The Maryville times. (Maryville, Tenn.) 1884-1944, 1891-11-18
VA! ALLAH!
DR.. Talmage's Sermon on Brick
Without Straws."
Egypt Saw Great Times When Pharaoh's
Word Was Law and the Jews Were
in Bondage.

Egypt Saw Great Times When Pharaoh's
Word Was Law and the jews Were
In Bondage.
The subject OF DR.. Talmage's Sunday
sermon was Bricks Without Straw"
q continuation Of the series on the con-
firmation of the Holy Scripture which
DR.. Talmage found in his journey from
the Pyramids to the Acropolis. His
text was Isaiah XIX, 1: 1.-THE burden of
Egypt"
What is all this excitement about in
the streets of Cairo, Egypt, this Decem-
Der 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 are bare.
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 chariot or car
rage. They are swift and sometimes
run thirty or forty miles at a stretch in
front of an equipage. They are the
Heetest-footed men on earth, but soon
die, for the human frame was not made
for such endurance.
asked all around me who the man
in the carriage was, but no one seemed
to know. Yet as ! fell back with the
rest TO the wall 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 see the swift feet Of the
men, followed by the swift feet OF the
horses, how those old words of Jere-
miah rushed through my mind, Thou
hast run with the footmen and they
have wearied thee, how canst thou con.
tend with horses?"
Now, my hearers, in this course OF
sermons 1 am only serving you as foot
man, and clearing the way for your
coming into the wonders of Egyptology,
q subject would have you study far
beyond any thing that can be said in
the brevity OF pulpit utterance.
Two hundred and eighty-nine times
does the Bible refer to Egypt and the
Egyptians. No wonder, for Egypt was
the mother of nations Egypt the
mother of Greece; Greece, the mother
of Rome; Rome, the mother of Eng.
land; England, the mother Of our own
land. According to that Egypt is our
neutrality-suspicious.. On other
Sabbaths l left you studying what
they must have been in their
glory; the Hypostyle Hall Of Kar'
nae, the architectural miracles of Lux
or, the Colonnade of Horemheb, the
cemeteries of Memphis, the value OF q
Kingdom in one monument, the Sphinx,
which with lips Of stone speaks loud
enough to be heard across the centu-
ries, Heliopolis and Zoan, the copun-
drum of archpelogists. But all that
extravaganza 81 palace and temple'and
monument was the cause of an oppres-
sion high as Heaven and deep as hell.
The weight of those blocks of stone
heavier than any modern machinery
could lift came down upon the Hebrew
slaves, and their blood mixed the NOR
tar for the trowels
We see again and again on and
along the Nile boss workman rough
" smite a subordinate who did not
please him. 1t is no rare occurrence
to see long lines Of men under
heavy burdens passing by tasls-masters
at short distances, flashing them as they
60 by into greater speed. and
then these workmen, exhausted
with the blasting heats Of the
day, lying down upon the bare
ground, suddenly chilled by the night
air, crying out in prayer, "Ya! Allah!'
IVA! Allah" which means Oh! God! OH
God But what must have been the
olden time cruelty shown by the Egyp
tians to their Israelitish slaves is indi-
Gated by picture in the Beni-Hassen
tombs, where man is held down or
his face by two women and another
holds up the victims feet while the Of
ficials beat the bare back of the victim
every stroke, have no doubt, fetching
the blood
Now you see how the Pharoah could at
ford to build such costly works. 1t cost
them nothing for wages, nothing but
the tears and blood of the toilers, and
tears and blood are cheap drink fol-
devils. 'Bricks without straw" may
not suggest so much hardship until you
know that the bricks were usually
made with crushed straw"-straw
crushed by the feet Of oxen in the
threshing, and, this crushed straw de.
MED to the workmen, they had to picl
up here and there piece Of stubble Of
gather rushes from the water-side Thi!
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 o
brick made out of rough straw OIL
rushes from the river bank, the trutl
of the Book of Exodus thus written ir
the brick walls discovered by the mod
ern explorers.
That governmental outrage has al
ways been a characteristic of Egyptian
rulers Taxation to the point of starva
ton was the Egyptian rule in the Bible
times as well as it is in our own time
A modern traveller gives the figures
concerning the cultivation of seventeen
acres, the value of the yield of the 6elt
stated in piasters:
Produce. ....... l,ous
Expenses............--.~s- 993t
Clear produce. NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.. S0St
...... 4g3