The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1893-12-04
"UR OF THE CHALDEES."
\ FINE SERMON 10y THE REV. DR.
BEUKwLTH.
go .ncionf City Where tno Tir't 0ien
Ira,t,c"d the Arts 81 u iiigh
Civilization.

follows from ttneSlS AESo
propose to speak, for few Sabbath
evenings, of the beginning of the Jewish
nation. As part of the history OF the
Church we ought TO know the story
well think we shall find both pleas
ure and profit IN it. 1t will be my aim
not only to reproduce the scenes, but
also to draw out some of its practical
lessons.
The history begins in the tenth gener.
alton from Noah about four centuries
after the Hood They had been centuries
81 rapid growth IN population. From
the one little family that survived the
deluge they had come 10 be enough mil
lions to make strong beginning OF the
ancient empires. For hundred years
after the Hood. possibly "A hundred and
fifty, the sons of Noah and their chill
dren, and their childrens children, had
dwelt together in peace, clinging to one
another with the love born of a near
kinship and "a mutual interest and a
common faith. More than a hundred
wears they had tented together and
Journey ed together, and still they loved
each other so well that they said they
did not want ever to part So, in the
fertile plain of Shinar. to which they
had come in their journeying, they
planned to build them a common home,
Il city, and "a tower heaven-high, Lest
we be scattered abroad upon the face
of the whole EARTH they said. They
wanted to live together always. But
A g.. Ia, Ia
to be peoped and they themselves
needed room. In little, if they had
stayed together, there would have been
want among the teeming millions, and
strife following the want and hunger
would have bounded them asunder. Bet
ter 20 while they could 20 i'll peace and
keep their love. So God interposed:
came down and COMPOUNDED their Ian
guage and scattered them. And they
went hither and yon. Japheth and ms
sons went north and west And they
have been going west ever since, peo-
ping Europe, and repeopling America,
and here we are now beginning to re-
people the islands of the sea.
Ham and his sons went south, tenting
i'm Arabia. colonizing Phenicia and
founding the magnificent empire of the
Pharaohs along the rich banks of the
Nile.
Shem. the oldest. had the home land;
by right of primogenilure, it may be,
for that in Justice began very early in
the worlds history. growing, no doubt,
out of the need of "a headShip i'm the
patriarchal household. So Shem and
his sons fingered in and about the Meso-
potamia valley, slowly spreading north
ward among the mountains of Armenia
and eastward over the highlands of
Persia. So the dispersion went on,
century after century. But ten genera
tons from Noah, four hundred and
thirty-two years AT least, possibly more
the Septuagint says eleven hundred and
furty-seven years. But the evidence is
against it. And the shorter period is
long enough to have given us the be-
ginning of the ancient empires. Ten
generations from Noah ana we find
some of the descendants of Shem still
dwelling in the homeland, the fertile
plain OF Shinar.
1t was land of green pastures then.
Later, as you know, it became the seat
of empire, with Babylon for its capital,
and with more great cities covering its
densely peopled plains than were ever
before or since crowded into any other
fertile valley. But then it was mostly a
place for hei DIS to lie down in" and IA
fold for flocks." a few cities only had
begun to rear their massive walls out of
the grassy plains.
Chief among these cities was "Ur of
the Chaldees," the home of the father of
the Jewish nation and the first place
named in its history. ''Ur of the Chal-
des" That is where our story begins.
1t was then the seaport of the Meso-
potamlan valley, at the mouth of the
Euphrates where it empties into the
Persian gulf. IT would not he IA sea.
port now for the ruins of il are now a
sta. So much land the silt of the
Euphrates has made since then.
1t was one of the earliest built of all
the Chaldehn cities. 1t was the first cap
ital of the empire. Two hundred wears
before any throne was set upin Babylon
the Chaldean kings held court i'm the
great palace at "Ur of the Chaldees
And even after it lost the court it was
still sacred city. For 1900 years they
brought their dead there from all Baby
lonii to be buried under the shadow OF
its lla.lowed temple. 70 this day al
about the site of the city are found
myII..IS of ancient graves. 1t was the
nations burial shrine to which the dying
Chaldeans charged their children to TAKE
back their bones, as Jacob charged hit
in the cave that is in the field of Ephrol
the Elittite." So early in human histor,
men believed in an undying love, ant
asserted their essential Immortality
That vast Gordon of Chaldean graves
encircling the ruins of tn worlds mos
ancient temples and palaces, is nut,
but eloquent witness to the reality of al
Unborn faith in the the things unseen an,
eternal. There is light for us upon the
life to come out of those ancient ruins
And just here let me stop to say il i
possible there may be light for MS out o
the same old ruins upon some of the puz
Zling problems of modern research. Fo
example, the walls. aud temples, ant
palaces. and arts of that old city Ur o
the Chaldees." They take us back fou
thousand years, pos sibly more. The
take us to the very homeland of tn
human race. They show us what mel
were at the earliest period of which W
have any secular history. And wha
were they? Were they savages! Wer
they ignorant. degraded, low down, liy
ing in huts and in caves, unkempt, III
clad. in pitfts ndfurdHbus, chattering
childish sp ech and chasing the unlame
brutes with claw and club! Were the
men apparently in transit out of II
original idiocy into the likeness of God
1t is not written 50 IN the ruins of thos
earliest homes. just the other thing
written. The record is of mighty rae
of manly men. 1t was of IA magniiicer
civilization up there in "Ur of the Cha
dees' in the childhood Of Abram.
built splendid palaces. 1t worshippe
in the granCest temples. 1t spoke o.
of the most elegant languages the worI