen
turtles.
The surrounding hills of rock hol-
lowed into sepulchers on the wall of
which are chiseled in picture and hier-
oglyphics the confirmation of Bible
story in regard to the treatment of the
Israelites in Egypt, SO that as explora-
tons go on with the work the walls of
the sepulchers become commentaries
of the Bible, the Scriptures originally
written upon parchment here cut into
everlasting stone. Thebes mighty and
dominant five hundred years. Then
she went down in fulfillment of Ezekiel's
prophecy concerning the City of No,
which YVES another name for Thebes:
II will execute judgment in No. | will
cut off th0 multitudes of No" JeFe-
miah also prophesied ''Thus saith the
Lord, will punish the multitudes
of No."
This city of Thebes and all the other
dead cities of Egypt iterate and reiter
ate the veracity of the Scriptures. tell
ing the same story which Moses AMI
the prophets told. Have you noticed
how God kept back these archaeological
combinations of the Bible until our
about the truthfulness of the dear old
book? He waited until the printing
press had been set up in its perfected
shape, and the submarine cable was
laid, and the world was intelligent
enough to appreciate the testimony,
and then he resurrected the dead cities
of the earth and commands them, say
ing: "Open your long sealed lips and
speak Memphis and Thebes, is the
Bible true?" ''Truer respond Mem
phis and Thebes. Babylon, is the
book of Daniel tFqe?" True" re-
spends Babylon. "Ruins of Palestine
and Syria, is the New Testament
truel" ''True!" 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
AID this work will go on until the We
racity and divinity of the Scriptures
will be as certain to all sensible men
and women as that two and two make
four, as that an isosceles triangle is one
which has two of its sides equal, as
that the diameter of n circle is a line
drawn through the center and ter
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,