Daily tobacco leaf-chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1890-1895, 1891-10-26


kline and the fat kline.
Here we disembark a little while fo
Memphis, off from the Nile to the right
Memphis founded by "the first king O
Egypt and for long while the capital A
city of marble and gold. Home of the
Pharaohs. City nineteen miles in circum
ference. Vast colonnades through which
imposing professions marched. Here stood
the Temple Of the Sun, itself in brilliancy
a sun shone on by another sun, Thebes il
power over n thousand one hundred Years
or nearly ten times as long as the United
States have existed. Here is a recumbent
statue seventy-hve feet long. Bronzed
gateways A metropolis called "the haven
of the blest." 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 won
derful.
Never did l visit a city with such exalted
anticipations, and never did my anticipa.
tions drop so fiat Not pillar stands
Not wall is unbroken. Not u fountain
losses in the sun. Even the ruins have
been ruined and all that remains are chips
of marble, small pieces of fractured sculp.
ture and splintered human bones. Herr.
and there a letter of some elaborate in
scription, q toe or ear of a statne that once
stood in niche of palace wall Ezekiel
prophesied its blotting out, and the proph-
ecy has been fulfilled. "Ride on" | said
to our party, land don't wait for me-. -
And as l stood there alone the city of Mem
phis in the glory of past centuries returned.
And | heard the rush of her chariots, and
the dash of her fountains, and the convv-
iality of her palaces, and saw the drunken
mobiles roll on the floors of mosaic, while
in startling contrast amid all the royalties
of the place saw Pharaoh look up into
the face of aged rustic Jacob, the shepherd,
saying, chow old art thouY
THEBEs.
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
Karnao and Luxor, once mountains of eX
| quisite sculpture and gorgeous dreams
solidifed in stone. Statue of Rameses H.
eight hundred and eighty-seven tons in
weight and seventy-ive feet high, but now
fallen and scattered. Walls abloom with
| the battlefelds of centuries.
The surrounding hills of rock followed
into sepulchers on the wall of which are
chiseled in picture and hieroglyphics the
confirmation of Bible story in regard to
the treatment of the Israelites in Egypt so
that, as explorations go on with the work,
the walls of these sepulchers become com
mentaries of the Bible, the Scriptures
originally written upon parchment here
cut into everlasting stone. Thebes mighty
and dominant five hundred years. Then
Z f,,1l
prophecy concerning the City of No, which
was another name for Thebes: 81 will ex-
ecute Judgment in No. / will cut off the
multitudes of No." jeremiah also proph-
esied, "Thus saith the Lord, will punish
the multitudes of No."
This city of Thebes and all the other
dead cities of Egypt iterate and reiterate
the veracity of the Scriptures, telling
the same story which Moses and the
prophets told. Have you noticed how God
kept back these archaeological confirma-
tions of the Bible until our time, when the
air is full of unbelef about the truthful
ness of the dear old book? He waited un-
til the printing press had been set up in it's
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, saying: "Open
your long sealed lips and speak, Memphis
and Thebes, is the Bible true?" "Truep'
respond Memphis and Thebes Babylon,
is the Book of Daniel true?" "True!" re-
spends Babylon. "Ruins of Palestine and
Syria is the New Testament true?n
"TrueP' 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 veracity of the Scrip
lures VIII 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 a circle is line drawn
through the center and terminated by the
circumference, as certain as any mathe-
NAUTICAL demonstration.
Never did feel more encouraged than
when, after preaching sermon on evil
dences of the truth of the Bible drawn
from oriental lands, distinguished sena-
tor of the United States, known and hon.
ored everywhere, but now deceased, came
up to the platform and said, 81 was
brought up in the faith of Christianity,
but l got specializing on all these subjects,
and had given up my faith in the Bible,
but those facts and arguments archRolog-
ical take me back to my old faith in the
Bible which my father and mother taught
me-" The tears rolling down his cheeks
evince the depth of his emotion When
read of the senator's death 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
THE BIBLE is THE GREATEST BOOK.
Two great nations, Egypt and Greece,
diplomatiIed and almost came to battle
for one book, a copy of "HIschylus" Ptol-
envy, the Egyptian king, discovered that
in the great library at Alexandria there
was no copy of "44,s hylus." The Egyptian
king sent up to Athens, Greece. to borrow
the book and make n copy OF it. Athens
demanded deposit of seventeen thousand
seven hundred dollars rs security. The
Egyptian king received the book, but re-
fused to return that which he had Dor
rowed, and so forfeited the seventeen thou
sand seven hundred dollars.
The two nations rose in contention con-
corning 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 cruciied on the
rocks for sympathy for mankind, a power
full suggestion of the sacrifice of Christ in
later years, it is very poor book COM
pared with that book which we hug to our
hearts, because it contains our only guide
in life orr only comfort in death. and our